iambiguous, I would very much like to engage you in a discussion on judgement and action. First I would like to make some requests and then I will attempt some propositions which will help frame our discussion, if you should agree to participate.
Firstly, I would appreciate if you provided a definition of dasein, either your own or from another source. While I am familiar with the term, I would like to be certain that I know how you understand it.
Secondly, I would like to ask you outright if you would state your point of view on if or how a person either should or does make a judgement which then either guides or takes part in shaping their subsequent behaviour.
My first proposition is that, whether tentatively or otherwise, an individual must make a judgement about which course of action to take at any given moment.
My second proposition is that good is best understood as an individual’s ability to obtain, maintain, and increase material success for his or herself and offspring, as well as the ability to enjoy that success as well as those practices which bring and increase pragmatic advantage. I would like “material advantage”, as I am here proposing it, to mean superiority (for oneself and one’s offspring) over other individuals in the access to materials, as well as the power to put them to use, influence, and shape the world (including other individuals). In the context of competition, the best scenario for a given individual would be victory and the imposition of one’s own dictates, perspective, or what have you. If this were a debate, which I hope it is not but rather a discussion, then the victory, which I have mentioned, could be in the form of one party adopting the other’s point of view.
In regards to 2] I would like you to explain, if you would, why you are or must be of the opinion that there are no objective values you can reach. And I would like to propose that in regards to saying you might have gone in the other direction, the question is not whether you could have done something else, but whether other actions are good or bad ideas. Taking the example of doing something which benefits health or detriments it, in the one case for example exercising or on the other succumbing to a hard drug addiction or binge eating candy or fast food. If I say that I cannot reach an objective judgement on whether exercise is the better choice and I might have gone the other way and eaten candy for every meal, do you not feel that focusing on the freedom to engage in a different act is obscuring the issue of this example, which is that the one behaviour supports the health of the body and the other deteriorates it?
I have also noticed that you bring up the scenario of abortion often as an example of a moral dilemma and why there might not be an unambiguous conception of the good. The problem I find with that example is that it has already taken the issue at a moment too late, because if there are mistakes to be considered in proper action, the moment of the mistake would have already taken place at the moment of conception, and not at the moment of decision whether a foetus should or should not be aborted. If a given individual is not prepared for the consequences of intercourse or impregnating another person or being impregnated, should not the consideration of the moral quandry take place before the sexual act has taken place? If one has already made the mistake of impregnating another or getting pregnant, the blemish of the act cannot be retracted after the fact. I have no problem discussing other scenarios, such as the case of rape, with you as we continue, if you wish, but I would like to hear your opinion of what I have stated first and I would appreciate if you separated your response from considerations of rape for the time being and address it to the scenario of intercourse between two consenting adults before we explore the issue in other contexts and, at least at first, keep these scenarios separated for the sake of clarity about what we are discussing.
My understanding of dasein revolves around the particular set of assumptions that I explored on this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529
In other words, dasein is not a thing that can be clearly defined. Instead, it involves grappling with extremely complex human interactions/relationships out in a particular world in which “I” is able to either demonstrate the truth of what one believes “in my head” or one is not. So my understanding of it is applicable to the world of is/ought.
As I noted elsewhere…
I tend to eschew the exploration of Dasein with a capital D. Once you capitalize it, it becomes this scholastic Thing that Heidegger set out to describe [to encompass, to capture] as a “serious philosopher” in a tome. It becomes an intellectual contraption stuffed into an Analysis of Being and Time.
Instead, I start with the idea of being “thrown” at birth into a particular world. And then the extent to which that purely adventitious act either does or does not impact your “sense of reality” about the world around you.
In other words, what are we able to determine is true for all of us as this pertains to human interactions that come into conflict over value judgments, ideals, moral narratives, political agendas etc…
First of all, my point of view here is no less an existential contraption rooted in dasein. As that point of view relates to conflicting value judgments [revolving around conflicting goods] out in a world where, when push comes to shove, it matters less what you believe to be true and more on possessing the power needed to enforce a particular legal/political agenda in a particular community.
Yes, if someone chooses to interact with others socially, politically and economically, wants and needs will come into conflict.
Which then begs the question: Is there a way in which philosophers are then able to ascertain one’s moral obligation in any particular conflicting context.
Sure, there might be. But [here and now] I do not believe that such an argument [able to be demonstrated out in a particular world existentially] does exist. Which is only another way of saying that, if it does exist, I haven’t come across it. Not of late anyway.
My point though is this:
1] to what extent did you arrive at this conclusion based on a philosophical examination of what is “good”? Or…
2] to what extent is it embedded instead existentially in a particular sequence of experiences, relationships, sources of information/knowledge etc., that you acquired over the course of actually living your own unique life…a trajectory that predisposed you to go in this direction rather than another.
How does one go about intertwining these two approaches in order to arrive at the only or the optimal understanding of “good”.
Here as it relates to the accumulation and enjoyment of material wealth.
Again, I am not arguing that such values do not exist. I am only pointing out that “here and now” I have not myself been persuaded that, pertaining to a particular set of behaviors/values in conflict out in a particular context out in a particular world, it can be demonstrated that all rational men and women are obligated to behave in one way rather than another – if they wish to be thought of as rational men and women.
But if good or bad ideas are rooted in dasein and “I” here is in many important respects problematic, any particular life might well have gone in any particular different direction.
Again, I like to encompass this frame of mind in the following trajectory:
1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my “tour of duty” in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman’s right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary’s choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding “rival goods”.
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.
This pertains particularly to abortion but it is applicable to any set of conflicting moral and political behaviors.
So, how is this not applicable to you regarding the value you place on accumulating and enjoying material success as the “good”?
There are things that can be reasonably established is good for one’s health. Medically, scientifically, anecdotally or otherwise. And these assessments are basically true for all of us. How one thinks about dasein here doesn’t change that.
But suppose the conversation shifts from that which we can know in a reasonably objective manner about our health to that which revolves around a value judgment relating to health. For example, suppose a parent smokes like a chimney around his kids. He feeds them junk food and they never come close to any exercise equipment. The kids are clearly obese and sickly. Would it be justified then to take those kids away from him until he changes his ways? How would the ethicist go about grappling with that?
What constitutes the “greater good” here?
But at the moment of conception the woman’s “situation” may be well have been far removed from the set of circumstances that prompted her to choose to abort the baby. And then there are the situations where women do not wish to become pregnant, practice safe sex, but the contraceptive device of choice is defective. Or the case of incest or rape.
In other words, some set themselves up here as the final arbiter regarding that which is said to constitute a “mistake”; as that which is said to constitute the “good” here.
I call them moral and political [and philosophical] objectivists.
Thank you for responding. My response will include an attempt and a request for us to clarify some things as well as some replies.
My response to the above quote is not meant as a rebuttle, only a clarification of my position: When I am proposing a good here, I do not intend it to be understood as an is/ought. I don’t believe in an is/ought. What I do believe is that what I am explaining as good can be understood as beneficial and its opposite as detrimental.
On a related note, in a regard to your statement “…I have not myself been persuaded that … it can be demonstrated that all rational men and women are obligated to behave in one way rather than another – if they wish to be thought of as rational men and women.” I do not believe that human beings are rational creatures, regardless of which values they adhere to or behaviour they enact. I do, to further clarify, employ the term rational, but as I use it I mean the quality of being calculable to achieve an effect conceived prior to the (set of) action(s) which achieve it.
Firstly, I want to say that I agree with you, in part, that in a certain context it matters more what one is able to enforce than what is believed. But that was not really what I was getting at with what I was asking there. I meant from the individual’s own point of view (dasein if you prefer that term). Do you think the individual does make judgements about what would be a good course of action, which then influences their subsequent behaviour (even if those judgements and behaviours would change at a later time)? I also wondered if you have any theories about how they make those judgements (ie. the psychological mechanism) or how they should make those judgements. (I am strongly suspecting that on the latter should you do not have an opinion… but I wished to ask anyway).
Again, I am wondering if you think that individuals make judgements about how they should act. — Whether they are isolated in the wilderness or in a social situation is extraneous. Some examples could be, I make the judgement I should take a drink of water, because I am thirsty - which in turn influences my subsequent behaviour. Or, I should do this work despite being tired, because I desire its effects - which in turn influences my subsequent behaviour. I would like to know if you think that people do make such kinds of judgements, if you have any theories about how they make them, or how they should make them. (though again on the latter I suspect you do not have an opinion)
I agree, of course, that wants and needs come into conflict. We might also add that desires and ability achieve them can also come into conflict.
As I hope I have clearly indicated above, I do not believe that humans possess a moral obligation. When I consider notions of good, I am not concerned with finding a moral obligation but considering what would be concretely beneficial to humans.
I am not completely sure what you are asking, so that may influence the extent to which you find my response satifying. At least part of my uncertainty lies with the word “extent”. I am not sure if you wish me to give you some kind of percentage or account of all the contemplation and experiences related to both of these counts.
My proposition was based on both 1] and 2]. Keep in mind that, if I am not to fill a novel, I must condense my response to this. I hope you will bear with me on this. I will get to my personal experience following a clarifying preamble.
I believe that individuals begin with a few things before they reach the stage of philosophical contemplation (which would be applicable in my own case).
They possess the innate capacity to experience the world around them and cognize it in a given way, in this I mean to include that individuals will find a given expreience/activity either enjoyable or unenjoyable, etc. To a certain extent I consider this cognizing individual. That is, different individuals will innately enjoy or be drawn to or repelled by different things, though there are many similarities as well. What really matters, I think, is that individuals innately have the tendency to experience and cognize in this manner (that is, to judge what they experience).
Individuals have a social and cultural milieu which teaches them language and attaches terms of approbation and reprobation to given things.
And then, individuals have the stored memories of experiences to compare, as well as accounts given by others which can also be critical examined and/or compared.
Though my account of the above factors may not be complete, it would be after (and this is so in my case) a given individual has had experiences and learned the use of language that they would and could engage in philosophical enquiry. As I understand it, philosophical enquiry can be considered a process of proposing hypothetical scenarios and contemplating how they would play out in various contexts and with various elements present or absent, making comparisons, acquiring new facts through research (and experience), as well as engaging in exercises of formal logic.
The individual (and this includes me) would repeat this process, especially comparing conclusions to subsequent personal experience.
… … … … … … … … …
As a child, I particularly wanted to feel good. I was skeptical, and even critical, of all notions of goodness unless they made me feel good. I was inattentive to material success and spent my time, which was not forced through physical threat or some kind of emotional blackmail, engaging in some form of pleasure-seeking or another. I reached a stage of extreme social inaptitude to the point where I questioned my sanity and even desired a break with it. It may be relevant to add that around that time I had the tendency to analyze everything and if I remember correctly, every person I had a close contact with would accuse me of what they called “over-analysis”, even when they did not hear the others saying so. I then started reading the works of Freud in a desire to understand what I believed was my mental condition. What I would say that I received most from those readings was a tendency to engage in conscious thought association in what I told myself at the time was an attempt at complete self-honesty and a hope to discover whether I had any repressed feelings that I was not consciously aware of. Around this time I returned to school with much more success, putting my “over-analysis” to work in my studies. I could add here that upon my return to school there was a lot of focus on existentialism in the curriculum and it may have had an influence in my subsequent believe and decision to leave my studies again uncompleted because, tied with popular notions of freedom and the ability to accomplish anything one sets one’s mind to, I thought that I could strike it out on my own and achieve any kind of success I chose.
Around this time I became highly interested in politics, for example critiquing the influence and imposition of instutitions on the freedom of individuals to decide and guide their own actions, I believed in radical forms of democracy, such as direct and participatory democracy as opposed to representational democracy. I suppose because of my interest in institutions, but also because of learning about its role in public relations as well as advertising, I began to read a lot of psychology, in particular social psychology. I was also fairly interested crowd psychology and the study of what is called in psychology “herd behaviour” for similar reasons (that is, to understand the how, if human groups are by and large being controlled or at least consciously herded). One unintented effect of that reading was a deterioration in my belief in the human ability to rationally guide their own actions. Still, I did not yet give up my belief in the superiority of radical democracy. I started to read the work of the late philosopher Sheldon Wolin, who shared a belief in participatory democracy, as well as a highly critical view of contemporary political institutions, most envinced in his study of modern American politics through which he came up with the term inverted totalitarianism.
One notable result of those readings, which might have been likewise influenced by a study of the theory and historical practice of what is termed realpolitik, was a breaking down of my belief in idealism in favour of political realism. I could add here that as well as these studies and contemplations, my conclusions were also affected by a failure in a large part to get many ordinary people to even believe that certain things that I was studying actually existed (such as the findings in social psychology, which I found particularly frustrating since I went out of my way to obtain expensive textbooks which are actually used in military training and corporate organizations - an example of some of these social psychologists are the Tavistock Institute.)
Due to a breakdown in my idealism I began to examine more closely what is meant by the word “good”, always asking why a given proposition I would come up with would be considered good and to whom and in what context, and whether there wasn’t certain contexts in which that good would not be considered good either to the originary party or someone else… I came to the conclusion, as seems to be your own, that goods are in conflict and individuals are in competition over material goods and that those individuals, groups, or institutions with the power/concrete ability are able to impose values as well as consequences for behaviours deemed undesirable.
I also came to the conclusion that, if what is considered good is not to be a figment of the imagination, it must be some real existing state, whether psychological, or a physical situation. I came to the conclusion that if any individual is to continue existing, certain things will be needed (such as sustenance and protection from harmful elements), and, again, not all form sustenance is equal in terms of their health giving or deteriorating effects. So individuals need access to these things if they are to go on existing, and they will also need to maintain the ability to access these things. Because individuals are in competition with others (including groups, etc.), their access and the maintenance of that access will be greater if they obtain a position of superiority to others in terms of their access to those things, and they establish and maintain their continuing ability to acquire those goods. I added to this formulation that it would also be best if individuals enjoyed these activities and not merely practiced them because having a dislike to them would create a friction rendering it more difficult to perform these activities, thus losing advantage in their practice and, in extreme cases, possibly cause crises of meaning and the desire to terminate engagement. None of these are proposed as oughts, or even considered possible for all individuals to accomplish, they are attempts to establish what is necessary for continued survival and advantage, whether they are accepted or rejected.
If one is not able to gain superiority, and another individual does in such a way that they are able to influence the environment (physical, social, etc.) one can be put at a disadvantage, even purposely thwarted, become dependent, or be forced to engage in time consuming and energy sapping efforts which do not increase one and one’s offspring’s access to necessary material goods (take a particular example of some individuals who hold multiple jobs but are still considered relatively poor).
So this formulation is meant to be from the perspective of the individual and not as a socio-political doctrine or a formulation of an ought. It could be provided as advice, but (and this but is significant) because it takes into account the situation of conflicting goods, unless the advice is to a close kin or an offspring, it may very well be disadvantageous to reveal this (if it is truly the case) to others, because it implies their seeking superiority over oneself (and subsequently imposing ones terms on the advising party or their offspring). So from this perspective it may very well be a greater advantage to tell others not to seek their own advantage while one covertly does just that. I hope you follow this reasoning.
On a side note, I do want to say that I do think that in certain contexts it is advantageous even for individuals who engage in self-seeking in this manner to engage in cooperative behaviour, as the efforts of multiple individuals is in a number of situations more effective than an isolated individual’s. Though, it might be the case that rather than strictly cooperating, if possible, making unilateral use of the efforts of others would be more advantageous than splitting winnings and accepting compromise.
I also want to add here that it is less of a concern philosophically whether I desire this to be the case than whether it is in fact true…
As the scenario you’ve given relates to the formulation I’ve made above, the greater good would not really be a direct issue at all. For the parent, their actions wasting their health and their time on such activities puts them at a certain disadvantage, and their child as well. Depending on the layout of the social realm and other contexts, those disadvantages could be to some degree rendered inconsequential (for example if little or no physical expenditure is needed to gain material success in the society) but the problem with taking this rendering as absolute is that the social world is subject to change and so while such individuals might obtain an advantage their advantage is not secured. But again, in the human realm such securing of advantage would be relative to what circumstances would arise which would or could dislodge it and it would be up to those individuals to be sure they were taking the proper measures of maintenance.
