The Grand Scheme

Okay, with respect to morality on this side of the grave and immortality and salvation on the other side of the grave, how is the God of the savants different from the God of mere mortals?

In my view, what’s crucial is that if No God then there is no transcending font available in which to obviate the idea/praxis embedded/embodied in “beyond good and evil”. In other words, “any aim is lacking, any answer to the question ‘why’ is lacking. What does nihilism mean?—that the supreme values devaluate themselves.”

Moral nihilism [as I have come to understand it] is derived precisely from the assumption that no Gods exist.

But my point is in making the distinction between 1] those things expressed as “what it seems like to me” able to be demonstrated as that which is in fact true for all rational human beings and 2] those things that are embodied only in subjective personal opinions and political prejudices. It would be the distinction between demonstrating that this discussion is in fact unfolding here at ILP and demonstrating which of our narratives is more in sync epistemologically with the whole rational truth.

Between saying “it seems to me that Mary had an abortion” [she either did or did not…applicable to all of us] and “it seems to me that abortions are immoral” [some argue yes, others no]. With [in my view] no “value ontology” able to demonstrate that it either is or is not. Instead, value judgments, are embedded existentially in the manner in which I have come to construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

What I am curious about regarding you is that which you think is reasonable or unreasonable when your own value judgments come into conflict with others.

Again, I can only imagine you in the middle of any particular confrontation among any particular group of people. One side embracing the “natural right” [God given or otherwise] of the baby to live, the other side embracing the “political right” of the women to choose to kill it.

What I am imagining is the incredulity in their faces as they respond, “what on earth does that have to do with the life or the death of this baby?”

And how would whatever rational argument given [from either side] not be embedded in dasein? How is a purely “philosophical argument” to be derived that obviates the manner in which we are brainwashed as children to think one thing rather than another; and how, over the course of the life that we live, we become embedded in experiences that predispose us to one or another political prejudice?

Thus, what I am looking for from you [and others] is your own rendition of this:

1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin. Both in and out of church.
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.

Thus when someone asks me about my own value judgments here, I can note this particular existential trajectory.

In other words, why, with respect to conflicting value judgments, I am now entangled in my dilemma above. Ever and always I am curious to note how others manage not to be.

And yet when I try to pin this down…

I get this…

That is your answer?!!!

Note to others:

Try, if you will, to reconfigure this point into an argument that I might begin to grasp more clearly. How is it an effective rebuttal to the points I make above?

Wouldn’t it have been easier to just make a video? :wink:

Just joshing.

Why don’t you join the discussion? You know, when you are finished “chatting” with mr reasonable.

And, sure, invite Pezer.

Simply put, the God of the philosophers was pure Reason.

Sounds like this is coming from the “pro life” side. The “pro choice” party no less than the “pro life” party appeals to a supposed natural right. The one appeals to the natural rights of the baby, the other rather to those of the mother. The antonym of “natural right” is “positive right”, not “political right”, by the way.

I’ve provided a rational standard for deciding whether or not to have an abortion. You’re just saying “I can’t imagine a group of protesters and counterprotesters would be swayed by reason”.

To be sure, the problem isn’t limited to protests and the like, when emotions heat up. Most people will never be swayed by my argument, because they just don’t value philosophy; they will prefer to insist that they’re already wise (or their God is), that they don’t need philosophy. But saying that they can’t help acting like that because their minds are embedded in dasein is no excuse; with that, they deserve to be overpowered by force or by guile or both. Tigers can’t help eating people when they encounter them, but that doesn’t mean tigers are accepted in society as the equals of men…

Yes, because that should make it clear to you–if you’ve been paying attention to what I’ve been saying–that my view on abortion is this: “if aborting your baby furthers philosophy more, you should abort it; if keeping it furthers it more, you should keep it.”

Why the obssession about quotation marks?

Yep.

The word value as used generally. Thus that which has to be broken up and made to dance.

Hmm…

I am trying to grasp how I might make this relevant to that which interests me philosophically – the relationship between identity [dasein], value judgments [conflicting goods] and power [political economy].

Nope, nothing comes to mind.

Also, what on earth does it mean to explore this in differentiating the God of the philosophers [the God of pure Reason] and the God worshiped and adored by all the rest of them [actual denominational Gods]?

As this pertains to conflicting human behaviors derived from conflicting moral and political narratives/agendas.

To the extent that others understand the manner in which I am now entangled in my dilemma, they recognize that I am in both camps. That I could not not be in both camps.

