otto west and iambiguous discuss morality here, not there

Okay, the subject I always focus the high beam on here is abortion.

Why?

1] it is a conflicting good that almost everyone is familiar with
2] it is a conflicting good that almost everyone has an opinion about
3] it revolves literally around life and death
4] it is the issue that, embedded in this…

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.

…first propelled me in the general direction of 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.

In other words, there are folks on both sides of the divide – the abortion wars – who construe their own moral/political narrative as anything but dysfunctional and flaky. On the contrary, they almost always perceive those who are not “one of us” on this [and every other issue] as the truly dysfunctional, flaky ones.

Now, if you were to confront these folks – folks for and against abortion – outside any particular clinic, how would you go about arguing that, with respect to the act shredding the life of the unborn, you see “describing human morality as dysfunctional or flaky” here “as no cause of alarm”?

Maybe I am just not understanding your point.

Otto,

So, is this exchange going to happen or not?

Your problem with abortion stems from believing, like so very many globalists, that the exact same simple-minded decision must fit all people throughout the universe. The only solution that truly fits ALL people is a process of detailed decision making that leads to a final decision, a decision that is based upon the realities of the individual case, not at all the BLACK OR WHITE judgmental bl/mindness you are caught in.

Of course, anyone not as blind is merely an “objectivist” (meaning one who objects to your blind opinion).

You forgot to include also “throughout all time”.

Ah, the von rivers rendition of “objective morality”. There is no objective morality that is applicable universally to all abortions, but a wholly objective understanding of any particular abortion is within the reach of all those who grasp the pragmatic parameters of, among other things, “definitional logic”.

In other words, if I had had access to the rational argument embedded in the definition of the words he uses to encompass RM/AO [intertwined in an understanding of the Real God], I would have been able to advise John and Mary of precisely The Right Thing To Do.

On the other hand, when I ask James to cite a particular instance where he himself had accomplished precisely that [re abortion or any other well-known moral/political conflict], watch him yank himself up – precipitously! – into the scholastic clouds of “analysis”.

His very own rendition of Satyr’s “general description” of human interactions.

So what you are suggesting is that “objective morality” requires that there is no consideration of the details of a situation. An abortion performed to save the mother’s life is on par with an abortion performed when the mother’s life is not in danger. The abortion of a healthy fetus is morally the same as the abortion of a deformed fetus. Pregnancies resulting from rape are to be treated exactly the same as pregnancies resulting from consensual sex. Etc.

Is that your position on “objective morality”?

On the contrary, assuming there is not a universal morality able to be grasped that is applicable to all abortions, then objectivity [one abortion at a time] would seem to be embedded in grasping not only all of the variables [details] involved with each particular abortion, but an understanding of how they are entwined in a particular existential context. The whole, entire relationship between them.

But that’s my point. Each facet of the particular abortion must be grasped. And these are just a few of what may well be many, many, many more. In order to assess the morality of any particular abortion, all of the variables must be grasped and understood in relationship to all of the others.

For example, at what point does an entirely healthy fetus become “deformed”. Deformed to the point that it is moral to abort it. There are literally hundreds upon hundreds of health conditions to be considered here. Both physical and mental.

And what of those pregnancies that resulted from rape in which the unborn fetus is perfectly healthy? How on earth can it be decided that shredding this baby is entirely moral? Indeed, how on earth can it even be decided when a “clump of cells” actually/objectively does become a human baby?

As for my own position on “objective morality”, I am the first to acknowledge it is no less an “existential contraption” than yours.

My point is that, in a world sans God – an omniscient, omnipotent point of view – mere mortals seem unable to establish a definitive frame of mind able to establish in turn prescriptive and proscriptive “rules of behavior”.

All I can do then is to engage in discussions such as this one and [perhaps] be convinced that I am wrong.

And, again, polemics aside, you have no idea of the extent to which I want to be proven wrong. And with respect to both this side and the other side of the grave.

After all, you are able to sustain both the comfort and the consolation of “knowing” – of knowing “in your head” – this:

1] there is a “real me” that transcends contingency, chance and change
2] this “real me” is in sync with one or another understanding of “virtue”, “truth”, “justice”
3] “virtue”, “truth”, “justice” is embedded in one or another rendition of God, Humanism, ideology, nature

Not only that but as a religious person, you are in turn comforted and consoled that “beyond the grave” your “soul” – “I” – is sustained on into eternity.

You know, if I actually understand you. You know, if you are even able to actually explain it to yourself.

So your entire point is not that objective morality does not work as James and vR describe but rather that humans are unable to figure out which details (factors) are essential when evaluating the morality of an abortion.