In the second case, you are posing this example in the realm of a society which wishes to intervene in the lives of others for some given reason. You would then have to look at who has the power to make such intervention (either directly or indirectly by such measures as, for example, delegation) and examine why they would wish to make such an intervention. They might, potentially, desire a large pool of workers and competition to enter their workforce and so wish to keep as many individuals alive as possible to contribute to that pool. They might have certain social groups who it is either not possible or not wise to remove who are petitioning for the removal of such children from such households and so delegate such intervention to appease them or to maintain a public image. Or it might be of no real advantage and so they will leave the child in that situation.
iambiguous, you avoided one of the stipulations I mentioned in my post which I believe was important. I will quote it and explain below why I believe it is important to begin the discussion:
The reason I desired to separate these factors is because your response in effect avoided what I was actually proposing and so was technically not a response to it.
When you say “In other words, some set themselves up here as the final arbiter regarding that which is said to constitute a “mistake”; as that which is said to constitute the “good” here.” You are misrepresenting what I was proposing, because I was not setting myself up as artiber. The reason that I considered the scenario I was discussing as a mistake is because, if two consenting adults engage in intercourse, become pregnant, and (either one or both) wish to abort their child, it is the individual who desires an abortion who would consider the pregnancy a mistake, not me as philosopher.
You mentioned the case “practice safe sex, but the contraceptive device of choice is defective”, but my response to that is that contraceptive providers label methods as not guarenteeing 100% effectiveness, which means that those who practice safe sex have accepted the risk which, if they were not ready to accept the consequences of, made a mistake, particularly because in the scenario I am wishing first to discuss with you we are talking about consenting adults who have freely chosen to engage in the act.
I wish us first to discuss this before we move onto further scenarios, particularly since you are attaching the idea of “mistake” to things like rape and incest which again is a misrepresentation of what I said because I specifically said I was not talking about those subjects and so never attached the term mistake to those cases. I think that if we first discuss this scenario we can move onto the others with more clarity.
Before we proceed let’s try to clear something up:
What does this mean “for all practical purposes”? In other words, pertaining to that which is of most interest me in discussion of the “good”: the existential relationship between identity, values and political/economic power. Out in a particular context out in a particular world.
You interact with others. You exchange behaviors. You see what they do, they see what you do.
Now, sometimes these interactions revolve around normal everyday behaviors. We choose them because we have to in order to accomplish some task. Thus, no one is going to argue about whether it is “good” to eat food if you wish to continue to exist.
But suppose you are a vegan and you note the behavior of someone who is eating meat. Eating meat is what they are doing. But ought they to eat meant?
Is this to be understood by all rational men and women as a “good” thing or as a “bad” thing?
Then I ponder the extent to which the answers that we give to questions like this can be extracted at all from even the most rigorous philosophical examination of behaviors that come into conflict over values.
Or instead are individual choices here more in sync with the manner in which I have come to understand the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy above.
You argue that you are not “setting yourself up as an arbiter” regarding conflicts of this sort. That [with respect to abortion] “if two consenting adults engage in intercourse, become pregnant, and (either one or both) wish to abort their child, it is the individual who desires an abortion who would consider the pregnancy a mistake, not me as philosopher.”
Again, to what extent is someone using the tools of philosophy able to intelligently, rationally, logically, epistemologically etc., argue that a particular abortion in a particular context either is or is not a “mistake”?
Is it reasonable/rational to argue that if a woman practices safe sex and the device she uses is defective, she is still philosophically obligated to give birth simply because she knew the risk of having intercourse?
Is that not instead just an assumption embedded in a particular political prejudice embedded in a particular rendition of “conflicting goods” regarding this issue?
I think that is a good idea. I hope we will be able to reach an understanding, even if not an agreement.
I am also concerned foremost with practical considerations. I take existence as something of a base of reference insofar as it is for those individuals who are existing for which problems of this sort exist (ie. the question: what is good?). When I consider “what is good?” I consider things such as what will help the individual, as well as their nearest kin, to continue to exist and thrive. I think the word kin is important, particularly as it is related to the word kind (cf. etymology of kind). An individual would shape the world so that it is of a kind to his or herself, and in that sense is kind to his or herself, and there is a sense in which the individual is replicating his or her kind into the world this way.
I have already attempted to explain that I do not consider humans rational regardless of the means or ends which they choose, but perhaps that does not really satisfy what you are trying to get at here. I also tried to explain that I do not believe in an ought insofar as we would think that there should be any kind of coercion because it is transcendentally “right”. I repeat this because you asked “ought they to eat meat”, and the answer I would have to give by my position is they oughtn’t necessarily do anything, not even continue to exist… As you first remarked, I think it is more significant for practical purposes whether either an individual or group would have the ability to impose either a mandatory meat-free or meat-consuming diet.
That aside, I think there could be good reasons to eat meat. If we knew for certain, for example, that eating meat would provide human beings certain nutrients which they cannot receive from any other source and which would make them in some significant (and practically applicable) way more capable (say it improved memory, in the way that fatty fish is thought to…) then it would be good to eat meat insofar as those who ate meat would gain an advantage over those who did not, and by gaining an advantage could attain a position of superiority and impose their will or even quash those under them. The final stipulation (that the ability gained is a path to superiority, is directly related to the originary notion of good, and so without it the original proposition would change).
In a similar way, if such beneficial nutrients could be gained by other sources, and in particular from sources which are more easily attained (eg. are cheaper, are closer in vacinity to the deciding individual, etc.), or have have less negative effects accompanying their consumption, etc. so that these aspects would provide a benefit outweighing that of meat consumption, though meat consumption in some ways could still be good (or bad, if the effects of meat consumption were found to be deleterious to ultimate advantage) then consuming other things could be considered better.
I am not here saying whether a meat-free diet or meat-consumption is better, rather I am trying to illustrate how my notion of good and bad operates. I think it is entirely possible for individuals or groups to lack requisite information needed in order to make a judgement about what is good (eg. they might not yet know that the consumption of a given thing is detrimental to health and in that way their advantage ) but that does not take away from the fact that the good is actually the advantage itself, and particular goods are only means to that goal.
Bringing it back to the case of the vegan, if meat was found to be uniquely beneficial as described above, vegans would be putting themselves at a disadvantage by not consuming it. I think it would be bad for them, again if this was the case, despite any moral indignation they might hold, because, if advantage could be gained over them (particularly advantage which gives the advantaged party the ability to influence the world), then they, if the advantaged party considered it proper to do so, might have any number of ill consequences brought upon them. Yes these are many ifs, but that is because the ifs deal with circumstance as it unfolds historically and so is based on contextual components, but the notion of good and bad here remains stable, the good being this ideal advantage and the bad being the gradations of disadvantage. I would say the notion of bad is more multifold because even a small disadvantage could potentially put one in a very undesirable position, and while there could technically be gradations of good, the issue is really about weilding the ability to influence the world (in such a way which continues advantage and by relation put others at a disadvantage).
I hope that I have expressed that in a way which can be clearly understood. I will add again that me relating this information could very well put me at a relative disadvantage on the terms expressed, so technically by engaging in discussion I am not technically following my own idea of the good. Though I might add that I am not the one who has conceived this notion, and that it is being practiced by those with significantly more influence than myself (and in such a way that does not reveal itself).
You may be dissatisfied with my deductions because I have eschewed the notion of trascendant good and the ought. Nonetheless, I wanted to run this by you because I thought you might be interested in the problem such a notion does pose practically, because I do think it has a bearing on how every person alive lives, whether it is acknowledged or not.
Sorry, I might have expressed myself poorly. It was not the abortion I was calling a mistake, it was the pregnancy. I called it a mistake, and said it was from the point of view of one or both of the parties directly involved in considering an abortion because if the one or both did not consider it a mistake I am at least not yet certain why they would get pregnant only to then choose to abort the pregnancy. Is that clearer?
If we relate this to the idea of the good I have tried to elaborate, I would say the getting undesirably pregnant could be bad because it saps things like time and resources. There could be other deleterious effects as well. I brought this up originally because I do not think, if the pregnancy is already considered a mistake (by those parties involved) then it cannot be perfectly set to rights because the past mistake will already have been made. Again it is not me calling the pregnancy a mistake, I am just as happy to call it a success if those invovled consider it a success, though if they consider it a success and desire an abortion in any case I might wonder why and still consider it under the scheme of good elaborted (ie. would such a “successful” pregnancy’s benefits outweigh its detriments for the advantage of those invovled (particularly in the decision to consider it a success)…
I hope the answer to this will be clear, that I am not speaking of obligations at all.
I think that the advantage of individuals can be in conflict, but it is the winning of the conflict (to obtain the highest good <ie. advantage>) which would be best.
I do think this notion of the good is important to know and understand even if there is no implication of an ought because the effects will have a bearing on the features of their life whether they accept the notion as being truly good or not. I also think that many people enact certain aspects of this notion unconsciously and others enact it in a more perfect manner than that presented, and in particular those with a significant degree more influence than I have on the world at large. That is not to say that a particular individual has such power to influence the world and everyone else’s life and does so for the sake of their own advantage. It is likely that the perfected notion of the good described is not attained because of conflicting good, and particularly the conflicting good where substaintial and practically applied ability is at play. There is also intermarriage and creating bonds of kinship to consider.
From my frame a mind, an understanding of the relationship between “judgment” and “action” seems to be embedded in the manner in which I understand the existential relationship between identity, values and power out in any particular world.
I’m saying what I think I mean [here and now] and you’re understanding what you think I’m saying. But what I think I mean regarding these relationships is entangled in my dilemma. My own “judgments” therefore are the embodiment of ambivalence. And thus I recognize that to the extent that I do choose to act with and around others, they are the embodiment in turn of mere political prejudices. I may go either way because I become predisposed to go either way.
Which I then translate into this:
Still, this is all abstract. We would need to discuss particular behaviors in conflict in a particular context. Who is being helped? In regards to what? Are there others who argue that he is not being helped at all? Are there others who argue that in doing something else he would be behaving more rationally, more virtuously?
For example:
Yes, but if they do choose to continue to exist, there is no question of ought they to eat. Some things are simply true objectively for all of us.
But in choosing to live and [thus] choosing to eat, there are those who insist that choosing to eat meat is the “wrong” choice. And, in fact, many do insist that their own arguments here reflect the most [or the only] rational frame of mind. And some conclude further that moral behavior revolves around rationality.
And, of course, those on the other side will agree. But on their terms instead.
I then ask: Using the tools of philosophy, what is the “wise” man/woman to conclude here? Is this even within the capacity of philosophers to resolve?
Yes, this is an argument that can be made. A reasonable argument. But the vegetarians have their own equally reasonable set of assumptions.
It is all situated out in a particular world historically and culturally. And then in a sequence of particular contexts. Today for example there are traditional communities of folks who of necessity must eat meat: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit_cuisine
What do the vegetarians suggest, that they pack up their community and move to a climate where they can grow their own crops…or buy their provisions in a grocery store?
But you would still have to bring these assumptions into alignment with this or that particular context in which this or that particular behavior is being discussed and debated as either “good” or “bad”.
At times “advantage” and “disadvantage” are clearly in focus. As I noted above:
…sometimes these interactions revolve around normal everyday behaviors. We choose them because we have to in order to accomplish some task.
But when the discussion shifts to conflicting moral narratives, both sides are able to make reasonable assumptions.
Any particular pregnancy is seen as a “mistake” only from a point of view.
How then do we come up with an argument such that all of the conflicting assessments are able to be taken into account such that, among others, philosophers are able to determine if in fact it is or is not a mistake?
Even in the case of a brutal rape there are those who argue that it is a mistake to abort the baby because the baby is entirely innocent and has the right to live.
But we don’t stop there. Others argue that it is a mistake even to call it a baby at all. They choose a particular juncture in the pregnancy to argue, “before just a clump of cells, after a human baby”.
But in a particular human community [in the modern world] there will be laws on the book that punish certain behaviors relating to abortion. So unless you are willing to be punished for behaving illegally you are “for all practical purposes” obligated to behave legally instead. You may feel that the law itself is immoral but you are still no less obligated to obey it if you want to stay out of prison.
For me the “notion of the good is important to know and understand” because there is simply no getting around it. In any community where men and women interact socially, politically and economically, there are necessarily going to be conflicts regarding behaviors that some deem to be “good” and others deem to be “bad”.
Then there is basically a combination of three options:
1] might makes right [the autocrats]
2] right makes might [the philosopher kings]
3] democracy and the rule of law [the modern industrial states]
Helping one’s kin would be helping one closely related, so we can take the example of a child, and in being related would be akin (share the features) of the one helping (the parent). They would be helped in regards to gaining material advantage, which would depend on the route to such advantage in the circumstances. These circumstances would include things like climate and environment, current human methods to gaining success, the innate capacities of the individual being helped.
The only perspective from which an argument of whether the individual would be helped would be from the individual being helped, and from the perspective of concrete advantage (gaining superiority over others and access to material goods in the way I have discussed). The reason that the perspective of the individual being helped matters is because, in order to be helped, they would have to accomplish whichever steps led to their superiority for themselves. If they were entirely unable to do so, that would be a way of saying they are beyond help, or if the help-providing individual is not able to provide the requisite help in such contexts then they are unable to provide help. So the route to advantage would change depending on circusmtances such as the capabilities of the individual seeking advantage, current human methods to advantage (I am using the word current because things like technology change and so methods for securing advantage change).
If an external individual argued that the help was not being provided, it would only be relevant insofar as the superiority of the individual in question was being quantitatively measured in relation to the material goods they had access to and the degree of power they had over the environment and other individuals.
The same would be the case about acting rationally and virtuously with the added stipulation that it would only be relevant insofar as they were able to coercively impose their views by possessing the advantage (and ability to influence other people and the environment) which I am describing, and that would be the case for veganism. Such arguments are only relevant insofar as they indicate a means to advantage or are able to be coercively imposed.
As far as I am able to rationally conclude, I do not think that assertions of ought are in any manner true except as you pointed out if the ends are already given (in the case of, if a human wishes to survive they will need to consume fuel, ie. food) and, I would add, the more specific one wishes to get, that the contextual elements are also completely known.
That others assert there are such morally binding oughts is not relevant to me. If they wished to rationally defend such oughts, I would be entirely open to hearing their arguments and would consider them completely. But I do not think that such assertions are grounded in knowable conditions of reality.
Again, they can suggest all they wish to. My stance is that what will ultimately matter is whether inuits are able to continue doing as they do or whether they will be hindered in some manner, either by their own material circumstances and the imposition of others who possess the advantage of ability for such imposition.
I agreed with you on this above and added the stipulation about what would be needed in order to make our assertions more exacting (ie. all the contextual information).
If we are speaking of a mistake in the sense of being morally wrong, then my stance would be clear that I do not consider such kinds of mistakes. The reason I was able to call it a mistake in the first instance was because I was speaking of a pregnancy which was unwanted, unwanted was the operative word.
Beyond this, I think it is only possible to hypothesize or conjecture whether or not a given pregnancy (so a pregnancy at a particular time or between particular partners) will provide a relative advantage for the child and for the parents (which would also influence the advantage of the child if they are to be the care givers).
In the case of the former, such assertions would only be relevant insofar as they are able to be coerced. As with the case of normal consentually made pregnancies, hypotheses and conjectures could be made about the advantage for the parties, and of course the contextual circumstances would influence the assessment of the advantage (and again, the notion of advantage should be understood as such things like access to material goods and ability to gain superiority over others and influence the world, human, organic, inanimate, etc.)
In the case of the latter, even if the foetus were to be considered a baby, it would still only be relevant insofar as a coercion could be made which causes the parent to retain the child.
I acknowledge and agree with what you are trying to say here. You are describing conditions in which an individual would need to navigate in order to obtain their advantage. So you should be aware that I am aware of this, among other things, as part of the context for gaining an advantage. It would most likely not be advantageous to wind up in prison (unless there happened to be a coincidental set of wild circumstances, such as the chance to meet some mastermind in prison which leads to etc. etc. but of course that would be highly unlikely, nonetheless…)
For me the question would be irrelevant whether the laws were immoral. More relevant would be whether they hinder the ability to obtain advantage while providing others the avenues for advantage (such as access to material goods and ability to influence the world…)
For me there is only might. I would only use the term “right” in conjuction if it was understood as correct in the sense of the correct avenue to might. The reason I do not recognize rule of law in the same manner is because even in a democracy, or any other state run by a rule of law, the advantage I have spoken of is still at play and being organized in one or more’s favour relative to others.