Again, here is the actual existential trajectory. I always come back to this in order to remind the objectivists that they themselves almost never explore their own values in a similar manner. At least not with me. Instead, most are convinced that, using the tools of philosophy, a trajectory of this sort can be obviated by subsuming their values in one or another scholastic, intellectual contraption. An “analysis”. A “world of words”.

1] I was raised in the belly of the working class beast. My family/community were very conservative. Abortion was a sin. Both in and out of church.
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.

Here and now this trajectory has predisposed me to embrace the political narrative of those in the pro-choice camp. But that does not make the arguments of the pro-life camp go away. And I can well imagine an existential trajectory in which I sustained the pro-life narrative I started out with. Had I for example had a higher draft number.

Now, please examine your own value judgments relating to abortion [or to another set of conflicting goods that we will all be familiar with] and note how you have come to believe that your own “rational standard” must be the standard of all reasonable men and women.

How is your “rational standard” different from, say, Kant’s deontological agenda? or from the philosophical realism embedded in philosophers like Plato?

My point is this: How do the “value ontologists” on either side of the political divide make the conflicting goods go away? And how do they construct an argument that renders the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein and political economy go away?

Now, I’m not suggesting that such arguments do not exist. Instead, with respect to abortion and all the other is/ought conflagrations, I argue only that I have not come across an argument [of late] that convinces me that moral objectivism is compatible – for all practical purposes – with human interaction out in the real world.

But: If you have managed to convince yourself, fine. That “works” for you. My point is only that any number of moral objectivists down through the ages have then set about to root out those they deem to be “one of them” and not “one of us”.

But not you?

Classic objectivism. How is that not but one more rendition of this:

1] I am rational
2] I am rational because I have access to the ideal
3] I have access to the ideal because I grasp the one true nature of the objective world
4] I grasp the one true nature of the objective world because I am rational

Unless, perhaps, I am not understanding your point here.

Note to others:

So, given your own experience with abortion, is this even remotely how folks decide these things?

And, if not, are they then “sheep”?

Deep.

But that’s really not what I had in mind when asking you to join the discussion. :wink:

Its amusing that you are derailing my thread, and when I bring it back on topic, you ask me to ‘join the discussion’.

Sauwelios so far is the only one who has proven to have a clue as to what the OP is about.

I am not however in any sense offended, as this thread, the Grand Scheme, the red line that runs through the foreseeable future, does indeed run through dusty deserts.

Its aim is not to absorb or teach these deserts life, but to provide a means for the beings that have been lost in that desert to return to the land of the living.

The old and tired dry semantic relativisms are desert-sands; Sowilos dancing fire and sharp knife is something else. We ask not out of intellectual masturbation, but out of excess of love.

How do we show the world to love itself?

By ‘problematizing’ “value”.

Right.

And just to remind everyone, here is the entire extent of the OP [ the Grand Scheme]:

To which Erik pointed out:

And that’s all I’ve been doing. Trying to nudge you into being more substantive…more substantial.

You either will or you won’t.

Besides, Sauwelios seems more than willing explore it beyond the parentheses.

Wow, that’s almost…poetry.

But: I’m still at a loss to understand what “on earth” it might possibly…mean.

Tell us.

How do you incorporate this frame of mind in your interactions with others?

Or is that entirely irrelevant?

Again, you fail to follow the discussion:

There is no (fundamental) difference between Nietzsche’s “there is no God” and your “(in my view) it’s all largely rooted in dasein”, because there is no (fundamental) difference between that God and Reason.

The actual denominational Gods of all the Abrahamic Platonisms for the people (e.g., the various denominations of Christianity) have historically become quite inextricably intertwined with the God of the philosophers.

Then why do you distinguish between a “natural” right appealed to by the “pro life” camp and a “political” right appealed to by the “pro choice” camp?

My provisional value standard relating to abortion–and any other moral issue–only appeals to the axioms of logic, a.k.a. the laws of thought. If A is equal to A, and not-A is not equal to A, and A is not equal to not-A, then the simplest answer to the question how one ought to live–unless that question is answered before it’s raised–is this: “Until the answer to that question is found, the most rational answer to it is: ‘One ought to live in the service of the quest for that answer.’”

But as I immediately continued after I first mentioned this simplest answer in this thread, this supposes that there is such an answer. Is there an indisputable value?

“Natural right in its classic form is connected with a teleological view of the universe. All natural beings have a natural end, a natural destiny, which determines what kind of operation is good for them. In the case of man, reason is required for discerning these operations: reason determines what is by nature right with ultimate regard to man’s natural end.” (Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History, Introduction.)

