Here [again] we always get to the part where a moral narrative is in fact able to be established as the optimal point of view.
I have absolutely no illusion that in fact I can establish moral nihilism as the optimal frame of mind.
I would never argue that moral objectivists are flawed – inherently, necessarily – if they don’t share my point of view.
Instead, I would ask them to bring their arguments down to earth in discussing a set of conflicting goods we might all be familiar with.
Case in point: Trump’s wall.
There are any number of objectivists on both sides of this issue who will insist those who don’t share their own political narrative are flawed. Whereas my point is always that 1] both sides, in starting with conflicting sets of assumptions, are able to make reasonable arguments regarding immigration and national borders 2] that these arguments are often embedded existentially in their actual lived lives and that 3] the wall either will or will not be constructed depending on which side has the political power to enforce their own set of subjective/subjunctive assumptions.
How can that not be part and parcel of taking a position?
Positions are taken but the objectivists insist there is ever and always only one optimal position: theirs.
Therefore, in practice there seems to be no difference between the three in that respect.
Let’s just say that “for all practical purposes” I see a very important distinction that you don’t.
Beyond, for example, insisting that Communism is flawed because your points of view establish that. And yet [it seems] they establish this only because they are your points of view. Based in part on your own particular set of experiences.
Like any defense of Communism is inherently flawed.
Which effectively states that no reasons are sufficient to support any opinion or decision.
A completely useless and ineffective approach to life.
Not so much useless and ineffective as, for the objectivists, disturbing and discomfitting. My argument is they insist the most useful and the most effective approach to life is always the moral narrative and political agenda that is either not flawed at all or the least flawed: theirs.
As a moral nihilist [in a presumed No God world] I’m down in that hole drawn and quartered by conflicting goods, while recognizing just how difficult it is to separate a moral narrative embedded existentially in dasein from a moral narrative able to be demonstrated philosophically as within the far more exacting parameters of a deontological obligation for all folks who wish to be thought of as rational and virtuous.
In my view, it is this certainty that – psychologically – the objectivists crave. This after all is where the comfort and consolation of the “real me” grounded in an objective moral understanding of the world around me comes from. Then it’s just a matter of which font appeals more to you: God? New Age contraptions? Scientology? Ideology? Deontology? Nature?
It’s just that with respect to an actual existential context in which your own values come into conflict with others, I’m still rather fuzzy regarding the role that God and religion play in the construction of your own particular existential persona. In other words, I would need from you a trajectory similar to the one I note with regard to abortion above.
And only in harping on objectivism is there any possibility of encountering arguments [from them] that may well yank me up out of the hole that I am in.
A ridiculous expectation. The way you have constructed your hole make it impossible for any argument to be effective.
Ridiculous to you because you are not inside my head aware subjectively of all of the many experiences that I had that, no doubt, are far, far removed from the experiences that you had. I more or less expect communication breakdowns here. That is precisely why it is so crucial to be able to bridge the gap between what you think you know/believe “in your head” and what is able to be established as in fact true for all reasonable men and women.
I used to think there were no arguments that could/would ever dent any number of previous religious and political narratives I once staunchly embodied.
Can you cite just one example of a dramatic change that unfolded in your own outlook on life?
I now consider these to be empty invitations.
This may well be established with considerably more substance if you will focus the beam on a particular context that is well known to be flooded with conflicting moral and political agendas.