… … … … … … … … …
I would like to add what I see as the main difference between my position and the moral conflicts you seem to want to pose for me. I am asserting that those moral problems do not mean anything unless one of the following applies - 1) that one or more of the positions is indicating a state which is detrimental in such a way that it would affect things like ability and access to material goods, and/or 2) that the position is able to be coercively imposed on one.
My position is that it is best to be able to be the coercer, in this situation. And it would also be best to use the ability to coerce in such a way that allows one to go on coercing and profiting by the created order. Being considered immoral would be of no concern unless it became a cause for losing that ability, in which case it could be more profitable to appear moral, while still acting in such a way which brings advantage.
Not all kin are created equal. Each relationship of this sort unfolds in a particular context construed from different points of view. And, in helping your own child, there are any number of examples in turn which may well entail harming another’s child. Indeed, there are numerous contexts [on crime TV for example] in which people are able to rationalize all manner of behaviors that do considerable harm either to the kin of others or to their own kin.
But in any individual context all of this will still be understood from a particular point of view. Points of view that, from my point of view, are no less embodied in dasein and conflicting goods. And, then, when the discussion shifts [as it inevitably must], to actual options, political economy.
Many will argue for example that in order to help their own kin, those who own and operate the global economy today do much to sustain a systemic disadvantage for the kin of others.
Again, many create arguments here that are reflections of what I call “general descriptions” of human interaction. With each new historical, cultural and experiential context however comes a new set of variables construed from ever evolving points of view.
In any actual existential context there are always going to be variables that we do not either fully understand or control. We take our own unique subjective/subjunctive leaps embedded in one or another set of political prejudices. But my frame of mind regarding this is construed by most to be far too precarious, problematic…disturbing. They are either inclined to be sustained in or to invent psychological contraptions that I have come to encompass in this frame of mind: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296
It becomes relevant to each and everyone of us when, in our interactions with others, the behaviors that we choose come into conflict. What we think then is only relevant to the extent that we are in fact able to behave as we choose. Then the options come down to one or another rendition/combination of might makes right, right makes might or democracy and the rule of law.
Might certainly makes things easier to…calculate? You either possess the might necessary to create the conditions that enable you to sustain your own chosen behaviors or you do not. You can even rationalize this by insisting that the only reason you have the might in the first place is that it is in fact the embodiment of right.
And of course in any particular democracy both right and might tend to revolve around the interests of those in command of the economy.
It is here, however, that I become entangled in my own dilemma. This one:
If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values “I” can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction…or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.
And then I participate in forums like this one in search of those who may perhaps be able to convince me that there are ways in which to yank myself up out of it.
And, in any particular human community, this becomes embodied in politics – in having or not having the power to enforce a particular set of behaviors.
But this doesn’t make the arguments of those that champion behaviors other than your own go away. Nor does it make my argument that “I” here is largely an existential contraption rooted in dasein go away.
Or, rather, so it seems to me. Here and now.
So much here is embedded in narratives that unfold organically [existentially] in a world of contingency, chance and change. We think this here and now. But there and then any number of new experiences, relationships, sources of information and knowledge etc., can reconfigure “I” into, well, who really knows.
“Advantages” then consist of variables that we can more clearly understand and control. As opposed to those variables that will always be subject instead to conflicting moral and political narratives embedded and embodied in dasein.
I merely suggest that philosophers do not appear able to devise a frame of mind here in sync with the assumptions that folks like Kant made regarding moral obligations. At least in the absense of a moral font the equivalent of God.
Of course both sides [all sides] in any actual existential conflict “out in the world” will argue differently regarding what either is or is not detrimental. And then to which one of us in any particular context. And coercion can revolve around either the brute facticity embedded in “the law of the jungle”/“survival of the fittest” or it can be polished up a bit by invoking one or another rendition of Nietzsche’s ubermen.
My own position is always considerably more muddled. I hear the arguments of those along the entire length of the political and philosophical spectrum; and I conclude that more or less reasonable arguments can be made from both the extremes and from the folks in the middle – arguments that can all be made to seem “virtuous” given a particular set of assumptions.
Agreed. It is also the case that the ultimate responsibility for every individual lies with themselves, and so no amount of help will be a replacement for each individual needing to weave their way through life, whether their kin is powerful and inclined to help them or not. Also, except for identical twins who are in many respects the same as each other, even one’s kin will not be a perfect match and so conditions create in one’s image will not even be completely helpful, which is why I would assert again that the ultimate responsibility for each individual lies with themselves.
That is true. I don’t see that as a problem for what I am saying. Do you?
If an individual denies the harm they are doing to their kin and tries to tell themselves they are in fact not harming them (and harming them relational to what I have explained to be the good) then they are self-deluded, in the sense of telling themselves that what is is not so. But neither this nor any of the above contradicts that what I have been maintaining to be the good is in fact good. I am saying that it, in the case of helping kin, it is good to help kin insofar as we can help them, but that does not by necessity mean that we will be able to help them. Even if we meant to help our kin but actually harmed them, that harm would nonetheless be bad insofar as it actually was a harm, regardless of our good intentions.
Even if a given individual’s path to advantage is hindered or completely blocked, that does not mean that advantage is not good.
You indicated this already above. I see no problem with this.
As far as I can see (in that I am not sure how our access to knowledge might develop in the future) I agree with you on this and think you are correct. But again, this only means that our path to advantage is not clear, or even if it was clear (that we, hypothetically, knew the variables) it would not even necessarily be attainable by our current level of ability.
Advantage also exists relatively to others. We should keep in mind that there are others who currently control more access to material resources than we do, as well as power to influence the environment, social formation, etc. That we are not in that position does not make their position any worse and our own any better.
I have read the list you composed in that thread. Nonetheless, I do not think it matches what I am doing here, do you? I will address them if you wish:
“2] Over time, you become convinced that this perspective expresses and encompasses the most rational and objective truth. This truth then becomes increasingly more vital, more essential to you as a foundation, a justification, a celebration of all that is moral as opposed to immoral, rational as opposed to irrational.”
I have already told you I do not consider humans rational, this includes myself, and adopting any belief does not change that. As to why I consider what I am saying good, it is because I am trying to point towards circumstances we must live through, rather than put forward a claim that everyone should seek power (or something of that nature). I have already stated, I do not believe that there is even an obligation to continue existing, in which case (ie. of ceasing to exist) what I am saying would be entirely moot - it concerns the situation of existing people.
It is bad to be physically subject to others insofar as they would strip us of material resources which are needed for our sustenance and to be made to use our efforts to only obtain enough that we are kept in dire straits while others consolidate their ability to subject us in this manner. It is good to have the access to those material resources. It is the way of humans that we are in states of degeneration - we get older and more frail, if we do not exercise our bodies deteriorate, etc. or, we are in processes of improvement - we can exercise our bodies to get stronger, train our intelligence to get smarter, though ultimately we are always on the path to old age and ultimately death. Partly because we are always in a trajectory towards deterioration (ie. old age), and partly because others may be improving (including, among those things here indicated, gaining wealth and social influence) it becomes a process to acquire and maintain advantage, not something stable, and ultimately we will lose what advantage we had (in death) and others will take it.
I do not see what I am saying here as dogmatic, do you? I am inviting you to discuss it with me. Do you feel that I have unfairly treated your arguments?
“3] Eventually, for some, they begin to bump into others who feel the same way; they may even begin to actively seek out folks similarly inclined to view the world in a particular way.”
I haven’t ever bumped into someone who thought the way I do, and I have sought you out though you evidently think differently. Do you feel that I have tried to coerce you to adopt my view?
"4] Some begin to share this philosophy with family, friends, colleagues, associates, Internet denizens; increasingly it becomes more and more a part of their life. It becomes, in other words, more intertwined in their personal relationships with others…it begins to bind them emotionally and psychologically.
5] As yet more time passes, they start to feel increasingly compelled not only to share their Truth with others but, in turn, to vigorously defend it against any and all detractors as well."
I share my philosophy with very few people, for reasons I have alluded to in my previous posts to you, you may recall what I am speaking about. If I feel I should defend my position, it is because I feel that it is a problem that I am existing in relation to and wish to understand it completely. You might recall I also indicated that I think this may be the case even if I do not wish it to be so.
“6] For some, it can reach the point where they are no longer able to realistically construe an argument that disputes their own as merely a difference of opinion; they see it instead as, for all intents and purposes, an attack on their intellectual integrity…on their very Self.”
Similarly to above, I would not consider attacks on the position as an attack against myself. If I felt that arguments being levelled against it were illogical or not grounded in reality, I might find them unhelpful for thinking through the problem as I am finding it in my life, but wouldn’t you also feel that way if you had a problem and wished to discuss it with other people, I mean if others responded with something completely nonsensical? I am not saying you have responded that way, I don’t think you have. I am merely saying that it would be frustrating if that was the response I received, not because I would feel it as an attack on my personal integrity, but because, in discussing with others, I wish to have a clearer conception of the issue than my single perspective can attain.
"
7] Finally, a stage is reached [again for some] where the original philosophical quest for truth, for wisdom has become so profoundly integrated into their self-identity [professionally, socially, psychologically, emotionally] defending it has less and less to do with philosophy at all. And certainly less and less to do with “logic”."
I suppose this one you would have to give your opinion on. If I was afflicted with being illogical myself, it may well be hard to see it. Do you think that I have answered you in such a way that is illogical?
I agree with you on the first part. I hope that is also what I have been saying all along and also why I think what I am saying is a concrete issue - because it deals with our ability to act in the world.
In regards to the second point, I have already said I only see all of those things in terms of might. You have responded to that so I will respond in turn to what you said.
It is partly about calculation, and partly about looking at the nature of the relationship. But also we are talking about ruling (might makes right, right makes might, rule of law), and it is for that reason that I see things in terms of might. There are, of course, other forces at play in terms of the totality of life.
Yes, this is what I mean as well.
I do not disagree with you, but what I am trying to get at isn’t really concerned with those kinds of word games.
Yes, the economy and other things. Of course in our age the economy has a very significant role.
I would really have to say that my response to this is the same as it was at the beginning, that it is less a matter of whether we could do something else than whether the other thing we do is good. If I am saying that what is good, insofar as we are living, is to command access to resources (such as food and shelter), are you then saying that, because you could choose not to acquire these things then therefore having access to resources is not necessarily good?
In regards to the having advantage: I tried to explain above that we are in a process of degenerting (by age) while others are in processes of being in youth (because they are a younger generation) or improving themselves, through exercise or learning, and could gain the ability to influence the world. I could add that I am saying this because people do influence the word, by enacting laws, privatizing, making rules, by putting up structures which in land is no longer free to be utilized, etc. in such a way that puts you in a position of not being able to access resources as easily as you might have if they were not in such positions of influence. Are you saying that because you would choose to not act in such a way which allows you to wield influence, having that influence ceases to be good (which is related to the paragraph above in enabling access to resources) and being subject to it ceases to be bad, relatively? Also consider that when I am saying that one maintains one’s advantage it is because of the situation of improvement/degeneration, and influencing the world can mean such things as cultivating your land and building your shelter… I understand that doing these things in turn makes it unavailable to other kin as you mentioned and I responded to at the top, but is it not nonetheless good for you to possess a shelter and all the rest?
I also think this position is grounded not merely because I am trying to point to concrete things, but because these are things we are all doing to some degree even if unconsciously (ie. gaining access to resources).
I agree with these.
Yes, we are in a world of contingency and change and exist organically, but it is also for these reasons that we need to adapt in order to deal with contingency, and because we are organic beings we need to obtain resources which sustain our organic composition.
I do not think that having new experiences and relationships will change the fundamental situation as I have tried to explain it here. (That is, things like the fact that we can degenerate and improve, that we need resources, that other individuals influence the world and we become subject to it and we influence the world and others are subject to it… and my position of the good is that it is good to be able to exercise that influence in order to obtain resources.)
Yes to a degree, and as we seem to agree the way to gaining advantage is not always clear and perhaps may never be.
I have tried to explain that I am not dealing with a moral issue, and I am not trying to make a political narrative either.
Yes, I do not see that a philosopher can properly ground obligations. I do not think that that necessarily means that nothing is therefore “good”, particularly if we give good a definition.
Oxford has the definition for good (albeit as 2.3) “Useful, advantageous, or beneficial in effect.”. That is the definition I am going by.
As I said before, I am completely open to hearing differing arguments about what is detrimental and I would do my best to think them through. I suppose when I am looking at what is detrimental I am thinking detrimental physiologically and mental/emotionally particularly insofar as the latter has a bearing on our physiological situation.
I am not sure what you are trying to get at here. I am not only talking about survival, I am trying to indicate quality of life as well. I am certainly not talking about the Nietzschean ubermensch. Even though you appear to be quite cynical about it, I think that Nietzsche’s ubermensch would be a more sympathetic figure than what I am getting at, because the ubermensch is meant to (at least in theory) redeem mankind, whereas there is no redemption inherent in what I am talking about.
Particularly in regards to that last bit. You call it “assumptions” in such a way that indicates cynicism that we could begin with any knowledge about the way things are and work from there to make conclusions. I have tried to indicate some of my foundational axioms (such as that we need resources to exist, and we need to take action to obtain resources (and consume them) and that we are degenerating by age, and also our muscle mass just through disuse, or else we are improving by exercise, etc.). Do you find those axioms to be unfounded assumptions about how things work, or do they have bearing in regards to the reality we are living in? If you perhaps find that they do indicate a reality, do you think that I then jump to a further unfounded conclusion from their basis?
So [it would seem] the place to start then is in exploring the manner in which the “self” embodies one frame of mind in regard to kin rather than of another.
To what extent can we determine this rationally, essentially, objectively etc., using the tools of philosophy; and to what extent do the tools of philosophy become increasingly more ineffectual when the existential variables in any particular life are taken into account?
Is there a way to grasp our moral obligations in regard to kin, or is this more embedded instead in the existential evolution of conflicting points of view embedded in actual lived lives?
However, I keep coming back to how abstract this is. How it reads as a “general description” of human interactions. Whereby if you focus the beam on, for example, any particular kin, any particular set of parents and their children, in any particular context, they will go back and forth regarding who is harming whom or what is good for whom regarding any number of behaviors – sexuality, drug use, religious beliefs etc… Until we can determine how to rationally differentiate a distinction between helping and harming someone, it always comes down [as I see it] to subjective/subjunctive assumptions rooted in dasein and conflicting goods; and in who has the actual power to enforce particular sets of behaviors.
As for your reaction to my speculations on “the psychology of objectivism”, again, we would need to bring our respective points of view down to earth and note the extent to which they either are or are not applicable when our own value judgments come into conflict with others. We either do or not believe that how we construe right and wrong behaviors can be encompassed in one or another moral/political rendition of “one of us” vs. “one of them”.
You and I seem to be more rather than less in sync here. But only when we take our assumptions “out into the world” and intertwine them in our reactions to particular conflicting behaviors can we flesh out the points we are trying to raise here more substantively.
How then do you differentiate your point of view from that of, say, the sociopaths? They also embrace might makes right. But they generally argue that this seems reasonable because in a Godless universe, their own self-gratification becomes the moral font of choice.
They may construe themselves as Nietzschean ubermen but not link that to the nobility/redemption embedded in eschewing the sheep/masses. They master them instead. But only because they deserve to.
Clearly, if someone’s frame of mind revolves around might makes right, their dilemma becomes rather moot. But if they choose to interact with others they will be bombarded with the arguments of those who embrace right makes might or moderation, negotiation and compromise. What some then seem to be doing is taking their own existential/political leap to might. Me, I always assume that my own leaps here are no less embedded in dasein and conflicting goods. No less existential contraptions. That, in fact, the arguments of others may well be as reasonable as [or more reasonable than] my own. But there does not appear to be an access to a philosophical frame of mind able to establish that which all rational men and women are obligated to think.
In other words, they’re not “stuck” here because they’ve made this existential leap to might and are comfortable with it.
That never works for me. Instead, I am basically back to this: Then “I” begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.