Does man have such a natural end, an indisputably best way to be? Valuation is a rational value. This means that, logically (and other things being equal), any being’s indisputably best way to be is the mode in which it values the most. In terms of the doctrine of the will to power–according to which every value feeling is a feeling of power–, you then get something like this:

“What is good?–All that heightens the feeling of power, the will to power, power itself [in one word: the pathos of power] in man.” (Nietzsche, The Antichrist, section 2, my translation.)

But as I, again, immediately continued after I first mentioned valuation as a rational value in this thread: “reason rests on a merely axiomatic self-identical ‘A’. Thus ‘knowledge’ undermines itself; the only Being we know is the self-asserting Being…”

Compare my “Logic as self-value” thread (http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=187672) and this:

“Greek ontology calls that which perseveres as something identical through the change of an organic being, its εἶδος, its form. This form is never purely realised. It never comes into full presence. But all the phases in the development of a living being may be designated as Becoming or Perishing, that is to say as degrees of approximating or moving away from the realisation of the form. Therefore the form has the character of τέλος [telos]–the goal immanent in each living being. Greek ontology designates the self-identical τέλος as the true Being of each thing that moves. The designation of τέλος as the Being of being suggests itself strongly when one considers that Becoming, that is, the transition into Being, is a process of approximating the immanent τέλος, and that Perishing, conversely, is a process of moving away from the immanent τέλος. But with the decline and eventual fall of metaphysics, the possibility of designating a non-sensual, never given entity as the true Being of the temporal vanishes as well. If the τέλος has no Being, then the only remaining alternative is to interpret it as a Non-Being that presents itself as a Being, that is, to interpret it as a semblance. Now it remains true, however, that all life is only made possible by the fact that an entity organises itself in the striving after such a unity. One cannot say that the τέλος were a man-made fiction. Every living being is in actual fact oriented towards an organising unity. Thus the semblance of the τέλος is a semblance brought forth by Nature itself. Semblance, or, as Nietzsche also puts it: error, is the condition of the possibility of life. The unreal world of error is thus no man-made fiction but the real world of living creatures. All living creatures whatsoever exist only through the belief in persisting things, that is to say through their striving after the organising unity of τέλος. But that after which they strive never has a Being. Thus they only exist by virtue of error. The ultimate truth is the flux of things with the contradiction that it contains within itself. Being torn between its opposites and formless, this ultimate truth is not world, either. There is only an unreal world; the real is nothing but pure negativity, time, or, as Nietzsche also calls it: suffering. But pure negativity has, for itself and out of itself, no existence [Bestand]: it exists [ist] only as it produces semblance out of itself, which however, because it stands in opposition to it, is itself not real either but only a semblance. [… W]ithout semblance, taken by itself, the eternal flux has no existence. It must produce semblance out of itself. Semblance therefore belongs to its truth.” (Picht, Nietzsche, pp. 251-252, my translation.)

The Nietzschean Übermensch is the most valuing human being possible–which ultimately, and in the first place, means the most self-valuing human being possible. As I recently wrote in a private discussion with Wyld:

::

Sure, me too–or at least to subject them. By the way, the difference between moral objectivists down through the ages (Kant, the exoteric Plato) and my clan is that I know it’s a matter of convincing myself–nay, that I convince myself it’s a matter of convincing myself…

Yes… that’s excellent.

Now see, people, this is what discipline means. I only have to lift out one phrase to show that this is philosophy itself at work;

“any being’s indisputably best way to be is the mode in which it values the most.”

Perfect. For those who don’t understand: to a sane human, that is the mode in which it most truthfully and passionately loves.

Just yesterday, I baptized this Jupiter year, the one that commences
Monday, September 26 2016, 02:48:34 AM EST, The Institution of True Love.

On the other hand, we don’t necessarily need God in order to inhabit a universe that is encompassed in the laws of physics, mathematics, and [at our end] the logical rules of language.

And my point has always been to make the distinction between that which seems [to me] embedded in dasein, conflicting goods and political economy, i.e. value judgments, and that which seems true for all of us, i.e the laws of nature, the actual empirical world that we live in.

So, in a way, it is as though we are having two different “discussions” here. But I’m used to that in engaging those who practice one or another rendition of objectivism. And that would certainly include those who link the words “value” and “ontology” together.

I’m just trying to determine “what on earth” they mean by that when their own values do come into conflict with others. How are they not entangled in my dilemma?

Yet again:

As this pertains to conflicting human behaviors derived from conflicting moral and political narratives/agendas.

That is the discussion I am most interested in.

