What does a manchild like you know about being a grown up?
That quote betrays you.
Magnus old flowerbulb. How is life man.
No Im not pretending.
Mr. R - this seems as good a place as any to ask, how are you buying stocks online? I need to be putting some euros in harder value.
No, what I am interested in exploring is the extent to which mr reasonable’s rendition of “the good life” is rooted existentially in the life that he lived [in dasein] or if it can in fact be argued [using the tools of philosophy] to be the sort of life that all rational men and women are obligated to conclude is in fact “a good life”.
Now, wiggle out of taking the discussion there.
Also, in making what I construe to be that crucial distinction between the behaviors that he has chosen to acquire and then to sustain this life — playing the stock market — and an argument able to establish that this sort of behavior is essentially reasonable and moral.
My point is that mr reasonable either does or does not earn income playing the market. This is either a fact or it is not.
But some argue that playing the market exemplifies rational, virtuous behavior while others argue that, in being part and parcel of the capitalist political economy, it is not. That socialism [one or another rendition of it] is a more reasonable and ethical mode of human interaction.
Or there are even “scientific” Marxists who argue that historically this behavior may still prevail but given the extent to which “dialectical materialism” is a rational point of view, some day, down the road, “dog eat dog” capitalism will be replaced by “all for one and one for all” Communism.
Of course [here and now] that seems rather elusive. Perhaps even illusive.
But how is either side able to demonstrate that their own rendition of what constitutes “natural” or “ideal” behavior – or “the good life” – is in fact the case?
There are also folks here who claim that mr reasonable is a “drug dealer”. Is this in fact true? I have no idea.
My argument is only that he is or he is not. There are either facts able to confirm it or facts able to expose it as a lie. I am only interested in exploring the extent to which philosophers are able to judge these behaviors [deontologically] as necessarily Right or Wrong, Good or Evil.
In a world without God.
Well, if you are convinced that the role of the serious philosopher is more to establish whether someone either does or does not enjoy life rather than in exploring the extent to which the life that he enjoys embodies “the good life”, fine.
The latter however would seem to be quite a bit more challenging.
Ah, so that is what it means to be a “value ontologists”.
If, say, someone like Adolph Hitler knows what he likes and is able to organize his life around attaining it, then…
Of course, this frame of mind can revolve around either might makes right or right makes might. Or, in the modern industrial state, around whatever behaviors you have the wealth and the power to enforce.
Against, among others, the sheep.
On the other hand, how does this frame of mind obviate the points I raise regarding dasein, conflicting goods and political economy?
Again, choose a value judgment of your own, bring it down to earth, put it in conflict with the values of others and note how you are not entangled in my dilemma.
A search of your posts and the phrase “how one ought to live” produces 512 hits. A brief reminder for you :
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=190026&p=2629397&hilit=how+one+ought+to+live#p2629397
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=190026&p=2629034&hilit=how+one+ought+to+live#p2629034
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=190366&p=2611113&hilit=how+one+ought+to+live#p2611113
But it turns out that you are really interested in something else. 
Biguous is not interested in how this or that person chooses to live their life, but rather, whether their choices are subjective (mere opinions, or inclinations, rooted in dasein) or objective (choices that everyone should be making because they are objectively better for everyone.)
Is the choice of life over death objective or subjective?
Is it a mere habit (subjective) or is it a fact (objective)?
Taste is objective. That we all disagree on taste to different extents is proof: it is objectively formed out of only different circumstances.
Iambguous, do you have any thoughts or interest on Dawkin’s idea of convergent evolution? The idea is that the same trait has been proven to evolve in two different species with different genealogies by simple environmental exchange.
Nor am I entangled in Turds dilemma, or anyones. Im not in a dillemma. I solve dillemmas.
Do you deny that Hitler had power and set value standards and is still relevant precisely because of that? Or do you deny that relevance is relevant? In either case, you are wrong.
Beyond good and evil, or “beyond good” as Lacan simplified it. Live up to your claim of being a Nietzschean, my friend.
Yes, and how is noting this an effective response to the point I make regarding the role that existential variables play in his life – re dasein – predisposing him to choose this particular life; and then concluding that it is “the good life”?
And what of those who argue that his behaviors reflect an immoral lifestyle instead? Those who condemn capitalism and embrace socialism.
Obviously in today’s world he is able to choose to sustain his behaviors. But that is not to say that will always be the case. What becomes crucial in human interactions [historically, culturally] is the extent to which particular behaviors are either rewarded or punished. And the extent to which the conflicting parities are able to effectively argue what it should be one and not the other.
That’s the distinction that I am interested in.
If it is assumed that playing the stock market is virtuous behavior then mr reasonable might set himself the goal of becoming a millionaire by doing so. Then he can ask, “what ought I to do in order to achieve this?”. And if he does become a millionaire he can argue that what he did is “good”. And, if not…if instead he goes bankrupt…then in can be argued what he did was “bad”.