Which becomes intertwined [reasonably in my view] in this:
Here though I always come back to individual contexts in which individual men and women choose particular behaviors. Why one behavior and not another? Then I am tugged back into thinking that this revolves as much around the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy as it does one’s capacity to think the situation through philosophically in order to derive the optimal behavior.
On the other hand, the objectivists need to believe that 1] "I’ – the real me – can accomplish this and 2] accomplishing it revolves around embracing one’s moral obligation as a rational human being.
And securing/sustaining that “frame of mind” [in my frame of mind] becomes more important than whatever their own particular value judgments/ideals happen to be.
You argue that…
But if you choose to interact with others, they are always there to insist that they construe conflicting behaviors in this manner.
And that’s when you either choose to separate yourself from them or to simply manipulate them so as to gain access to the resources that you want and need. Of course here however I am back to this…
Yes, but a “quality of life” that revolves around you securing whatever resources you need to attain and then to sustain it. And [for me] that always revolves around achieving this simply because you can [no one can stop you] or because even if others attempt to stop you, you deserve to achieve it. You are “superior” to them [in whatever manner] and thus in the best of all possible worlds you should prevail.
But a cynical frame of mind is only really warranted if in fact there are no sets of assumptions that qualify as the optimal point of view.
And how could I [or anyone] ever really possibly know that beyond all doubt?
Instead, even my own cynicism here is no less an existential contraption rooted in dasein.
No, I think this is a reasonable frame of mind. It is well thought through and [presumably] you are able to “live” it in the course of interacting with others from day to day.
It’s just this: that it’s still based on assumptions that you make which are from my frame of mind no less the embodiment of dasein out in a particular world. In other words, that others [having lived very different lives] can make arguments that rebut it. Arguments that are in turn embedded in premises that can be deemed reasonable given a particular set of assumptions.
Religious assumptions. Political assumptions. Philosophical assumptions. Moral assumptions.
Which from my frame of mind always comes back to the extent to which you are [psychologically] able to convince yourself that those assumptions really do reflect the optimal or the only reasonable frame of mind.
It’s that part, the part where folks seem driven to root “I” in a sense of reality they feel puts them on solid ground that I zoom in on.
Could you rephrase this? What is it you wish the tools of philosophy to determine rationally, essentially, and objectively? “The extent to which the “self” embodies one frame of mind in regard to kin rather than of another”? I am not sure that I understand what you are asking.
If you are asking why I think it would be good (notice I do not use the word should) to seek to help kin rather than others, it is because, insofar as they are kin (akin to oneself) then are extensions of the self in the world. These need not only include direct relations, though the closer the relation more likely that elements of the self are present (genetically, manifestly, and what have you).
Two only partly related considerations are firstly that I also think this process takes place naturally, without our determining it to be best, and secondly that in influencing the world in such a way that aids oneself, those who are truly akin to oneself will also be benefitted because, insofar as they share kinship, they will thrive in the same world.
Where the latter considerations are relevant is that, in the case of the process taking place naturally, it will become mutually advantageous as one’s kin also help oneself and other kin. In the case of those who share a kinship thriving in the same conditions, the ones who then thrive will in turn propagate the same conditions establishing a process of autopoiesis.
I think you would need to rephrase the first part of this because I am not talking about moral obligations, if you remember.
But maybe you also mean to ask if there is a way to grasp whether action can be determined to be good for kin, or whether such determinations are resultant from the existential evolution of conflicting points of view…?
If it is the latter, first it would depend what we are talking about in that context with the relevance of conflicting points of view. Do we mean that certain assumptions in the past were adopted and subsequently found inadequate through existential exploration, discussion, etc.?
If that is what you are referring to, then I think that life experience and discussion (with self and/or others) and such things is a good way to develop and even correct one’s ideas. But again, if we are talking about how I have come to the determination of what is good, it is because I am looking at things people need, beginning with simple things like nutritional sustenance and shelter from harmful elements, and trying to move axiomatically through conditions of the currently existing world, asking questions like what (other resources) would be needed to obtain those things (so I would include further resources, physical well-being, such as health and capabilities…), what stands in the way (so here we have other people, legal structures…), etc. These become parts of the context of what is necessary to the obtainment of base goods. But also because both my own views of good and my kin can also be dependent on individual constitution, it would also be necessary to influence the environment to shape it in the desired manner (besides the shaping which would take place within the previous stipulations, such as building a house or shaping it to obtain food, etc.). Insofar as there are conflicts in the pursuit of these goods (which includes the ability to access and maintain them), it is best to be on the superior end of the conflict and not on the end which needs to give up those goods. If the supposed goods (particularly one’s beyond necessities) hinder the ability to acquire and maintain one’s position, then I would either consider them bad or at least not entirely good (if the bad which resulted was only contextually determined), based on the law of non-contradiction (which is an principle of classical logic).
I think there is something that should be cleared up here. Abstract and general are not the same. Abstract deals with ideas and concepts not necessarily grounded in physical substance, whereas general deals with groups or classes of objects, but those groups or classes are concrete and existing things. It would probably be more helpful if you specified exactly what you felt was too abstract if that is a problem. I have tried to relate my conception of good to concrete and material conditions, rather than ground it in further free floating abstractions.
There are two parts to my response to this. Firstly, since I have already given a description and many elaborations of what I consider good, whereas the contradiction of those things would be how I consider harm, whether the parent or children are harming or being harmed would depend on whether the harmed party is made (by the the actions of themselves or the other, whichever the case may be) more or less able to attain that valuation (of good which I have elaborated).
Secondly, because in the case of dealing with others, it is that other who would need to act to maintain and secure their position, their feedback is helpful insofar as they might know their own capabilities (or limitations, perceptions, etc.) and so would by necessity need to take a particular route in order to obtain what portion of the good they could at all. Insofar as the party in question would report something which would serve their notion of pleasure but would actually hinder their obtainment with the good I have elaborated, I think that it would be bad and mistaken. (For example, if a child wished to have a short term satisfaction of something inconsequential to the obtainment of that good (say going out to buy candy) at the expense of its long term obtainment (say education…)).
I agree that these considerations are general in that they deal with groups of things, but not abstract in that they are merely conceptions without the possibility of grounding in concrete events. If we wished to consider one particular real existing event, it would need to be considered that in order to make a definitive judgment we would need all variables (which is impossible, or at least highly unlikely) and so we could only attempt an approximation. If we attempted an approximation and a variable that was not previously known was then brought up as an objection, it would not necessarily contradict the assessment of previously known variables, but would of course be relevant to an assessment of the situation as a whole.
In regard to the comment about construing “right and wrong”, for my part those right and wrong would have to be understood as correct or fallacious behaviours which achieve the good I have mentioned (assessed by the outcome not intention) or else be restated as good and bad. Small quibble, but I merely mean to avoid associating my perspective with the moral notion of right and wrong.
I do not think that my position can be settled into a known political paradigm, at least insofar as they are generally characterized by regimes or a fixed agenda or something along those lines, but if, hypothetically, the notion I am putting forward was attempted to be put into a political character, the regime and agendas would be entirely fluid because they would be part of the context which is not stable (ie. the conditions of existence are not fixed).
As regards taking our assumptions “out into the world”, if you wish to propose a scenario to examine you may. If you think that I did not give proper considerations to a scenario you have already brought up—for example if you think that in responding to the vegan dilemma in the way that I did, I did not take proper consideration of the grounds or reasoning behind the vegans conception of the good—then you may, if you wish, elaborate what you feel I may have overlooked.
There are a couple of things to take into consideration here, but bear with me because I will answer you directly. Firstly, when I said that I was only considering might, it was in response to you bringing up conflicting behaviours in a community and then might makes right, right makes might, and the rule of law. The reason this is important is because, when I am considering the notion of good, I am not only considering conflict between people (and so therefore, not only considering might) but also the good for an individual in relation to himself, for example. I am not here trying to contradict what I said about might, but asking you to see it in its proper context in order to understand my position.
When say sociopaths, I think that I have mainly heard the term psychopaths applied to what I believe you are referring to, and I have tried to do a quick search and see there is a bit of confusion about proper terminologies, even regarding psychopaths which in some contexts is used to refer to other things than what I believe you are intending.
I think it would be helpful to be clear about what behaviours we are or aren’t talking about. Here is one small snippet:
“It’s not easy to spot a psychopath. They can be intelligent, charming, and good at mimicking emotions. They may pretend to be interested in you, but in reality, they probably don’t care… Sociopaths are less able to play along. They make it plain that they’re not interested in anyone but themselves. They often blame others and have excuses for their behavior.”
In this case, psychopath would be more closely what I am referring to. If the psychopath were in this strain of behaviour perfect, making no flaws or engaging in nothing which contradicted the conception of good I have laid out, then it would point toward what I am speaking of.
Where I think there is a divergence is that, at least as far as I can tell (and I am not an expert on psychopaths), the concern seems to end with successful behaviour. The psychopath seems to be something of a chameleon, but in that sense is selfless. I am concerned with this successful behaviour to a large extent, it is true, but I also think that the good lies in influencing the world in one’s own image. Again, I am not an expert of psychopaths, but it seems that this is less a concern for them. I suppose you could see some aspects of that as being more psychopathic than what I take to be psychopaths, in that I think that, insofar as psychopaths would need to adapt to conditions they would be needlessly wasting their energy, but there is an aesthetic aspect involved (a personal, or self-based, aesthetic) as well.
I do not have a response to most of this, mainly because you are speaking of moral choice in the first part and deserving in the second part. To me deserving is more of a rationalization than anything. I would find it very curious if psychopaths needed to rationalize for themselves.
I think it would be more helpful to bring up specific arguments from other perspectives of the good and examine them. Are they good in themselves, if so how? Are they good for benefits they bring, etc.? Because though I am embracing to a large extent the perspective of might, I do not see my arriving there as resulting from merely circumventing all other considerations of good but resulting from honest attempts to work through them. As I said, I am not adverse to hearing other arguments about what is good. By saying “existential leap” you seem to imply that one is taking a leap of faith after adopting unexamined positions or unknowable conclusions. Are you? If that is the case, don’t you think it would be more helpful to point out exactly where in my (or others) arguments we are making such leaps of faith or adopting unknowable conclusions?
I think your consideration is important, and I try to think about it this way too. But to be clear, we are saying, even if we would accept the idea that (let’s begin with something simple, one of the ground axioms I try to work with) obtaining nutritious sustenance (food) is good, why would we choose a given behaviour to obtain it as opposed to another?
That is how I am understanding this and it is to that I am here responding. I will give two answers and mark the transition. The first is based on why a given behaviour would be considered proper, the second is a more general consideration. First we have to consider what I said above about dealing with specific circumstances, that, to give a definitive answer, all variables would have to be known (see above). Beyond that we can only given an approximation or a hypothesis based on the known variables. So in a sense, we would have to say part of the reason we choose one behaviour and not another would be because we might not have been aware of all significant variables.
It would also be important to know whether obtaining food is currently the most pressing objective to aim toward. For the sake of this analysis we can say that it is. We would also want to use as little time and effort as possible to obtain the food relative to the nutritional content it contains. We would consider what our situation is (eg. spatial) and own abilities are (physical and contextual) and what is demanded of the attainment of the sustenance (ie. are we actual able to attain the desired sustenance?). If all of the options were available at our fingertips and they were of equal nutritional content, then it would be the one which was quickest and easiest to consume relative to that nutrition.
Considerations like improving our physical abilities would only be significant insofar as they were gauged as more pressing than obtaining sustenance or other potential considerations. Gauging importance would be based on assessments (and insofar as variables were or were not present, approximations) of future needs and abilities.
Another way of answering your question, “Why one behaviour and not another?” is to try to examine why people actually do behave in certain ways. Keep in mind that, though I have read some psychology, I am not a psychologist, and that even practicing psychologists consider many aspects of human behaviour mysterious, hence the need for continuing studies.
Individuals are not really able to sit down and make detailed considerations of all the aspects I have enumerated above, so that their approximations are in reality much more vague than even someone who tried to consider all known variables. Also, I have said that I do not think that humans are rational. What I mean by this is that, to great extents, they are not driven by reasoning, but their emotions, desires and ideals which may not even grounded in actually existing circumstances past or present. Even, as in my case, when we try to engage in reason from grounded axioms, our axioms are not themselves grounded in reason (ie. not created by reason), but found in already existing circumstances. Those circumstances themselves could only be considered reasonable by a process of rationalization (which again I find irrelevant) or if one believes that the world was created from the reason of a superpowerful being (like a god).
I think that some of the considerations I made above do also operate naturally in people on an unconscious level, for example striving for quick and effortless routes to the obtainment of sustenance, and also the enactment of their physical abilities relational to the environment they find themselves in…
Both of these considerations (the one above of why it would good to act a certain way, the second about why human beings do in fact act as they do) imply that people act based on factors beyond their knowledge and/or control or origination.
I think you need to be more specific about what the issue you are posing is here. Let’s say that someone asserts that a behaviour I am calling good is immoral and therefore, by their account, bad. I would then wish to examine how their conception of good and bad is grounded - is it meant to be good in itself or good for some other benefit it brings? I could agree, as I have indicated, that, in certain circumstances, acting in another individual’s estimation of what is moral could be good for the benefit it brings. That doesn’t even conflict with the psychopath’s behavioural orientation. It would mainly be on grounds of things being good in themselves that considerations of what “good” means would be important - is it good in all circumstances, does it obey the law of non-contradiction, etc.?
I would choose to separate myself from their consideration at the point when I felt that their notion of the good was no longer grounded by anything but their own assertion which would need to be backed by coercion to have any relevance in the world, in which case I think it would be better to be on the winning (factually successful) side of the coercion or manipulation, as you put it there.
It is more the first part, but adding to the quality of life not only the securing of resources (including ability) but using them to influence the world in one’s own image (a self-based aesthetic).
The second part isn’t quite so much what I am talking about. The notions of “deserving” or that one “should” prevail, or the “best of all possible worlds” seems more of a rationalization, and would be particularly silly if one had not actually prevailed.
Wouldn’t it depend on how you are understanding optimal, and things like whether your answer does not contradict itself?
That the particular world that the grounding propositions are based upon is uncircumventable by ideal or other behaviour of equal or greater success is significant. In terms of religious assumptions, are they based on leaps of faith or unknowable assumptions?
Political assumptions would still always be grounded in some other mode of reasoning, either religious, moral or philosophical.
Philosophical assumptions would be based on consideration, and so long as they are based in the concretely existing circumstances, obey the law of non-contradiction, and other principles of logic, they should be accessible to everyone capable of following the arguments.
And I would repeat what I asked about religious assumptions in regard to moral assumptions.
I think that what this means needs to be more elaborated. If I say “I need food to survive”, I think it is factually incorrect to say this is merely an “assumption”, as if to say that if I let go of that assumption I would cease to need food in order to survive. To say further that, I need to enact certain behaviours or bring about a certain set of circumstances to obtain and consume food (in order to survive) is merely an assumption, I again think is factually incorrect because one way or another, if one is to consume food in order to survive, something must factually be done in order that it be consumed. To say that consumable food is either grown in the earth or is animal which lives and grazes on the earth or from things grown from the earth, and so that in order to consume one would need to gain access to animals, the earth, or its products, is merely an assumption is factually incorrect because one cannot simply manifest these things by pure imagination…
At least if the process of reasoning were to take place in a manner such as this, dealing with only concrete existing circumstances, I think it would be incorrect to call the conclusions mere assumptions.
Whether the enactments one makes are optimal would depend on all the variables which is likely impossible to acquire, and whether it is reasonable depends on how you are defining reasonable or else is merely a rationalization.
If, because one must act based on incomplete knowledge, you try to say then one is basing one’s valuations on unknowable assumptions, I would say that is not correct, because it is not the valuation which is based on knowable assumptions (the valuation of what is necessary, ie. resources and their obtainment) but the means in which to acquire them, and I am not saying that it is impossible that means one believed to account for all significant variables turn out to be bad methods for obtaining the good.
When we sit down to discuss the relationship between ourselves and our parents, we believe that certain things are true. We claim to know that certain things correspond with reality.
And there are clearly things that we are able to demonstrate as in fact true about the relationship between ourselves and our parents.