I just now seen the thread, will reply later tonight.

:-k If one knew which factors to use and how to weigh them, then morality would be objective. Right?

If someone [anyone] was able to establish a frame of mind that allowed us to first define and then to act on an objective moral narrative for any particular abortion, in the same manner in which it can be established if in fact a woman either is or is not pregnant, I suspect that would become “big news”.

And not just among philosophers.

Now all we need do then is to wait for James to demonstrate how his own “intellectual contraption” can in fact be made applicable to any particular abortion that he has come across.

Or perhaps you might make the attempt.

So, on the count of three, let’s start holding our collective breaths.

One, two, three…

Right.

Anyone here care to take a stab at it?

Look, I’m not arguing that this can’t be done, only that no one has ever convinced me that it can be done.

And, again, if someone [anyone] actually did devise such an argument, I suspect that almost everyone would be talking about it. And not just here.

Someone could market it: “How to be absolutely certain if your abortion is moral.”

Sell it with a pregnancy detection kit.

Sounds good.

And, since this is the philosophy forum, let’s try to keep the huffing and the puffing down to a minimum. :wink:

So, you want to start with the subject of abortion? You know I’m a moral nihilist, right?

Okay let me sum up abortion, the weak, stupid, and irresponsible remove themselves from the gene pool, nothing of value was lost. What kind of prize do I win Iambiguous for my answer?

There are of course consequences for mass abortion on any given society but somehow I don’t think your concern is with any of that in discussion.

And Iambig thought that he would have a discussion. :laughing:

I think that I tackled abortion on a number of occasions but … “you were not convinced”.

That’s pretty much your “refutation” of all the arguments. =D>

I prefer to skip all long winded useless complexities and go straight to the basic core of issues.

I don’t need to write a three page dissertation on everything.

Progress. At least we have established that morality is in principle objective. We now need to figure out which of the moral positions is right, wrong … close to the mark or far off.

Moral judgements are not an impediment to action. One can chose to be immoral and take the consequences, so not everyone needs your “righteous pills”. I wonder what the demand might be for such a product. There is actually an advantage to moral uncertainty and ambiguity. Similarly there is an advantage to doubts about the existence of God.

Okay, we both call ourselves a “moral nihilist”. Now, with respect to abortion [and to all other conflicting goods] my own understanding of that is rooted existentially in this:

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.

How about you? What sequence of experiences, relationships and sources of information etc., predisposed you to become a moral nihilist?

In other words, let’s probe the extent to which your own moral and political narratives are more “intellectual contraptions” or “existential contraptions”.

Re abortion, you believe this:

You’re serious, aren’t you?

Okay, making that assumption, how does one go about the task of making a credible distinction between those unborn babies that either do or do not qualify to be aborted?

Is your answer here rooted more in the assumption that all reasonable men and women will share your own political prejudices, or that your own political prejudices are rooted more in the manner in which I construe the meaning of individual daseins interacting socially, politically and economically out in a particular is/ought world?

In other words, to what extent do you acknowledge that your moral and political values “here and now” are just “existential contraptions” rooted in a world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change? And, thus, that given new experiences, relationships, sources of information/knowledge etc., you may well come to reject what you believe here and now and embrace an entirely conflicting point of view.

Because that is the crucial distinction that I make between a moral nihilist and a moral objectivist.

Not that one set of values is right and another set of values is wrong, but that right and wrong itself seem ever embedded in conflicting goods derived existentially from a particular life lived out in a particular world. And ever governed by the reality of political power. Not who may or may not be right, but who has the power to enforce their own perceived interests.

Which are of course [from my way of thinking] no less existential contraptions. Or, as Nietzsche once intimated, the opposite of truth may well be less a lie than a conviction.

Moral and political convictions in particular.

Note just one.

And my point of course revolves not around the claims folks make regarding the tackles that they have made, but the extent to which they argue in turn that if you don’t tackle it as they do then you are wrong.

Also, situate your own reaction to abortion [as a moral issue] in an actual existential trajectory – like the one I noted above.

And for folks like you, the claim is made that God has also noted the “tackles” you have made on this side of the grave. And that’s comforting because there’s that part on the other side of the grave that folks like me and Otto, well, don’t actually believe in.

You don’t, do you Mr West?

And I acknowledge over and again that exchanges of this sort always revolve around any particular “I” [embodied in dasein] being “convinced” in the “here and now”.

I’m not suggesting that if I am not convinced that makes you wrong, only that what you are convinced of here and now resides “in your head”; more so than embedded in an argument that can be demonstrated to be true objectively for all of us.