My problem remains…
I read all of this about prong#1 and I am still fuzzy – really fuzzy – regarding how the conclusions that you have come to [here and now] are relevant out in a particular world in which conflicting behaviors are precipitated by conflicting value judgments.
For me, the “self” fragments only to the extent that “I” becomes embedded in moral and political conflicts. It is more or less whole – intact – regarding those aspects of your life that are embedded/embodied in objective reality. For example, I at any given point in time is embedded in a body that, in accordance with biological laws embedded in the evolution of life on earth, is what it is. It may riddled with cancer, it may be on the brink of death. Those are facts about I the body – as regarding all other empirical facts about your existence – that [at any point in time] are substantially real.
Moral objectivists do not feel fragmented precisely because they have managed to convince themselves that 1] they are in touch with their true self and 2] that their true self is in sync with the objective reality of the world around them.
It is only when your own value judgments do come into conflict with others that prong#1 encounters the possibility of being fragmented. Or so it seems to me. You could live alone on an island totally apart from everyone else and come to encompass a wholly unfragmented sense of self. Why? Because it is just a mental contraption in your head that is never challenged regarding the things you choose to do.
Only if you believed in God, is there a possibility of fragmentation here.
I would have to be convince that when the behaviors of two or more individuals come into conflict over value judgments, there is a philosophical argument available to them such that they do not become entangled in my dilemma.
This will either happen or it will not. But there is little or no possibility of it occuring if I do not come into places like this and encounter the arguments.
With you, the quandary revolves more or less around my inability to understand how your “subjectivism” would be any more effective when your own value judgments come into conflict with others given the manner in which I construe these conflicts as – existentially – the embodiment of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
And yes, at this point in my life, being effectively cut off from others [other than virtually] my motivation does revolve more around curiosity: is there a way out of my labyrinthian dilemma – the maze – that I simply have not thought of yet?
Here, I always make the distinction between what someone believes is true “in their head” and what they are able to demonstrate as true for all rational human beings. And since it is the theist who believes in the existence of God, it is incumbent upon the theist to demonstrate that this is in fact true. Otherwise one can argue that God exists at the center of the universe and then challenge the atheist to prove that He does not.
Yes, it is embedded in the distinction between arguing about something [scientific or otherwise] and demonstrating it. It’s just that for scientists this is almost always relating to the world of either/or. What is the nature of reality? And not “ought it to have been something else instead”?
And yet among the objectivists, an issue is almost never resolved until you agree to become “one of us”. And that rarely revolves around moderation, negotiation and compromise. Many here detest democracy precisely because it is said to be out of sync with the only “natural” way to behave. The way that they do.
There appear to be two ways in which to enforce your values in a non-democratic context:
1] via brute force [autocracy]
2] in sharing a conviction that right makes might [theocracy or one or another political/ideological “Ism”]
But: Is there one? And how exactly would they go about obviating conflicting goods? How, for example, can we live in a world where babies have the right to be born and women are not forced to give birth?
And how [realistically] is a distinction to be made between “applying” one’s values and “enforcing” them? The law is going to have to draw the line somewhere, right? At some point, women are going to be forced to give birth or face the possibility of sanctions from the community. Otherwise, it becomes “abortion on demand”. And that will surely enrage those in the pro-life camp. Indeed, many want to charge women with murder once the point of conception itself is reached.
Even regarding the homeless there are political arguments hurled back and forth: debate.org/opinions/should-w … e-homeless
Indeed, some argue that rather than just feed and house them we should bring them into a political movement that brings down the capitalist political economy. And then embraces socialism instead. Then the conflicting arguments arise regarding the extent to which this can or ought to be accomplished through revolutionary stuggle. To use or not to use violence.
For many, many years I was active in the political struggle to change people’s minds. A veritable alphabet soup of organizations: CP, RCP, SWP, NAM, DSOC, DSA. Back then in other words I was still more or less an objectivist myself. There was no dilemma to contend with.
Now, due largely to health issues, I am no longer “out in the world” politically. But: As I disengaged from political activism, I came more and more to embrace moral and political nihilism.
So: Is that a fortunate or an unfortunate thing? Well, one would have to be inside my head and think about these things as I do now to grapple with that. And trust me: I do still grapple with it. If for no other reason that I still react subjunctively to the news from day to day to day.
I construe rationalization here more as a psychological defense mechanism. You come up with a reason for doing what you do that allows you to feel the least critical about yourself.
Again, as I noted to Faust on another thread, here the sociopath is either more or less self-conscious in choosing self-gratification as a moral font.
He is either a psychopath, someone way, way beyond reasoning with, or I can attempt to ferret out the reason if he is not. Then I am either able to convince him of a better reason not to or I can’t.
My point though is that I am not able to concoct an argument such that whatever he does I have at least established that which he is morally obligated to do.
And I suspect many react to my arguments here such that a concern begins to creep into their head. A concern that I might be right. And, if I am, what does that tell them about their own value judgments?