But once the discussion shifts from the facts that exist in the either/or world, to an inquiry into how parents and children are obligated to interact as rational human beings in the is/ought world, how is that to be demonstrated?
If you profess to be a philosopher, how do you make this distinction clear?
You say:
In any particular context all of this may well be true. But any number of circumstances can then unfold such that it is no longer really relevant. You choose not to seek help from them because you now interact with others who reject the values that your parents espouse. In fact, you have come to embrace an actual obligation to dismantle your parents sense of reality.
How then would the philosopher determine if this is a “good” thing or a “bad” thing. Good and bad here revolving around a moral philosophy* that revolves in turn around clearly distinguishing reasonable from unreasonable behavior.
*Or whatever you wish to call the distinction made between behaviors that are prescribed and behaviors that are proscribed in any given community
What is it “natural” to do and what is it “unnatural” to do?
Which always brings me back to this:
With regard to your own kin, whatever you wish to call the behaviors that you choose to embody in interacting with them, you still make a distinction “I do this”, “I don’t do that”?
Just like me. Only I construe these choices as revolving by and large around the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein and conflicting goods and power.
Here a particular consensus can be reached in which both the parents and the children agree that these behaviors are good for them and those behaviors are bad. But that is just an existential contraption from my point of view. For all practical purposes the consensus allows you to sustain the least dysfunctional relationship. But in a world of contingency, chance and change such agreements can only be sustained for so long. Circumstances change. Perceptions change. Conflicts emerge. Then what? The “shared assumptions” are shared no longer. What then are the limits of philosophy in resolving them?
Regarding the “necessities of life” we all do this. These things are clearly “good” for anyone who has an interest in continuing to exist.
But:
Historically, culturally and experientially there have been countless actual existential contexts in which ways of thinking about it [both in terms of means and ends] precipitate all manner of uniquely individual/communal perceptions and all manner of conflicted assessments that revolves around customs, traditions, folkways, mores, and laws.
Yes, we can get into a “technical” discussion as to how philosophers properly distinguish these two words. But my focus is always instead on this: that, in however you make this distinction, how is it then applicable to the manner in which you distinguish between good and bad behaviors “out in the world with others”?
In other words…
You can have an abstract and a general discussion of abortion as a medical procedure. But the discussion is either in sync with the objective reality embodied in the aborting of a human fetus or it is not.
But once [in any particular community] the discussion shifts to whether abortion is a good or a bad behavior – when it is necessary to pass legislation either prescribing or proscribing particular behaviors relating to abortion – what can we know for certain then.
How are philosophers to make these distinctions in the face of “conflicting goods”.
Actual conflicting goods precipitating conflicting behaviors precipitating actual consequences. That’s where I’d like the discussions to go.
This part:
Again, there are things that we choose to attain because they are necessary to sustain life itself. But different political factions argue for very, very different means to attain them. Here good and bad behaviors are entirely rooted in particular historical, cultural and experiential contexts. Philosophers are surely aware of this. But philosophers themselves are often no less the embodiment of particular political leaps embedded in the manner in which I understand these things.
Of course with respect to these actual existential interactions out in a particular world we are back again to intertwining might makes right, right makes might, and moderation, negotiation and compromise.
Try this:
The next time you find yourself embedded in an interaction with others in which your own assessment of that which is deemed good behavior comes into conflict with theirs, walk me through that interaction. How – existentially – are good and bad actually perceived by you in that particular context.
I don’t profess to be technically proficient in differentiating psychopaths from sociopaths. The distinction that I make tends to revolve around the extent to which their behaviors are or are not driven by “clinical” conditions that are “beyond their control”.
Psychopaths are often referred to as madmen, luatics, nutcases, schizoids, certifiables, sickos, fruitcakes etc.
Is it behavior that is driven largely by…defective brains?
Whereas the antisocial behaviors of sociopaths are rationalized by a frame of mind that seems more rooted in self-gratification. They may be more or less self-conscious of this. They may act largely on impulsive. Or they may have an elaborate philosophy that justifies selfish behavior as an entirely reasonable thing to do.
My point is that the objectivists on either side of any particular moral or political conflict will often argue that only the manner in which they have examined these behaviors and only the manner in which they have come to embrace particular conclusions is a reflection of rational or good behavior. Thus their might is right because it ought to be…and not just because they have the brute power to enforce their own interests.
I’m just trying to determine the extent to which, in any particular context, you deem your own behaviors as or as not leaps of faith rooted in the political assumptions that you make regarding “good behavior”.
Me, I’m embedded here in my dilemma. Or, as I noted to Phyllo on another thread, “…here I am entangled in a dilemma that fractures and fragments “me” to the point that I am unable to “take a stand” regarding moral and political commitments. Why? Because even to the extent that I take political leaps to one or another position, I still recognize them for the “existential contraptions” that [from my frame of mind here and now] they are. Also, as I get closer and closer to the dreaded oblivion I have nothing to make that go away. Whereas most religious folks are able to think themselves into believing it’s not really oblivion at all.”
I’m ever curious to explore how others are not thinking about these relationships from my own rather grim frame of mind.
So here it really gets down to whether or not someone has managed to convince herself that the reason she actually does behave as she does is because there is no need for further study. That in fact the “real me” has either invented or discovered the most rational manner [or the only rational manner] in which to behave.
And for me that mystery revolves instead around the manner in which I construe human interactions as the embodiment of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy — out in any particular world historically, culturally and experientially.
Yes, but here one would have to illustrate the point by providing accounts of actual conflicts that they have been in. How does all of this speculation actually work when goods do come into conflict?
Our difficulty here is that all we have are words to exchange. Imagine on the other hand if you were able to follow someone around. They come into conflict with others over particular value judgments and then after the conflict either is or is not resolved you sit down with them and discuss “what happened”. You can compare and contrast the reasons they give for choosing one rather that another behavior. You can discuss the extent to which they were able to “reason” themselves into making that choice. Or, instead, the extent to which the decision is rooted more in dasein. In their “lived lives”. And thus reflections more of mere political prejudices.
Of course more often than not that is exactly what they are thinking about you. Both sides convinced that the other side opts for coercion precisely because their facts are no match for our own.
In other words:
Then we are back to the manner in which one comes to understand the existential meaning and nature of self – “I” – as I do here:
1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin.
2] I was drafted into the Army and while on my “tour of duty” in Vietnam I happened upon politically radical folks who reconfigured my thinking about abortion. And God and lots of other things.
3] after I left the Army, I enrolled in college and became further involved in left wing politics. It was all the rage back then. I became a feminist. I married a feminist. I wholeheartedly embraced a woman’s right to choose.
4] then came the calamity with Mary and John. I loved them both but their engagement was foundering on the rocks that was Mary’s choice to abort their unborn baby.
5] back and forth we all went. I supported Mary but I could understand the points that John was making. I could understand the arguments being made on both sides. John was right from his side and Mary was right from hers.
6] I read William Barrett’s Irrational Man and came upon his conjectures regarding “rival goods”.
7] Then, over time, I abandoned an objectivist frame of mind that revolved around Marxism/feminism. Instead, I became more and more embedded in existentialism. And then as more years passed I became an advocate for moral nihilism.
In other words, as an “existential contraption”.
In any confrontations with others that revolve around things that we value, we have to convince ourselves that what we value takes precedent over what they value. You can call this “deserving” or “justice” or “politically correct” or whatever. But one way or another the conflict will be settled either because one party is mightier than the other, a consensus forms that one party is more rational than the other, or both parties agree to moderate their points of views and to negotiate a compromise.
Here though we would have to plug these words into an actual context. Joe wants Jane to abort her pregnancy. Jane wants Joe to parent the child with her. How then do we come to an understanding regarding whose want prevails? How do we determine whose answers most contradict themselves?
This in other words:
Still, unless and until we attached these words to an actual conflict “out in the world” I can never really be sure what “on earth” you are suggesting here.
That’s not the distinction that I making here though. I don’t “assume” that we need food and water, and shelter, and protection from enemies and a stable environment in which to reproduce the community. This is part of the either/or world. Either you obtain and then sustain these necessities or you cease to exist. And that is true objectively for all of us.
Instead, it is when the capitalists and the socialists, the meat eaters and the vegetarians etc., argue that their own way is the best way – the just way – to accomplish this task that conflicts arise.
Thus when you argue…
Both sides from both camps insist that the most complete knowledge is in fact reflected in their own assessment.
Unfortunately, I feel highly disappointed with much of your response and feel that you have ignored my points completely, asking me questions that I have already answered. That is the sense in which I feel you have not actually responded to what I have said.
You keep on framing the discussion as moral, and you state things such as “…an inquiry into how parents and children are obligated to interact as rational human beings in the is/ought world…” whereas I have already stated repeatedly that my position has nothing to do with these things.
At this point, I haven’t made any such profession. I am merely asking you to engage in rational arguments to see if it is helpful in reaching a determination. Besides, I have already stated that I do not think it is possible to objectively establish such an ought, so why are you asking me again? Again, this is what makes me feel you are not actually responding to what I have written.
The point you are making is irrelevant, it is quivalent to your assertion that you could go either way, to which I have already responded that it does not matter if we could do something else, all that matters is the question of whether or not that something else is good. One could choose to neglect one’s children, but that in no sense takes away from the fact that helping them is good.
And then you ask about natural and unnatural as if those were distinctions I made. Trying to debate me on those terms in such a way is to propose a straw man.
The content of “good” as I have proposed it is not based on the consesnsus created by negotiation between children and parent. To pose it as so shows you have not understood what I have said. If the parent is to help the child it is to help the child gain access to material resources and physical abilities to influence the world in his or her favour. The only reason that discussing with the child is relevant is because the child will need to act in the world and use their own abilities to improve the station they are currently in. But the goal is always measured by things outside of the feedback of the child, their ability and their resources. If the child is for whatever reason unable to attain such a state it is because they are beyond help or the parent is unable to help.
This does not conflict with what I have said. I did not prescribe means, only ends. It is the successful use of whatever cultural, historical and experiential means which I am speaking of.
This is again ignoring what I have said. You are trying to pose it as a moral problem and I have already told you that I am not looking at it this way. The abortion is only bad in the sense that it is actually the intercourse which was engaged in with unwanted results, otherwise why have or even consider an abortion?
In the above, as I have already indicated in a previous response, it is not I as a philosopher who is making the judgement but the individuals who have reached a pregnancy without desiring to.
Here you are coming close to misunderstanding my position again, because I am not advocating any means except the most successful ones, which would have to be determined a posteriori or comparatively by measures such as time and effort needed to achieve them.
I was in a school program. I had to “negotiate” (figuratively) my behaviour in relation to my teacher in order to earn a high grade. A high grade, I deemed good, because it is the way I see, in my limited perspective, to achieve success. I did what the teacher asked me to do, as well as applying thoughtful consideration to my assignment, and achieved the mark of an A (which in this class was the best possible mark) In this sense I think what I did was well done and good. It served the goal of helping me to progress, and my negotiation elicited the proper influence in the world (an A on my report).
Bad would have been neglecting my work or being unable to influence my teacher to give me a good mark, which would in turn hinder my future prospects.
This illustrates what I have been saying.
All this is besides the point. You were the one who brought up these conditions. I said we would have to elaborate which behaviour in particular we are discussing if it is to be relevant or not to what I am saying.
It makes little difference to me if the action is on impulse, if it rationalized afterward or whatever else. All that matters to what I am putting forward is whether it is effective.
Again you are bringing up oughts. Is it that you are intentionally disregarding what I have said or something else?
If calling behaviour which is successful to secure and maintain survival and have greater access to necessary goods and abilities than others good is a leap of faith, then that is for you to decide and show. Then perhaps you can move on demonstrating that it is not good, if that is your intention.
I have already stated that I am not attempting to create a political doctrine, nor am I trying to make a moral proposition. The existential contraptions would just be the character of life as it is lived but ultimately at any given point the access to resources and ability to influence can be measured.
I am not even sure if this is something you are writing to me or if you are speaking to yourself. I have already told you that I do not think humans are rational despite what means or ends they choose, thus choosing when to stop studying would not be done for rational reasons. Even if it can be concretely demonstrated that one more moment with the eyes on the page and this individual would have read the sentence which would have saved them so much hardship, how would that negate the fact that the hardship would be the bad and the obtaining success would be the good, which is what I am in fact arguing?
But what would it matter if they have reasons for doing one or another thing? What I am getting at is the outcome, either they have obtained access to resources, abilities to obtain them, or influence the world. The rest is not part of my position. I have never denied individual difference, or that one’s path through the world will be particular based on individual difference and context…
Yes, but what is your point? I already said it only matters who wins. If they win, it is bad for me.
Again, what is your point? I did not deny any of those outcomes. I only said that the good is gaining access to material resources, abilities to obtain them and influence the world. If there is a conflict with other over these things, the good is in winning the conflict so that one’s own access and influence prevails. What you said is not a contradiction of this.
But in order to plug this into what I am actually saying, you would have to give Joe and Jane’s arguments about why their view on what should be done about the pregnancy is good. Only then can we examine their reasoning on their own merits. Now you have only given desires.
I could in the same way say. I want to eat candy all day, but my lover tells me I should not. How do we come to an understanding regarding whose wants prevails? It sidesteps the whole issue about whether the behaviour is good. I could say my reason for wanting to eat candy is because it makes me feel good. Then we say, would it make me feel good if I ate so much candy that my stomach hurt, of it I ended up contracting health issues? and so forth.
So if you wish to give Joe and Jane’s reasoning as to why their positions represent the good, then we can examine their merits. Beyond that, all we can tell is the outcome, which side actually does prevail.
But there is a few problems with your conundrum here in regards to our discussion. I was telling you to propose an idea of a good which contradicts my own, because even if we examine Jane and Joe’s notion, it is not necessarily the case that either of them contradicts my own. For example, I may say that it is best for Jane that her notion of the good prevails and for Joe that his does, and so the best would be the prevailing… That is why it was rather my intention that you propose a conflict of good and bad in opposition to my own.
That entails bringing forward particular issues. But to suggest that I haven’t in my position is untrue, because I have said it is obtaining material resources - foods, building materials, land, etc. physical abilities - speed, strength, agility, mathematical acuity, etc. these are all things “on earth”. We can continue to discuss the abortion issue but we would have to discuss why one position is good if that is what we propose to be discussing.
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Again, I am not putting forward a political position. Capitalists or socialists will either be able to concretely gain access to resources through their abilities, and exercise their abilities effectively, or they will not. That is what I am saying. The same goes for meat eaters and vegetarians.
If one camp does not achieve this but says that their own position in fact reflects the best way to do this, it would strike me as being objectively wrong, in that they did not achieve it but merely say they do. The only objection would be if someone theoretically knows the way to obtain a thing most effectively but is not able to practice it, but this does not seem to be what you are saying, because that would be to say that socialists do not practice socialism, which would be a contradiction in terms, or that vegetarians do not practice vegetarianism, which is likewise.
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I think the only thing really worth discussing from this is the positions of Joe and Jane about why they think abortion is good. I don’t believe you have given me an argument about why my position (that it is good to obtain resources, possess the ability to obtain them, and if one comes in conflict over these things to prevail in it) is not good… if you wish to make a proposal about why that is not good then you can. It is my position that the rest is unproductive.
I did request that you discuss here, so I apologise if my response appears ungrateful. It is only that I feel that we are not progressing productively on the topic. I have tried to make clear why.
First, I apologize for the big gap in time between you responding to me and me responding to you. There are just many “projects” that I am involved with. All of my threads here and at KT. And all of the posts I submit to other forums. Plus all of the many additional things I am involved with that have nothing to do with philosophy.
Lots of folks here basically accuse me of much the same thing. In particular the “serious philosophers”. What they don’t take into account however is this: that [quite often] I find myself reacting to them in much the same manner.
From my frame of mind, they are not really willing [or able] to bring what I construe to be their largely “academic” arguments out into the world; and to situate them in particular contexts that prompt each and everyone of us to ask, “how ought I to live?”
In other words, here and now rather than there and then.
Until I am able to grasp the distinction that you make between things said to be “moral” and things said to be “good”, I don’t imagine that the gap will get closed.