But that does not resolve the conflict that revolves around whether one ought or ought not to embrace capitalism. And my point is that any particular individual will have any particular answer to that question based more on the individual experiences that he or she had rather than by, in using the tools of philosophy, being able to answer the question in the most rational and ethical manner.
Something that, for example, Ayn Rand and the Libertarians attempt to do.
And that, ultimately, philosophy aside, what counts out in the real world is political economy — one’s capacity [power] to enforce a particular narrative/agenda.
Once again, no matter how people answer you … you tell them that they should have said something different. Hilarious. 
At least we have established that you are not actually interested in “how one ought to live” or the “good life”.
Bob prefers the taste of chocolate ice cream. Bonnie prefers the taste of vanilla ice cream.
Well, “here and now”.
From my perspective this is true objectively if in fact this is true.
Perhaps Bonnie had an terrible experience with chocolate in the past. The chocolate was bad and it made her sick.
Indeed, there might be any number of existential variables in her life that predisposed her to prefer vanilla.
But, however one comes to be predisposed to a particular taste, there does not appear to be a way to establish that either chocolate or vanilla ice cream ought to be the taste that all reasonable men and women prefer.
It is instead largely subjective.
And no one that I have ever come across would argue that liking chocolate over vanilla or vanilla over chocolate can be judge morally. That, in other words, one ought to be punished for liking the “wrong” flavor.
More to the point [mine] how is an accurate understanding of “Dawkin’s idea of convergent evolution” applicable in discussing the behaviors that mr reasonable chose in playing the stock market?
How would Dawkins response to the points I raise here regarding dasein, conflicting goods and political economy given a particular context in which individual value judgments come into conflict?
And then there is this part:
In other words, this entire exchange that we are having here may well be the only possible exchange that there could ever have been.
That way we are both off the hook, right? 
Hahaha, but if we are off the hook, what will attract Godot??
There is an objective world truth, with or without a human to interact with. This truth is unknowable to humans, but it affects everything human. Thus, with philosophy, we approach it.
Mary had to decide about her developping chemestry set in her belly. She gathered from all that her human had been, beeing at that moment also the gathering and deciding, and then subjectively could be said in some parts of the world in veeery short and specific times of history to have aborted her unborn fetus.
Again:
…choose a value judgment of your own, bring it down to earth, put it in conflict with the values of others and note how you are not entangled in my dilemma.
I’m not arguing that you or Turd or others are in a dilemma. I am pointing out that, with respect to conflicting goods embedded in all of the various moral/political conflagrations that have divided us down through the ages, I am.
And then I am asking you to note how you are not entangled in it yourself.
You either will or you won’t.
No, he certainly acquired the power necessary to enforce a particular set of values. My point however revolves around the extent to which the behaviors that he chose are rooted more existentially in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein…or if these existential variables can be subsumed in a philosophical argument able to establish that his behaviors reflect that which all reasonable and virtuous men and women are obligated to emulate.
How is 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.
…not a reflection of a moral/political narrative/agenda that for all practical purposes is “beyond good and evil”?
How is moral nihilism [in a world sans God] not the embodiment of it?
How is Nietzsche’s own “will to power” embodied in the Uberman not just one more attempt by a humanist to replace God with Reason?
He takes a political leap of faith to the Uberman as coming closest to reflecting what is “natural” in a Godless universe.
If that truth is unknowable to humans, then how can humans know that they approach it with philosophy?
Not the world without God, Iambiguous; the world after God.
The fundamental choice, which is the choice of life over death, is subjective, in that, its value is determined by one’s own personal preference (which happens to be shared among great number of people.)
Subsequent choices are objective because their value is determined by how well they serve the fundamental choice. In other words, they are not a matter of personal preference.
Smoking weed, which is what Mr. R does, is an example of a bad choice because it is, to a degree, life-denying. It’s unhealthy, self-destructive.
Yuckob will disagree, but that’s because Yuckob is a degenerate who believes, not in life, but in “values”, which is to say, in instincts and whims in general. Smoking weed to him is an OK cause it’s a value i.e. he has positive feelings associated with it.
Anything can be of value if we think in this way, it’s only a matter of having it programmed inside of your head.
Whatever is not maximizing survival potential is by its nature excessive, and thus, destructive, and so it must be trimmed.
What’s the point of preserving traits for the sake of preserving them?
That otherwise, the preservation of them will be forsaken.
Life is the ultimate responsibility, of which death is a part.
Everything is in a way this or that: the origin of taste.
Maggie, you ought to live a little.
Life isn’t going to offer you anything if you don’t take it.
I am on an Internet forum dedicated to philosophy. You do not live here, you discuss. Instead of living on this forum, why don’t you discuss something for a change?
Were you not a stark defender of drugs?
Wrong - my friends are my only true home. Most of them, by now, I met here.
But you are noble for considering this your home.
I refuse to believe you’re as idiotic as to never have clicked the link in my signature.
I duscuss shit on my forum. It’s too complex and demanding to do here. I tried KTS with Lyssa and some others but Satyr gets in the way.
Yes, I think any man who hasnt used drugs is a pussy and should be discarded where manly things are being discussed. I mean that.