The either/or world is complex too. But if reality there either is one thing or another the human mind is either able to tap into that or it is not.
On this thread of course some tap into it through God.
The question – my question – then becomes this: are mere mortals in a No God world able to tap into the ontological [teleological?] nature of Reality/Existence at all?
But: In the is ought/world some speculate that even in a No God world mere mortals can differentiate right from wrong behaviors. Moral obligations can be known.
I question you and others only to the extent that you/they argue that these mere mortals are able to tap into the real me tapping into the right thing to do.
You are either down in the hole with me here or you are not.
In other words, I’m just trying to grapple with how, out in a particular world where your own value judgments come into conflict with others, you describe to me that extent to which you believe [think you know] that you are not in the hole.
This is still not really clear to me at all. “I” am rather brutally fractured and fragmented out in the world of conflicting goods. How are others not?
I don’t know where this comes in. ‘It has to come down to…’ Has to? I know you are interested in having this demonstrated to you. But I don’t see where the normative ‘has to’ comes in. Clearly all sorts of things manage to be both widespread and not demonstrated as true for all of us.
Well, what else is there?
There’s the ‘not having a way to demonstrate it.’ Which is your situation and mine. We can’t demonstrate it such that all other rational people will agree. So, again, where does this has to come from`?
It comes from the fact that when we interact with others out in a particular world our wants and our needs come into conflict. And, when they do, others will often insist it is their own behaviors that reflect the right thing to do.
So, what else is there in these clashes except that both sides seek to demonstrate why and how their own behaviors ought to be the prescribed behaviors.
Thus:
If Jane is concerned about becoming pregnant what does she have to know about human biology and the practice of safe sex? And this knowledge is applicable to all women over time and across space. There are things that they can know here because in fact these things are true. For everyone.
Now, is there a normative equivalent of “has to” here? Is there a set of knowledge applicable to all women over time and across space that will guide them if, even after becoming knowledgeable of human biology and the practice of safe sex, they still become pregnant?
Or if they are raped? Or if their only concern with morality here lies in pursuing that which sustains their own perceived self-interest?
Can they know if aborting the baby is the right thing or the wrong thing to do?
Can they even know for certain if as a “bundle of cells” a zygote or an embryo or a fetus is in fact a human being?
Really, I get this. This is basic is ought distinction. When you said ‘it has to come down to…’ I don’t know what that ‘has to’ or the ‘it’ mean. Please, never ever again explain the is ought distinction to me. Can you do me that minimal piece of respect`? I understand that.
Well, apparently you don’t “get it” in the manner in which “I” do. Otherwise the respect that we have for each other’s intelligence here would revolve around the fact that we do think about these relationships in the same way. Or, if not, fully respect the fact that the other may well be more in sync with “the whole truth” here. And I always acknowledge that this may be the case.
I just don’t know what you are saying has to happen or be done`?
Well, what has to happen out in a world of actual human interactions is that one or another political contraption has to be devised for regulating human behaviors. I merely suggest that, for me, this revolves around the components of my own moral philosophy “here and now”.
It seemed like you were saying that ‘it has to be demonstrated that this or that moral value is correct or moral rule is correct`’ I just can’t see that it has to be demonstrated and i am pretty sure you don’t think it can be.
All I can surmise is that you are making a point here that I am not understanding. If moral values don’t have to be demonstrated as reflecting the most or the only rational/virtuous manner in which to interact socially, politically and economically, what criteria will be used to prescribe and proscribe human interactiuons in any particular community?
It would then come down to various combinations of might makes right and moderation, negotiation and compromise.
My point is simply that the moral objectivists insist it doesn’t have to come down to that as long as others agree to embody their own doctrinaire and dogmatic political agenda. Derived through God or Reason or Philosophy or Science or Nature.
You may not be looking for these demonstrations but if you ever find yourself in the grip of those who do insist they have in fact demonstrated it [through their, arguments, their laws, their rewards and punishments], you may come a bit closer to understanding my own concerns about objectivisim in the is/ought world. If nothing else it is almost always authoritarian.
It’s just that my own arguments here are no less an existential contraption in turn. My “I” here is floundering in a rampaging sea of uncertainty, ambiguity, ambivalance. And that’s just on this side of the grave.
On the other hand, your “I”…
I use the tools I have to push for what I want for myself, people I care about, nature, etc. I have no magic wand to fix everything. All I said was I do not seek the utterly compelling narrative, set of morals, propanda rational arugment that makes everyone think my preferences are correct. In local dialogues, I might use some of this as tools. But I have no sense I can come up with the convincing argument for everyone - not being humble here, particularly, just stating the fact.
Well, if what “you” want for yourself and the people you care about turns out to be just the embodiment of how I construe human interactions at the intersection of identity, value judgments and political power, then we are more or less in the same vicinity of each other.
That’s what I struggle to construe: How you think of “I” out in a world teeming with conflicting goods. How are you not as fragmented and fractured as “I” am there?
Can you understand that I might react differently to the problem than you do`?
Understand it? I am not able even to imagine “here and now” how it could possibly be any other way. That’s the whole point of existential contraptions out in a world where the lives that we actually live can encompass any number of social, political and economic variables swirling about in any number of social, political and economic permutations.
You withdraw. You seek for others to meet your criteria. You want a way to know how one should live.
I withdraw in part because I am fully aware of how others react to the points I make. In other words, am I suggesting that this is how they too should think and feel in turn?
Shudder the thought!!
And I get that because I was once shuddering myself as an objectivist.
No, I don’t seek others that will meet my criteria; I go in search of arguments able to convince me that these criteria [in the is/ought world] even exist at all.
I don’t react to the problem that way. I try to makes things the way I prefer for myself and those things and entities I love. That’s it.
Sure, this is basically what I imagine folks like Mr Reasonable are trying to convey in turn. How they think “here and now” works for them. And that’s “simple” enough as far as they are concerned.
But: what happens when how they think and feel and behave comes into contact with a frame of mind that insists they should be thinking and feeling and behaving in another way instead?
Here there are the objectivists, the pragmatists and the nihilists.
I – “I” – probe for the “incontrovertible moral” because who am I to say that it does not exist? All I can do [for all practical purposes] is to confront those who claim to have already found it.
And, in particular, on this thread, those who claim that what they have found on this side of the grave has convinced them that immortality and salvation awaits “I” on the other side of the grave.