I was never really able to grasp the manner in which he understood human “consciousness” as that was relevant to the manner in which I understood two conscious minds colliding in defense of conflicted goods.
My interest revolves almost entirely around noting those things that both parents and children can agree on. Why? Because what they agree on is in fact true objectively for all rational human beings. But what happens when the parents want the kids to behave in one way and the kids want to behave in another way instead?
What then of “good” behaviors and “bad” behaviors? How are they differentiated “for all practical purposes”?
Again, it may be a few days before I have the time to respond to your post above. But if, in time, you decide that the gap between us is not likely to close much, no problem. We can just move on to others. It happens all the time with me.
And I suspect that is true in part because I am proposing a frame of mind that many find disquieting to say the least. After all, what if they start to think the same sort of things that I do about “me” about themselves? What then of their “self”, of their “values” or “ideals”?
On the other hand, what if I bump into someone who actually does succeed in yanking me up out of the hole that I have “thought” myself into.
I have everything to gain here and very little to lose.
I do not think it is what you are proposing below. As I tried to mention above, you were asking me questions I had already responded to. It was for that reason I did not feel that the conversation was being progressed.
I am not sure what you are trying to say here. You are saying everything good is in some way moral? If we say that health is good, in the sense that its opposite, being afflicted by illness, is bad, would you think of that as somehow a moral statement?
In what way do you see “that it is good to obtain resources, possess the ability to obtain them, and if one comes in conflict over these things to prevail in it” as a moral statement?
Why do you think this is stating something entirely academic and without bearing in regards to action out in the world, because we lack information (foreknowledge) which would help us know which actions would attain those ends, or something else?
Helping them is good. But Bob has decided that helping them is not good for him. So [as many parents – fathers in particular – actually have done over the years] he abandons them.
But that is when the community – or "society – reacts to what he has done. Moral narratives and laws have to be generated in any particular community to decide what the consequences [rewards/punishments] will be when these “goods” do come into conflict.
But that is precisely the point that many make: It is “natural” to take care of your children. It’s hard-wired into your brain genetically. Okay, so how then do you account for all of the folks who choose abortion or infanticide or abandonment? Those who engage in child abuse or murder?
Sure, when you reduce “good” down to an ability to “gain access to material resources and physical abilities to influence the world in his or her favour” then, yes, you either accomplish that with your child or you don’t. But what of all the conflicting narratives here regarding ways and means? What it means to be a good or a bad parent. Or the behaviors that revolve around conflicting narratives relating to drug use and sexuality and corporal punishment and all that is said to constitute social, political and economic justice either within families or between families in the community? And then [historically and culturally] between the communities themselves?
Right, I am always ignoring what you say about what I say whereas you are never ignoring what I say about what you say. But the fact is that the part about ignoring sex is the part that is often ignored and unwanted pregnancies do in fact occur. Millions upon millions of them over the years. What then of “good” and “bad” here?
How is this then all that far removed from survival of the fittest – might makes right? Those who own and operate the global economy – that teeny, tiny percentage of the world population that own over 90% of the wealth – are certainly satisfied with the means they have employed that allow them to set the parameters for what is construed to be “good” and “bad”.
What is this particular context however next to the conflagrations that revolve around abortion or capital punishment or war and peace or separation of church and state…or even the Trump scandals?
Suppose the teacher asks you to accept her own moral and political and philosophical values. That they must be reflected in the answers that you give on your examinations. Would you do that in order to garner the “A”?
It may have been “effective” for any number of German citizens to go along with the Nazis in order that they might “gain access to material resources and physical abilities to influence the world in his or her favor”.
I’m just not clear regarding the extent to which “whatever works to facilitate your material well-being” is the fundamental point of your philosophy here.
In part, this discussion reminds me of exchanges that I have had here with Mr Reasonable. What works to facilitate his own material well-being is playing the stock market. Thus good behaviors are those that allow him to sucessfully accummulate money. And then when I note those who react to this behavior as immoral because they deem capitalism itself to be an immoral [or amoral] enterprise, he seems to argue that this has nothing really to do with philosophy — “real” or “serious” philosophy.
If something is good for him then philosophy can take a hike. At least if it involves questioning the rightness or the wrongness of that which he chooses to do.
And I agree that with respect to the world of is/ought, the tools of philosophy are of limited use value, of limited exchange value.
In other words, back to this:
and
Again, my frame of mind ever and always revolves around those who embrace your frame of mind but insist that when their own rendition of “good” behaviors comes into conflict with your rendition then we are back to might makes right, right makes might or moderation, negotiation and compromise.
That may well be, but what happens when, in your interactions with others, they are invested in a particular moral and political narrative/agenda? And their aims interfere with the behaviors that you wish to pursue?
Somehow, someway, a policy must be put in place that regulates behaviors/goods that come into conflict. And if you argue that in such contexts you do not think that “humans are rational” what then are the “rules of behavior” to be predicated on if not the law of the jungle?
Then I am back to following someone with your frame of mind here around for a period of time and watching what does in fact happen “for all practical purposes” when they come into conflict with others.
One or another rendition of this:
Still, out in the real world these conflicts do revolve around indivdual points of view – “goods” – that, in my view, are rooted in dasein. But, sure, if all that matters to you is who prevails in the end, we can forego pondering any of the points that I raise here and just assume that whatever you have come existentially to construe to be “good” is as far as you need go.
Just as the sociopath can argue that choosing behaviors that gratify him or her is as far as they need go.
Then it all comes down to the extent that someone’s calculations are predicated either solely on might makes right or if they try to rationalize their behaviors further by insisting there is also some measure of right makes might thrown in too. Yes, they “won” but in part that is because in a just universe or in the best of all possible universes they deserved to.
And then [frome my point of view] it all comes down to whether or not I would deem them to be an objectivist. In other words, not only do they believe that their frame of mind here is reasonable but that those who do not share it are wrong. That way they can construe the world as being inhabitied by those who are either “one of us” [the winners] or “one of them” [the losers].
And this being decided solely by those who are able to enforce their own political agendas.
As though pertaining to situations like this, one can readily separate emotional reactions from so-called rational calculations. Jane reasons that she is ready to be a parent and wants to raise a child with Joe. And her emotions here are in sync. Joe reasons that he is not ready to be a parent with Jane and his emotions are also in sync with his reasons.
Two reasoned “goods” in conflict. So, by your frame of mind it really comes down to who is able to enforce one set of consequences rather than another. And that’s before we get to the state and its laws pertaining to these behaviors. That set of consequences.
Both of their arguments have “merit”. But we can’t live in a world where both of them prevail.
I would never argue that it is not “good to obtain resources, possess the ability to obtain them, and if one comes in conflict over these things to prevail in it”.
I’m just trying to grasp the extent to which you intertwine this frame of mind out in a world where in attempting to achieve this [either with respect to means or ends] most folks [philosophers or otherwise] squabble endlessly over which “goods” ought to prevail in any particular human community that seeks to go beyond the brute facticity embedded in “because I say so”.
And because you have the raw naked power to back it up.
Progressed in what direction? Me understanding and concurring with your point of view or you understanding and concurring with my point of view? Here at ILP [on any number of threads] pages and pages can accummulate and that progress is still never reached.
My point then is that this may well be the case because “progress” is ever embedded subjectively/subjunctively in conflicting “points of view”. Personal prejudices that revolve around conflicting narratives pertaining to that which is said to be “good” or “bad”, “right” or “wrong”, even “true” or “false”.
Whose health? In what particular context? Everyone can agree that if you wish to sustain your existence it is good to be healthy. But people argue endlessly over which foods are the healthiest to eat? And some will insist on turning this into a moral issue as well. With respect to the consumption of animal flesh.
And though you might believe that sustaining your health is a good thing, the person who has decided to poison you [for whatever personal reason] is convinced instead that your continued health is a bad thing.
In any particular context in which, in achieving this goal, it results in impeding the progress of those who aim to achieve the very same goal themselves. And they turn it into a moral issue. And they argue against the idea that “might makes right” is what counts in disclosing the winners and the losers.
Dear iambiguous, thank you for your response. I think that we are back on track here to what I called progress. First I will respond to your response about that:
I did not mean that progress was you accepting my point of view. To me, progress in our discussion means that either you or I gain a deeper understanding of our topic. I feel that your last response is one which helps us (or at least me) to work through these thoughts more deeply again. Does that make sense?
I also want to say that I think to a large extent you have understood my point of view, but, as far as I can see, there are a few small details which it does not appear to me that you have understood. I will try to clarify them in my response.
Okay, let’s say we have said that helping the child is good, as you seem to be willing to at least momentarily agree on. So now we have Bob who has decided that helping the child is not good for Bob (or did you mean not good for the child? If you mean this latter my response might be off and I will have to try again in the future if you desire it). I am going to look at it from the point of view of the children and Bob himself. There are certainly perspectives of others that could be examined, but if you come to understand the method you might be able to imagine how I would apply it to them as well.
So Bob would leave his children to their own devices (or their mothers, or relatives, or the state, etc.). For the children, I see some ways that this would possibly have ill effects. Firstly, they would know that their father abandoned them which could be emotionally disturbing and might influence their behaviour in destructive ways in the future. If their mother was a single parent, it might cause the children to lose access to resources that two parents might have acquired. (Perhaps you get this form of reasoning? They are, indeed, mights and not necessarily definite outcomes. They also are always in regard to what I am trying to defend as the good, how situations will access the child’s fitness ).
On the other hand we could say that if the father stayed he might be a drunken abusive man (for example) and harm the children that way. My response to this would be similar to my position on the abortion. If the father was this kind of man then it might have been bad for the children that he gave birth at all (at least bad insofar as these behaviours affect the fitness of the children, either because of their environmental influence or that they might in turn acquire destructive behaviours through heredity)…
From Bob’s perspective, it could be argued that in abandoning his children he then has the ability to seek out his own benefit (in the manner I have phrased) to a greater degree of success, because he is not bogged down by activities that he would have had to engage in as a parent. He might even (hypothetically) be able to engage with multiple lovers and have a great number of children, thus multiplying his likeness in the world. Insofar as he is doing these things he is achieving at least some measure of the good I have phrased. The question would then be whether his children would rise up without his aid and attain good positions in life for themselves (or with that help they are left with). I think the latter is entirely possible. In some ways I think it is less likely, but that likelihood to not exclue possibility. You could call this version of Bob I am elaborating the gambling type, in that he gambles on a future hereditary jackpot.
So the question would then be, is it good for people to gamble on such hereditary jackpots? My answer would be similar (but not exactly the same) as if the question was, would gambling at a casino be the best (or even a good) way to earn a fortune? It would be, probably not (in that it is most likely you will lose) but it is not (at least theoretically) impossible. In a similar way that gambling at a casino can have negative side effects, like for example even if someone won there is a chance they might become addicted to gambling and squander the money they have sunk into it on further gambling rather than then investing it, there are likely side effects to the hereditary jackpot, as I see it. For example, the children would be more likely to acquire the same behaviours rather than putting their efforts into improving their own abilities and improvement, decreasing their chances of success. Also, because of the form of human life, each child is in some measure competing against other individuals for resources. If a child from this kind of broken family is then up against families with high solitarity, there is a greater likelihood they will fail to success against the combined resources. Again, I don’t see any reason that it is outside of the realm of possibilities for an individual to prevail against all odds. And yes, it is my position that insofar as they do success they are achieving the good.
We could look at this from another point of view. Say Bob simply does not care, does not care about the good I said, about the outcome of his children, etc. Say he does whatever he wants (we could enumerate any number of things here if we wished) and his children become unsuccessful and his branch of the bloodline dies out. And Bob’s opinion is, I don’t care that this might technically not be achieving some notion of good. Okay, so Bob and his branch of the bloodline is gone from Earth. It is my way of looking at things that insofar as Bob is nonexistent, notions of good and bad are not really an issue anymore (for Bob and his branch of the bloodline). The notion of good and bad are issues for those who are alive in the world. That is why I take the factors of living as my grounding elements.
Yes, the community, government, etc. could make laws or have codes of conduct, the breaking of which would result in things like stigmatization, etc. Insofar as these things would limit the fitness (I am using this word for my notion of the good because I don’t want to have to retype it every time, but when I say fitness I am referring to the notion of good I have elaborated, to be clear.) of individuals pursuing certain behaviours, they would become contigency which must be dealt with in pursuing the good I have elaborated, in the same way as the natural environment is also part of contingency.
If we are going to look at how some notion of the good conflicts with my own in desiring the title of being truly good whereas my notion is a counterfeit, we would have to elaborate that position and examine it and my own to see in what ways they are good, if they are consistent, etc.
It is natural (in the sense that it arose from nature) for people who naturally take care of their children. For those cases you elaborated, it was not in their nature.
I am not sure what you mean by how I account for them. Are you asking me for a theory on how they have come to exist, or something else? On whether their behaviours will have a probability of achieving the good I have elaborated? If it is the latter, it might not be difficult for you to consider them by the method I have elaborated to tell. Just the fact that they engage in a behaviour which does not improve their fitness puts them at the disadvantage of time wasting. Insofar as they might kill of their branch of the bloodline (and ultimately die themselves) they would be out of the picture and not really be concerned with goods or not. Do you see ways in which such behaviours could lead to successes?
If you explain what you desire from me by this accounting I can perhaps give you a more satisfactory answer.
I am not quite sure what you are asking me again in the end here. What of all the conflicting narratives? you ask. But what do you want me to be examining about them. If I understood better I might be able to give it a try.
If we are talking about ways and means to acheiving the successes of the child, the success would show itself after the fact because they had achieved access to material resources and abilities and influence and the rest or they would not, and that achievement or lack of achievement would show whether the means was successful (and I think that certain means could be different for different individuals, because they possess different innate talents, some children excell at mathematics, for example, while others excell at public speaking or persuading others by speech, etc.)
When you say what it means to be a good or bad parent, I suspect you mean in some other estimation than whether their parenting achieves these ends. That may be the case, and I am willing to examine other opinions of what constitutes good or bad parenting. If we are taking something of a popular line on it, such as showing kindness to the child and what not, I think you might find that there isn’t such a gulf between that and my point of view as might at first appear. I think that the idea of being kind to a child or else even encouraging them in their natural abilities is often because such kindness will promote psychological well-being which will later help them deal with later hardships or what have you without being overcome by distresses. In this way it is in agreement with my own perspective.
If you want to look at some particular behaviour more closely we will have to elaborate what that is. I think that in order for me to examine a different perspective of “good” we will have to elaborate it in that way, and not merely look at the behaviour because in looking at the behaviour itself I am more likely to look at it under the lens of my own perspective of the good, whereas looking at an entirely different definition of good and bad would be easier to examine on its own merits (or demerits).
If by bringing up political, social, and economic justice, you mean want me to (at least try to) make an assessment of what either would or could be good for something like “society as a whole” or something along those lines, I could likely try, but I think there are issues with trying to make such assessments which are not present when looking at it from the perspective of individuals and their kin. I think that in those contexts I would be more likely to have an opinion similar to your own, that there are irreconcilable conflicting goods, particularly if what is reckoned as being the good is achieving the highest success, it would be a contradiction in terms for everyone to have equally highest success, as it would also be equivalent to saying that no one would have highest success. Also, if that were the definition of good there would be other issues, like resources scarcity, or else if individuals were influencing and changing the physical world it is very likely that it would end up influencing others and likely against their own good…
I think that in terms of looking at things like politics, society, economy, etc. the most one could come up with is an estimation (approximation or hypothesis) of what would be “best”, while still being imperfect (in other words, while still possessing gradations of “badness” which may or may not (though more likely would) be fluid, changing over time).
I didn’t say you were “always” ignoring what I said, I just felt that you had in that response I was referring to. If you feel that I have ignored or overlooked something you feel is important, then please tell me and I will try to rectify it. Despite how it may seem, I am not trying to do injustice to your ideas. I am, on the other hand, entirely capable of slip ups, whether they are in grammar, forgetfulness, ill-perception, or something else.
Unfortuntely, I am not entirely sure what you are asking here though. “ignoring sex is the part that is often ignored and unwanted pregnancies do in fact occur”… Are you saying that many people have intercourse when they are not ready to have a children and have accidental pregnancies, or something of this nature? And that it has been going on in great numbers for a very long time? If that is what you are saying I wouldn’t disagree with you, it is very likely the case.