It is those embedded in the abortion wars that make this distinction. Both sides make reasonable arguments. They embrace “conflicting goods”. Or, what William Barrett called, “rival goods”. Those who argue that it is the “natural right” of all human beings to possess “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” are predicating this on the assumption that pregnant women have the moral obligation to give birth. For some, even if they were raped. On the other side though, many make the political argument that, if women are in fact forced to give birth against their will, it is foolish to speak of “equal rights” between men and women in a world where men never, ever have to face the anguish of an unwanted pregnancy. And many are then able to rationalize abortion further by maintaining that a human zygote, embryo or fetus [in the early months] is not really a “human being” at all.

And how might that be established “ontologically”?

What then does the “value ontologist” suggest?

Me:

You:

Indicating again just how far removed we are in terms of the “discussion” that we seek. And if you wish to stay [in what I construe to be] “up there” in the scholastic clouds, fine. But that is not of much interest to me. What intrigues me considerably more is the extent to which those who claim to have concocted a technically correct philosophical “analysis” are willing to integrate that out in the world – a particular world – of actual conflicting human behaviors derived from conflicting value judgments.

It’s too bad that Nietzsche isn’t still around. Then maybe I could pin him down regarding what this might possibly mean when, say, the ubermen and the sheep come to clash over what it is “natural” to do when a pregnant woman doesn’t want to be.

Seriously though, is Nietzsche’s point [reflecting “the most valuing human being possible”] more applicable to the fetus or to the pregnant woman? to the state or to the man on death row? to the gun owner or to the man who wants to outlaw the sale of guns to private citizens? to the capitalist or to the socialist? to the religionist or to the atheist? to the hunter or to the animal lover? to the autocrat or to the anarchist? to the advocate of might makes right or to the advocate of right makes might?

To the humanist or to the egoist?

So, if you were ever in position of power, those not deemed “one of us”…

What might be their fate if you were not able to convince them of your own rendition of this:

1] I am rational
2] I am rational because I have access to the ideal
3] I have access to the ideal because I grasp the one true nature of the objective world
4] I grasp the one true nature of the objective world because I am rational

For instance, suppose you administered/moderated this venue. You had the power to, say, control the fate of those who were not willing to think about these relationships as you do. Even after you patiently explained why it was the obligation of all rational men and women to do so.

Would you, say, ban them for life? Or, perhaps, dump them into a dungeon as Satyr/Lyssa does at KT?

Fair enough. But then you don’t construe “I” here as I do: from the unimaginably complex, subjective perspective of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.

In other words, rooted in particular historical, cultural and experiential [interpersonal] contexts that ceaselessly evolve over time [from the cradle to the grave] in a world of contingency, chance and change.

Note to others:

See if you can spot the part that some might contend is…tautological?

The part where the conclusion must be true because the premise is said to be, among other things, “indisputable”.

You know, if you’re “sane”. :wink:

It is the remnant of objectivism in you that makes you mistake me for an objectivist. You distinguish between factual judgments and value judgments: for instance, the judgment whether Mary had an abortion is a factual judgment, whereas the judgment whether her having an abortion is wrong is a value judgment. But the objectivists in both camps will disagree with you on that: the pro-lifers among them will say that her having an abortion is factually wrong, whereas the pro-choicers among them will say that her being forced to bear the child is factually wrong. So is the judgment whether a judgment is a factual judgment or a value judgment, itself a factual judgment or a value judgment? Are those objectivists just factually wrong about what constitutes a factual judgment, or is it rather that your distinction between factual and value judgments springs from your values, which are embedded in your dasein

Without at least a remnant of God, there can be no talk of a universe (a whole).

Here’s a “plan for the Rules/Description post” of my Nietzsche Pyramid forum site, which I was preparing to launch when I wrote this in January of 2009:

Later that month, I wrote this:

See also this: http://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=154706

How do you figure that? Surely not from my using the formula “I” + first person singular verb?..

I think you read too quicky, Iamb. You conflated some phrases. I say that people who are loving passionately and truthfully are the sanest beings. Your ‘insanity’ as I see it is due to trying to eliminate passion from your thoughts. You end up with a lack of humanity, devaluing what you touch.

The only actual content Ive seen you state is when you get somewhat emotional. You are warm blooded, but you need to learn to show it more. It’s important.

From my perspective, one is a moral objectivist if they argue that one either ought or ought not to behave in a particular manner because it can be determined that particular behaviors either are or are not rational. They are rational it is said if they are in sync with the “natural” thing to do. And behaviors are “natural” – or “ideal” – if they are in sync with an objective understanding of the world around us.

You then become “one of us” if your assessment of the behavior is in sync with ours.