But then you are asking what of good or bad, in the case of these accidental pregnancies? If we are looking at it from the point of view I have elaborated, I would say that it is likely that because someone (or two) achieved pregnancy without being ready for it, they are likely to be less ready to care for the child in the way that they might have if they had achieved the pregnancy when they were ready. It likely depends on why they did not think they were ready. If it was psychological, then that psychological state might also be in play during the caring for the child. I have, for example, read that if a parent shows anxiety around the child the child is likely to be psychologically influenced by it. In that way there could be some damage… Maybe the parents weren’t ready because of their material situation, in that sense the child might be placed at a relative disadvantage. Also, the effort then put into child rearing might influence the parents ability to subsequently improve their position… These are, yes, all possibilities. Insofar as none of these things would adversely influence the parents and child’s fitness then that would be good (for the parents and child).
Is there some other aspect of this you think I should be looking at?
As for the first part, the problem I have with the formulation might makes “right” is because the term right is often used like it was some kind of justification. I just think that the whole justification and part is more like a rationalization, perhaps in some ways a technique to make others accept the state of affairs.
I think that, for those tiny percentage of the population who own the lion’s share of the wealth, that aspect is good for them. It is, of course, by the same measure, bad for us who are in a worse position relatively. This is why I say that I do not adhere to the might makes “right” position, because I am not saying that because some people can, therefore it is good for everybody.
To clarify, though it is somewhat extraneous, owning the wealth would be good to a degree unequivocally. But If the ones who owned the wealth were not able to shape the world to their own image, in other words, for example, if they had to continue to engage in economic means which was not within the realm of their character (which it might very well be, do not misunderstand me there), then it would be, to that extent, not the best. What I mean is that, if those who are at the top of the current economic system do not operate most effectively in the rules (even in breaking them, but still systematically part of it(s corruption)) then they are more likely to be disadvantaged if others are more fit in navigating that same system. Also in terms of quality of life, they might experience a better quality if the world was shaped in a different way more in line with their character.
Aside from those considerations, I am saying that, for those who are “at the top”, such a position is good for them.
Are you asking whether I think or saying that the issue of me being in the world and getting through a course with good grades is insignificant in comparison with other things going on in the world? If that is the case then I would say in some ways yes. In some ways things that are outside of the realm of my control might have far reaching influences on the state of my life, if we are saying it is insignificant in comparison to other things for me. If we are saying they are insignificant in comparison to other things for you, or others, then it is very likely to be so.
Nonetheless, you did ask me to provide an example of what I was talking about from my personal experience, and insofar as I do have to live through my day to day life, that was a concrete example and I did have to live through it and navigate it… I couldn’t exactly have abandoned it because of Trump scandals or abortions or issues of the separation of church or state… I could perhaps have done something else like seek other routes to my success.
Insofar as I was on the path of thinking that getting an A would be the most successful method of my achieving success (which would enable me to later shape the world) then yes. It is also my position that it is worse to have one’s actions dictated by others than be the one shaping the world, remember.
I think a more interesting question would have been, if an authority would have asked or told me to do something which would have negatively impacted my fitness, under some form of threat, would I have done it? There would of course need to be considerations like in what way it would impact my fitness and what the threat was…
It might have been to an extent effective for Germans to go along with the Nazis, as you say. But we would also have to look at to what extent the individuals in the Nazi party were influencing the world in their favour? It is not really inherent in what I am saying that the Nazi form of government would be the good one particularly since the Nazis needed to follow the Führer, and in that manner would have been having the form of their world dictated to them, rather than shaping it themselves. Also there would be nothing to say that someone couldn’t attain success by eluding Nazi dictates.
Something in me suspects that what you want to get at, though, is that my way of looking things is not prepared or equipped to admonish the Nazis on moral grounds, at most only on the material perspective of given individuals (or kinship groups). If that is something you are interested in, then you may know that it would be the case, the perspective I am putting forward is not prepared to censure the Nazis on moral grounds, but only on material ones.
Insofar as Mr. Reasonable would achieve successes on the stock market, those successes are good for him. To completely get at my own perspective, you would have to add the stipulations I made above about those whose own 90% of the wealth (ie. that it would suit their character and they would influence the world in their character) and also that playing the stock market has certain qualities of gambling involved, though it is likely that it can be done to a much greater degree of certainty. For example Warren Buffet seems to achieve a consistent degree of success on the stock market. As well, in order to associate this point of view with my own, you’d have to add the stipulations about continuing success of kin…
This part of it is less in line with my own perspective. I am not unwilling to examine moral points of view because I think it would breach what I consider “real” or “serious” philosophy. It is just I have yet to come across a moral position which provides a grounds for behaviour whose idea of the good is grounded on something beyond a leap of faith and is self-consistent, etc.
I have tried to indicate above how my position is different from might makes “right”. I think that conflicts of might may in fact lead to negotiation… I do think, though, that my formulation accounts for individuals increasing in ability and so if an opposing part did not also engage in it they would likely be outpaced in future conflicts.
I think that people engage in moral and political agendas, as you say. Sometimes adhering to one, or proselytizing, may even enable one success (by accumulating the strength of adherents). And that this could interfer with a given individual’s (including my own) pursuit of what I have elaborated as good. Insofar as their efforts kept me from obtaining that measure of the good, it would be bad for me.
Here is a place that I think we have a bit of an issue with what we are trying to get at. I am not sure that I will be able to successfully disentangle it all at once so we might have to pursue it over a few responses if you wish.
You said somehow, some way a policy must be in place, but if things were run by what I believe you mean are the laws of the jungle then wouldn’t that be more like there not being some kind of policy in place, or if it was a policy it would not be manmade policy but the policy of nature as it existed as the condition before man’s creation of laws?
But another problem I have with what you are asking is that you seem to be asking me a question of should, what rules or behaviour should laws be predicated upon. But do either of us either have a formulation which grounds such a should objectively or even have an opinion on such a should?
I mean, I have opinions on what I would like to have for laws, but I wouldn’t defend them as being objectively the best for everyone. I wouldn’t necessarily even try to defend them for being the best for everyone as could possibly be among all imperfect systems (my opinions, that is).
I think it might be fruitful (in general, not necessarily to us for our discussion) to look over history (including modern society) and try to examine upon what grounds laws have been predicated and how they came to be that way.
The only thing I really take issue with here is what you say at the end about deserving to, which is besides the point and not really what I am saying.
Also in a more minor way, I am not saying that everything is about self-gratification as you associate to the sociopath. In some ways what gratifies us (gives us pleasure) could be bad in the sense of making us less fit.
This, I don’t think is a portrait of myself. Even if you did accept (hypothetically) what I am saying as the good, it wouldn’t automatically make us winners, because whether we had attained the could would be measurable by our access to resources, abilities and so forth. In some ways, accepting my position could entail accepting that one has not attained the good.
And again I don’t think what I am saying is a political agenda because it has no stable political form. Even if someone attains the top and forms a society, there is nothing within what I am saying which would negate the possibility that all that would change by pursuing the same idea of the good.
I think we could better word the formulation of Joe and Jane’s idea of the good for clarity.
Are we saying that Jane thinks it is good to have the baby because she is ready to be a parent and raise a child with Joe? Does she think it is good to raise the child with Joe if Joe does not feel ready or desire to raise a child with her?
And Joe is saying that he thinks it is not good to have the child because he is not ready to be a parent? I would ask, is it good for Joe to have a child despite his not desiring to have one?
If you wish you can answer the questions I have asked and pose any questions for me that you think are relevant to the examination.
I didn’t say that it was necessarily the case that they are both right and so the best would be for them to enforce their perspective, I only said that might be a possibility which wouldn’t necessarily disagree with how I have formulated my position of the good.
I am not sure yet that both of their perspectives have merit, we should examine them more first and begin with the questions I have posed and you can pose more for me if you wish.
I am not saying that my perspective of the good “ought” to prevail. Neither am I saying that it becomes so because someone is able to use brute force to coerce other people to think it is so. I am trying to examine whether it is so because it is logically consistent and based on the experience of the world, as well as the terminology being self-consistent.
Next you asked in which direction I think our discussion could have progressed, which I answered at the top of this response.
In regards to you saying that people argue endlessly about which foods are healthiest to eat, do you think that they argue about it because their opinion of what constitutes health are different, or because certain facts are as yet unknown about the nutritional properties of given foods?
If it is the former, that opinions about what constitutes health is different, it might be interesting to examine differing perspectives about what constitutes health. If it is that someone would think that health can differ for individuals based on what their innate skills and propensities are, so that it is better for some to promote certain aspects of their health because it will contribute to their individual fitness, whereas others would do better to cultivate other aspects, I might possibly agree with that, as long as in cultivating certain aspects at the expense of others did not lead to a neglect of something which would ultimately be detrimental to the overall fitness
In terms of whose health, the individual’s health who is in question.
In what context? I am not sure exactly what you mean by that. I would say in the context of their health over time and in the context of their health in the moment of contributing or diminishing to it.
Some will indeed turn it into a moral issue. If you wish to examine the issue of whether eating meat is good (and not on the grounds that meat eating may provide some nutrition) then we can attempt that. We can begin with asking, why is meat eating bad (if not for nutritional reasons)?
Yes, someone might think that poisoning me is a good thing and me continuing to be healthy is a bad thing, and by my own logic they could be right (in a certain context). For example, if I stood in their way of obtaining my elaboration of the good so that they could not otherwise remove me as an obstacle.
That is indeed what I am saying. This is again why I say that my formulation is different from might makes right or right makes might. Just because something is good for one person does not mean that the good for that person is good for everybody. But the formulation I am making is meant to be good for everybody on its own grounds (that is, that is good for every individual themselves to obtain resources, abilities and the rest).
I am not sure what you wish to get at here, particularly at the end. You are suggesting that it could be possible that, despite someone achieving what I have elaborated as the good, they might not be the “winner” in this situation, but perhaps the loser, and the person who did not achieve that notion of the good was the real winner? If that is what you mean, could you explain how the person who did not achieve that good was the winner? If you meant something else, could you please clarify?
For the objectivists however a “deeper understanding” ever and always revolves around seeing things the way they do. Or so it has always seemed to me.
Yes, there are any number of circumstantial contexts here resulting in any number of particular sets of consequences. My point is that there does not appear to be a way in which to establish from all points of view an optimal [or only] “good”.
Indeed, there are parents like Susan Smith who murdered her sons and rationalized it to her own satisfaction. My point then is that in a Godless universe we are not able to establish that this behavior is necessarily evil. Or, rather, here, construct an argument able to demonstrate that it is.
This is one possible trajectory. But there are any number of additional trajectories [with good or bad consequences for the people involved] that might have unfolded given different sets of variables. The permutations are all but infinite. But the objectivists insist that an argument can be devised [their own] that allows us to just “know” the difference between right and wrong, good and evil.
“In our head” in other words.
For any number of sociopaths, the part about gambling revolves less around whatever the consequences of their behaviors might be [deemed good or bad from conflicting points of view] and more around whether they will be caught if others deem the consequences worthy of him or her being punished.
If Bob is an atheist, convinced that the deaths of all mere mortals results in the obliteration of “I” for all eternity, why would he be concerned with his “bloodline”? Indeed, one suspects that this is an important reason why the Gods must be invented.
God becomes the omniscient and omnipotent font able to differentiate objectively between Good and Evil. And if your behaviors are deemed Evil by Him there is no question of not getting caught or of not being punished.
I meant “you” generically…any of us. For the narcissistic sociopath everything revolves around “what’s in it for me” “here and now”. Few of these folks will actually sit down and ponder in depth the “philosophical” implications of their behaviors. And I suggest in turn that for those who do make the effort to “think it all through”, there does not appear to be a basis for embracing objectivism. Only a frame of mind that they have been able to think themselves into believing “here and now” “in their head”.
Yet there are those who insist that either through genes [biological imperatives] or memes [social imperatives] we can get to the bottom of it once and for all. What they can’t acknowledge is the astounding complexities and ambiguities embedded in human behaviors that reflect a profoundly problematic conflucence of both sets of variables.
This part:
Of the objectivists, I ask for an argument able to reduce the conflicts – the conflicting goods – down to the so-called optimal frame of mind.
But your frame of mind [from my frame of mind] seems to revolve more around a particular subjective rendition of “might makes right”. You embrace behaviors that allow you to achieve a greater measure of success in “accessing material resources”. If you achieve this [whatever the means] then you prevail. End of story?
But then you bump into those who embody right makes might or democracy and the rule of law. “Rules of behaviors” must be established. Why your rules and not theirs?
One set of parents insists that their children stay away from drugs, premarital sex, homosexuality, eating animal flesh, guns, God and religion, socialism, the boob tube and on and on and on.
What constitues being a good or a bad parent here? When, for example, both families are in fact able to accumultate the resources they need to thrive?
Okay, choose one of the examples I noted above and we can discuss the distinction between “good” and “bad” behavior.
You note:
My point here would be that there are in turn conflicting assessments regarding the extent to which in any particular community of folks go about the business of accumulating resources. Here too one could only come up with “an estimation…of what would be ‘best’”
In the best of all possible worlds, sex would not result in unwanted pregnancies. But in the world that we actually live in it often does. And different folks in different sets of circumstances will have different vantage points from which to confront the consequences of it. Are some necessarily more rational than others?
My main point here is to note the manner in which I have come to understand the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy — as this becomes pertinent to any particular individual’s reaction to sex and pregnancy and abortion. That there does not appear to be [philosophically or otherwise] a way in which to differentiate good from bad behaviors. At least not necessarily.
Then this part:
Yes, it can be construed this way. But I suspect that many who employ it as a justication for what they do, are simply pointing out that others have no real capacity “for all practical purposes” to stop them from doing it. They care little for “morality” here. It all revolves around having or not having the power to impose their will on others.
If the rich and powerful – those “at the top” – sustain a political economy that favors their own accumulation of resourses, it is either because they simply can do so, or because they rationalize global capitalism – “the virtue of selfishness” – as a moral font; or they are willing to moderate their point of view and negotiate and compromise with those who do not share their own “convictions” here. One or another rendition of the welfare state for example.
Which combination of narratives/agendas here constitutes the “best”? And this in my view is embedded existentially in the components of my own argument.
But you can see why others might be appalled at kowtowing to the teacher’s will here, right? And basically in doing so you are “having your own actions dictated to by the teacher”; rather “than being the one shaping the world”. Your world.
But in demanding that you share his own values, opinions, political convictions etc., in your answers, isn’t the teacher basically doing this? If you don’t bend to his will you don’t get the grade you need to achieve success.
Some embraced the Nazis because they shared the Nazi narrative and agenda. And had the Nazis won the war their “access to material resources and physical abilities to influence the world in his or her favor” would have been all the more assured.
That’s what those who wished to shape their own destiny instead are forced to gamble on. To resist or not to resist the state here? Yet every particular individual is embedded in their unique set of circumstances, their own unique set of options.
And whether with respect to the Nazi rendition of destiny or their own, they are [from my frame of mind] no less embedded in the manner in which I construe the meaning of identity and conflicting goods.
My frame of mind revolves around the speculation that in a Godless world, any and all human behaviors can be rationalized as “good” or “bad”. Convictions here are [for me] just existential contraptions such that we are predisposed to embrace particular political prejudices in one or another historical, cultural and experiential context.
Me? That sends me tumbling over yet again into my dilemma above. What I do in venues like this is to seek out the narratives of those who do not tumble down into it.
But the negotiations have to revolve around a compromise that is predicated either on an acknowledgment that both powers can gain access to the resources that they need, or that in some manner one party really does deserve to prevail — but that here and now they are willing to take half a loaf.
In the end it still comes down to might makes right if the compromise collapses.
Here though I am more interested in exploring the extent to which your own frame of mind is in turn just one more existential contraption. That you think this way now but that new experiences, new relationships, new sources of information/knowledge etc., may well upend your current assumptions and you come to think about these relationships in a different way.
This is the part that, in my own opinion, the objectivists are most discomfitted regarding. What if the way I think about these things becomes the way that they do too? What if their own “I” begins “to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together with respect to choosing sides morally and politically”?
The policy revolves around this: My way or the highway. Or the dungeon. Or death.
It is merely assumed that for whatever reason particular folks see themselves as the masters to whom the sheep must obey.
Here the rulers are not interested in God or political ideology or deontological philosophical contraptions. They seek only to accummulate the best of everything for themselves. Why? Because they can. You can’t “reason” with them. You can only accummulate the necessary wherewithal to defeat them.
My point then becomes that this is not necessarily an irrational point of view.
That questions of “should we do this or that” revolve only around the most efficient means to achieve our ends.
Still, how is this frame of mind not but just one more existential contraption rooted in dasein?
This part:
Here I would only suggest that the part about “deserving” is just one more subjective/subjunctive leap of faith. You may have thought yourself into thinking that a deserved end is beside the point, but how is that not just one one instance of a frame of mind rooted existentially in the particular life [and experiences] that you had; rather than in a frame of mind that can be defended as necessarily more rational than any other. As a conviction that all reasonable/rational men and women are obligated to share.
In other words…
Still, my point here is always this: that when we take this sort of “abstract” speculation out into the world of actual conflicting goods, we become hopelssly entangled in turn in conflicting sets of assumptions.
Which “for all practical purposes” become embedded in conflicting political prejudices. With respect to both means and ends.
Which always brings me back to this:
From my frame of mind there are basically two ways in which to think about this. Good is either understood as “good for me here and now” or “good for any reasonable man or woman”.
In the first context, Jane’s wants the baby. She would like Joe to raise it with her but her primary concern is with her own wants and needs.
In the second context, she is convinced that any reasonable man or woman would see that raising the baby as a good thing. Joe is just not able to grasp that yet.
What then would you say to Jane and Joe if they came to you with their conflicted goods? How would your own position on the good be conveyed to them?
How would your calculations regarding the “merits” of their respective subjective assessments not just be but one more subjective assessment in turn?
Yes, but the point I keep coming back to here is this: They insist on seeing it that way. A behavior that you have chosen is challenged by another. You wish to go beyond “is/ought” but they refuse to. They insist that you ought not to behave that way because it is “immoral”. They may even pass laws to punish you for behaving that way. And their frame of mind is thought to be logically consistent with whatever particular set of assumptions they start out with to “prove” their point.
This is the part I am still rather fuzzy regarding. You may well be making an important distinction here that I just keep missing.
But…
Jim thinks that stringent gun control laws is a good thing. Jack thinks that stringent gun control laws is a bad thing. They make arguments similiar to these:
Now, both sets of arguments are reasonable given an initial set of assumptions. And neither side is able to make the arguments and the assumptions of the other side just go away.
How then is this…
“…the formulation I am making is meant to be good for everybody on its own grounds (that is, that is good for every individual themselves to obtain resources, abilities and the rest)…”
…apllicable here?
If Jim believes that accumulating material resources in any particular community revolves around him being fully armed and Jack believes this “good” is best accomplished in a community where private ownership of handguns is prohibited, how would we differentiate winners and losers here?
Are citizens in America more the winners while citizens in countries like France and England more the losers? Or is it the other way around?
How, using your own formulation of the “good” and “merit”, would you address this?
I’m not sure if you care, but I think that in this response there is a mix of what I was calling progress and what I would consider regression. I will point out where I think so in the posts because it is relevant of how I can respond to them in such a way which clarify and puts forward my position. Another way of thinking of how I am using the word progress is that I cannot or will not reason a position which is not my own.
This is not what I intended when I said so. Even when I say that you would understand my position, it does not necessarily mean you would agree with it, but being able to respond to my position, or at least see it, for what it is rather than something else. But I also meant that in explaining or contemplating your responses that I could get a deeper understanding of what I am saying as well.
… … … … … … … … …
If there is one thing I wish to hear your response on and discuss it is this:
But just because someone else says something is so does not mean that it is. Why should you take that assertion seriously, just because someone says it is so, without having examined whether it is in fact the case?
In regard to the first part, I have put forward a view of the good. We can examine other views of what is taken as good and see if they are consistent and even in being consistent conflict with my own entirely. Besides that, I don’t think we have come yet to a point of refuting my position on its own grounds.
In regard to the second part, I have not defended a position that Susan Smith’s behaviour is necessarily evil.
Rather than saying that there are “good and bad” things, I think in order for our discussion to really get somewhere we would have to say what they were and examine them.
Also, you then speak about objectivists and bring up the terms “right and wrong, good and evil” none of which are part of the position I have been reasoning. These things and above about Susan necessary evil are part of what I alluded to as the regression of the discussion because they seem to want me to argue positions which aren’t my own and I either cannot or will not.
I am not sure why you bring up these sociopaths here. I did not say that my position was that sociopaths were good, so why is that relevant?
I do, though, think that the consequences of being caught and punished for an action is a significant factor when determining the consequences of making it.
Here, I am not quite sure why you decided to go on the way you did about gods and the rest.
I was proposing in what is quoted above the scenario you are saying, that Bob is an atheist and is not concerned that his (or any/all) bloodlines would be removed from living existence in the future. My response was that insofar as Bob and his bloodlines do not exist in living consciousness, there is no real matter of good and bad. Therefore, I am looking at the notions of good and bad from the perspective of the living. By saying good and bad, I am not saying good and evil, and I have no brought God or gods into this.
I am not sure what the point you are trying to make is. I have given you my position and we are discussing it. If you think that I should see some reason not to embrace my position, you may propose it to me and I will do my best to think through it. I do not see that saying that there are people who think differently is a convincing argument against my position. By the same token we could say that there are people who think any number of crazy things but that wouldn’t necessarily mean we should adopt them or doubt our own perspective.
If you are not asking why “should” my rules and not theirs be the ones that are adopted, but something like why do they, it would be because one of us has the might to put them forward so that I must merely adopt them, make some effort to change them (which either may or may not be successful) or lash out, or some other such attempt within my power. Isn’t that the case for all of us?
First I would say that considering them a good or bad parent in moral terms is not what I am doing here, so insofar as that is what you are asking, you are asking me to try to defend something which isn’t my position. Secondly, I have not said that the goal is merely to accumulate what one needs to survive but to obtain resources (including abilities) to reach a position of superiority and ability to influence the world.
When examining these scenarios from the point of view of the latter, the best we can do is make estimations on how various things will affect our ability to achieve that state. (I have told you before about how the best we can do is make hypotheses about what will happen in the future, unless one is omniscent and not mortal.) So for the case of drugs, would doing drugs influence those things (ability to obtain resources and abilities, etc.)? Would premarital sex, which might result in unwanted pregnancies, influence those things?
Would homosexuality (here I will put forward the idea of the continuing bloodline, and again say insofar as the bloodline stops questions of good or bad are no longer at issue) — a parent who wants to continue that bloodline might be against it for that reason, but remember I am not making statements of “right or wrong”.
and so on with the rest.
Okay, you will have to work with me though for this examination because we surely don’t want me merely examining it from my own view of good or bad, but to examine whether there are other self-consistent goods which may or may not conflict with my own. Right?
We can discuss God and religion. If you would prefer we can discussion socialism, if you have no preference we can discuss God and religion.
So how will we go about determining positions, different than my own, about why God and religion are good? I suppose we could consult others who think they are good for different reason(s) (to mine), or try to propose ones ourselves? Do you have any suggestions?
Yes, people go about accumulating resources in different ways. In regard to orienting ourselves to an unknown future, we can only estimate or hypothesize how things will work out, is that what you mean by the bit at the end about estimating? Or do you mean estimating on what is good in general (on whether accumulating resources, abilities and the rest) are good?
If you mean the former, I would agree. We hypothesize about the effects of our actions and find out their result once we have made them.
Here you are asking me about people being rational, but you must know I do not think that people are rational. Are you asking me if some ways of dealing with the consequences of pregnancies are better than others? Well you know the reason I would think some ways are better (because it would be beneficial to the fitness of those parties being considered, parents and children…).
We would have to examine other positions on the good on their own merits.
Well I have made an attempt to differentiate good or bad. I do not see as yet how my position has been shown to be other than what I have said, nor have we discussed a particular position which conflicts with my own and which is self-consistently good and so holds the right to at least dethrone my own from consideration of being good.
Those who employ such a justification may very well be doing it for that reason, and others may, for practical purposes, have no capacity to stop them. Those with power may care little for morality… Nonetheless this whole business of their justification still seems to me to be mainly a rationalization. If they can impose their view, why bother being “right” about it or not? To me it seems more of a matter of they impose it and such are the facts. I am not sure where we could get with this. Perhaps if someone wished to discuss why their imposition is right we might be able to examine it more deeply.
Even if those at the top rationalized what they call the virtues of capitalism, wouldn’t their obtaining the most successful position in that system still be because they were able to (as you put it, they simply can do so). Even if by rationalizing those virtues and preaching them to others, the general population went along with the capitalist system and thus enabled the conditions which made those people succeed, wouldn’t that rationalizing and preaching be part of their ability to maintain the system and their position?
I would put forward the possibility that the welfare state and moderating capitalism results because others with amounts of concrete power (ability) are able to put forward their position which enables them to obtain a little more than they otherwise would, and those at the top think it worth sacrificing some part of what they might otherwise obtain to appease the populace so that they can maintain their position in security. Another reason would be because in the system of capitalism you also want those who are healthy or able enough to do the work and other tasks, and so some certain amount of maintaining the populace is needed for that reason.
The best for whom?
I did agree and stated in what is quoted above that having one’s actions dictated by others is worse. It is better to have the ability to shape your world, that has been my position from the beginning.
But getting the higher grade, in this scenario, increases fitness (the ability to use that grade to access other avenues of power and ability in a social system). The actual fact of needing to express views that are not one’s own indicates a lack of ability, but does not necessarily decrease one’s ability. On the contrary it can be an avenue to increase.
They may very well have shared the Nazi agenda, and have been given access to resources and ability, but the point I am making in regards to the Nazis and the position of good I am defending is that the National Socialist system was a dictatorship and so by becoming an adherent to it one is necessarily accepting a position higher than oneself which remains fixed in place (the führer) and in doing so limits their own ability to rise within that system and shape the world.
My position would be that insofar as they are not able to resist the state and so are put in that subordinate position it would be bad for them, even if they would achieve a relative good such as the security and resources provided from living in the state. The reason is because my position of the good is one that is geared towards growth and not stagnation.
I would say rather that the negotiations would be made on the basis of thinking that the negative effects of the conflict would outstrip those of the compromise they are willing to make.
Well if that is what you are concerned with, you can try to figure it out however you see fit. As I see it, I am attempting to examine positions and determine their merits.
I think that question is more for you, because it seems to me that the reason people would adopt or accept that position you described is because it reflects the situation of living in the world.
Again the bolded part I think is more of a question for you. As I said I do not think that humans are rational nor are they obligated by some form of higher truth. In regard to whether the deserving is merely a rationalization (as I say) or something that is actually the case remains to be proven. Perhaps someone would have to explicate what it means to deserve and then demonstate how that aligns with the state of affairs brought about by the ability to acheive a given thing.
I am wondering why you didn’t answer the questions I proposed? Did you think they were irrelevant to the discussion? If so, why? The reason I think that it is significant is because we are moving a step away from examining the positions of good you brought forward from Jane and Joe.
I think there is a slightly different way of understanding good, but it is connected to the first you described. There is good for me here and now as well as continuing in the future.
In the first context she wants to raise the baby with Joe. Does she want to raise it with Joe regardless of whether Joe wants to raise the baby with her? Her concern is primarily with her own wants and needs, does raising the baby satisfy her wants and needs? How? And does it satisfy them even if she raises them without the (at least emotional) support of the father?
In the second context, why does she think that any reasonable man or woman would see the raising of the baby as a good thing?
I would do one of two things or both. I would either examine their respective positions through questions as I am trying to do with you above, or else I would tell them my position on good and bad and let them decide.
Whether my position is merely just one subjective position among many would depend on whether another view of the good is self-consistently good, and we haven’t proposed and examined such a view yet. I haven’t encountered such a view yet. There seems not immediate reason to think that it is so yet. One might be open to the possibility, which is why I am ready to examine other positions.
But just because someone else says something is so does not mean that it is. One could say that it is good for you to chop off your toes, but why should you take that assertion seriously, just because they say so?
If they pass laws which dictate a certain behaviour or lack of behaviour it has bearing on what one does, but it doesn’t necessarily prove that a law is good because it is passed.
Whether other points of view are consistent remains to be seen. We would have to examine them and find out first.
One would have to examine each of the arguments. The first one is regarding the constitution of the United States. It is basically an argument based on authority, the constitution says this and the constitution says that. They both assume that whatever the constitution says dictates what is good, which is not proven in itself regardless of which argument is accepted or is in line with the constitution of the United States.
The second arguments refer to preventing deaths, either guns do or they don’t cause more deaths. Firstly, they are based on facts. The facts might be unknown to those presenting their arguments or hearing their arguments, but either one is right (as supported by the facts) or else guns have no impact on crime whether they are present or absent.
If guns have an impact on crime, who does that affect (who is it good or bad for)? The badness would be for the people who experience crime, insofar as it removes their lives or else their ability (perhaps paralyzes them or affects their health or property, etc.) and so it would be on behalf of those who are the victims of crime that they would wish to defend the position that crime is bad. And the badness of it is related to my position.
The third arguments refers to self-defense and safety which, like the second argument, has a bearing on what I put forward as my position of the good (insofar as people would be injured or killed or have their property damaged and so consider those things bad.)
On the pro side of argument four, it is again a matter of safety which is directly related to my notion of the good. On the con side it refers to the right to own guns for hunting and sport. It again makes an appeal to the authority of “rights” granted by law, which say nothing as yet of whether those laws are in themselves good or not. If one wished to examine whether hunting or sport is good for those who do it one could either examine different arguments as to why they are good, or else examine them under my criteria and ask do they give access to resources and abilities and the rest, etc.
Argument five on the pro side says that guns are rarely used in self-defense. This is trying to disprove one of the con arguments. It could be either true or false factually (either it is used in self defense often or it is used rarely). Even if it is used rarely for self defense, that does not mean it cannot be used at all for self defense and so those who wish to possess guns for self defense on those grounds might still desire them for that reason.
On the con side, they say criminals will obtain guns regardless of control laws. Even if this were true it says nothing in itself as to whether possessing a gun is good or bad in itself.
I could go on with all these arguments, if you wish me to discuss gun control or what I have said about these arguments we can. If that is the case, we might want to discuss gun control rather than God and religion (or socialism) simply because of all the time it will take…
You said “If Jim believes accumulating material resources revolves around him being fully armed…” Firstly, it is not a matter of what Jim believes, it is a matter of whether it is so or not. Can it be proven or at least assumed with some reasoning that being fully armed helps Jim accumulate resources?
The same goes for Jack, can it either be proven or assumed based on some reasoning that prohibited gun ownership accomplishes the accumulation of resources best?
The question would be, as I asked there above, whether gun ownership affects what I have put forward as the good. Does owning guns among the citizenry influence one’s access to resources and abilities?
I think that the state’s ownership and successful use of arms and force has a greater impact on the citizens access to resources particularly in modern constitutional democracies.
I can come at this in a lot of ways iambiguous. I settled on this one.
You take the position that it is enlightened to see every act as good, note that some are opposed to each other, which will cause endless war. People who want endless peace, find this disturbing, which is why you get backlash… your repeated reply to them is to make peace with endless war.
Let’s step back and examine the most primal element of your theory - everyone has a good reason to have the thoughts and desires they have, and to realize them. This is called wealth. The realization of the primal. The more realizations of this in ones self, the more wealth, the better. If one person has all the wealth, say, protection from others harming them as they see harm, then others also need wealth such as controlling impulse or being good company. So immediately it becomes obvious that you need others to be wealthy in order for you to be wealthy, besides, its axiomatic, that the more wealth in the total system, the better, as wealth is defined as that which is good. Translating wealth is the process of passing on wealth to others without losing it yourself.
The prime directive to this regard, is to work on a system where everyone experiences their divergent senses of wealth simultaneously - meaning that one person’s sense of wealth doesn’t dis-allow someone else’s sense of this in cases where they seem to diverge. To do this, you are under a direct imperative from your own formulation to think outside the box in order to not be a hypocrite of the initial points you make about these seemingly insoluble complexities.