Whereas, I become entangled in this…

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.

…because:

1] moral assessments of behaviors as either reasonable or unreasonable are embedded largely in dasein: in the particular life that we live out in a particular world historically and culturally and experientially. Lives that are ever embedded in contingency, chance and change. More so then in the capacity of philosophers [ethicists] to define or to deduce Right and Wrong, Good and Evil into existence through any particular scholastic analysis/argument.

2] both sides in any particular moral/political conflagration are able to aggregate premises/assumptions that the other side’s arguments cannot make go away. Conflicting goods then prevail. Or: the narcissist/sociopath can claim that in a Godless universe it is reasonable to predicate right and wrong behavior on that which either does or does not gratify/satisfy my own self interest.

3] that, however these things are understood “in my head”, what ultimately counts “out in the world” is the extent to which one is either able or unable to enforce a particular political agenda.

Bottom line: I keep waiting for you to note how, when a value judgment of your own comes into conflict with another’s, you are not entangled in it.

If Mary did in fact have the abortion and it can in fact be demonstrated that she did, then this is not just a subjective opinion. It transcends dasein. It is in fact true for all of us even if particular folks insist that in fact she did not have the abortion. In fact, she did. But: how can an assessment that the abortion is either moral or immoral not be a subjective judgment?

Where this gets tricky is when Mary may in fact have had an abortion but this cannot be demonstrated. She may have in fact induced it herself. She may have in fact been the only one who knew that she was pregnant. Which, again, is why folks invents Gods. With God, nothing is not known. And no one is not punished if what is known by God is deemed to be a Sin.

That’s why everything here revolves around the assumptions God/No God. No God, no transcending point of view.

The fact of the abortion is true for all if in fact it can be demonstrated to be true. What the pro-lifers argue is that one can judge the abortion morally on par with demonstrating that there was an abortion. And women are either able to abort their unborn baby in a particular context or they can be made to suffer the consequences of breaking the law. Or of being condemned and shunned.

We cannot even demonstrate when in fact the unborn becomes an actual human being. Some start at conception, some at the day of birth. There are even those who argue that infanticide is permitted if you wanted a boy and it came out a girl. Or if it was not born healthy.

Again: How would you go about demonstrating that this is the most rational manner in which to administer and moderate the site — rather than but one more particular subjective assessment of how this might be done. One more particular subjective assessment of what constitutes “excellence”

One would have to follow the exchanges over time in order to determine if it either did or did not just reflect particular political prejudices.

In other words, how would it not become, “you either understand Nietzsche as we do or you do not”. And then: “you either understand Nietzsche as we do or else.”

And how, pertaining to a discussion of the morality of abortion, would one not also be judged in this manner?

Also, just as I was sent packing to the Dungeon by Satyr/Lyssa over at KT, what might the odds be that someone like me would not be sent packing to wallow among the Pariahs?

How, in other words, would this forum not become just one more authoritarian thought police state when it came down to who either does or does not really get Nietzsche?

There is a world of difference [from my point of view] between “I am posting this at ILP” and “I am posting the most rational and virtuous manner in which to think about these relationships at ILP”.

In no way [here and now] would I contend this about my own value judgments.

Right, like those on either side of any particular moral/political conflagration don’t and won’t level accusations of this sort across the great divides at each other.

For example, let’s discuss if this assessment of yours is true more of Trump or Clinton.

Then there’s this: site a few examples of how your own value judgments pertaining to conflicted behaviors that we are all familiar with embody “sanity”. How do you strike just the right balance between a rational assessment of the conflicting goods and the subjunctive reaction embedded in your emotional response. And how is the manner in which I speculate on the meaning of dasein here less applicable to you?

Also, political ideologues like fascists and Communists and anarchists and Libertarians and Communitarians — are they not able to argue that their own often times hopelessly conflicted narratives/agendas embody a loving passion and truth? Do they “lack humanity”?

Or take an issue like gender roles. How might – must? – one think and feel about this in order to embody passion, truth and humanity?

Note to others:

Has he nailed me here?

Me, I can’t help but to suspect [from time to time] that this may well be just an exercise in irony.

After all, how else can I take it seriously?! :wink:

iambiguous, you cut up my paragraph and then cut off the most important part.

You say the difference between a factual judgment and a value judgment is that the former is based on demonstration whereas the latter is not. (Even if Mary is the only one who knows she had an abortion, then her having an abortion has still been demonstrated to her.) Now my question is: Can it be demonstrated that a judgment is a factual judgment if it’s based on demonstration whereas it’s a value judgment if it’s not based on demonstration?