This would seem to suggest then that ethicists and political philosophers [among others] have nothing to say about abortion.
And yet others would seem to suggest otherwise:
iep.utm.edu/abortion/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosoph … ion_debate
philosophynow.org/issues/36/Lib … d_Abortion
My frame of mind here, however, revolves more around the extent to which even this is rooted in dasein. That, in other words, there does not appear to be a way in which to resolve this once and for all. That, instead, each individual had a unique set of experiences at the intersection of philosophy and abortion and based on that particular confluence of existential variables was predisposed to think one thing rather than another.
Not sure how your point here really addresses mine.
However we might see ourselves or others, we are still faced with the task of confronting conflicting goods such that certain behaviors [within any particular community] are either prescribed [rewarded] or proscribed [punished]. Some argue that this revolves around universal moral laws applicable to everyone. Others suggest that an objective morality revolves instead around an objective understanding of each particular contrext. What I argue however is that individual value judgments are rooted existentially at/in/around the historical, cultural and experiential intersection of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
What interests me then are those who argue that their own value judgments are derived from something other than that: religion, political ideology [reason], assessments of nature etc.
I’m simply unclear as to how “for all practical purposes” your political/religious narrative [sans philosophy] actually “works” for you when confronting those who have views on issues like abortion at odds with your own.
Thus…
Lots of people think it’s “too much work”. But most of them are objectivists. They “keep it simple” by the dividing the world neatly into “one of us” and “one of them”. They genuinely come to believe that, out in the is/ought world, “I” is in sync with the “real me” in sync with either the optimal way in which to behave when confronted with an issue like abortion, or, in fact, the only rational manner in which virtuous people are obligated to behave.
So, I am still rather puzzled here as to what you do “care about” when confronting those who wish to prescribe and proscribe behaviors completely at odds with your own relating to political conflicts like abortion.
Do you have any examples of this of late [from your own life] that you can use to illustrate your text?
As of now this seems basically where we are “stuck”.
As I see it, one either believes that their own value judgments reflect that which the legal and political superstructure ought to be predicated on [right makes might], or one acknowledges that “you’re right from your side, I’m right from mine” makes greater sense and thus moderation negotiation and compromise is more the political order of the day.
Or, as with many who own and operate the global economy today, right and wrong behaviors revolve mostly around “what’s in it for me?” One or another rendition of might makes right.
My problem with this is [once again] that I gain no real sense of how “for all practical purposes” this enables you to confront others who don’t share your own moral and political values.
Clearly one of the biggest “problems of existence” revolves around the question “how ought one to live?”. And most folks intertwine one or another combination of philosophical, political and religious narratives into a practical assessment such that this propels their interactions with others. Here I’m down in the hole I describe above. But I really don’t understand how you are not down in it.
Okay, let’s zero in on a particular policy of his. Say, for example, the wall on the southern border with Mexico. His immigration policy. How would you separate a political/religous assessment of his views here from that which an ethicist or political philosopher might speculate about using the tools of philosophy?
And then there is the gap between the language he might use and the extent to which a logician may or may not consture it as rational…as logical thinking.
And then the gap between what he claims to know about the issue of immigration and that which an epistemolosgist may or may not claim actually can be known.
You insist that he is wrong about every single issue. But how is that not just you insisting that being wrong here revolves around not sharing your own value judgments? And how are your own value judgments here not just manifestations of dasein?
Note the political/religious values embraced by men and women down through the ages. How are they not just “existential contraptions” embedded historically, culturally and experientially? Unless in fact someone [either using the political/religious path or the philosophical/scientific path] is able to concoct a set of values able to be demonstarated as that which all rational/virtuous men and women are obligated to embody.
Then shifting gears [on my part] to the psychological parameters of all this:
But how on earth can they be separated realistically? It’s not like we live on a planet of Vulcans who are able to somehow reduce everything relating to an issue like abortion down to “logical”, “not logical”. Instead, our own species is programmed genetically to react to the world around us both cognitively and emotionally/psychologically. And that’s before be get to the id and instinct and libido. Not to mention the part played by the subconscious and the unconscious mind.
And then finally, the imponderables embedded in things like determinism, sim worlds, demonic dreams, correlation vs. cause and effect, the ontological/teleological understanding of Existence itself.
You think this. But I have no clear or substantive understanding as to how thinking like this makes dasein, conflicting goods and political economy go away.
And until you are able to describe to me more substantially how these components are not factored into your own conflicted interactions with others, I doubt I will ever grasp how the components of your own political agenda “work” for you out in the world that we are all familiar with here and now.
Yes, I get this all the time. Only my “objectivism” does not allow for the sort of soothing comfort and consolation that the moral objectivists on both side of issues like abortion are able to take with them to the grave. Indeed, for some, even beyond the grave.
True enough. But then that is basically the psychological foundation that all folks able to think themselves into believing the world is divided between those who are “one of us” and those who are “one of them”, are able to sink down into.
Here [re an issue like abortion] it’s mostly the liberals and the conservatives. But there are hundreds of other moral and political and religious and philosophical perspectives out there.
All of them able to insist that “from where I sit, I really, really, really don’t care… its your way, not mine.”
And, if we’re lucky, they are of the sort that are tolerant of other points of view. And, if we’re not lucky, we have to deal with those objectivists who insist that we either embrace their own perspectives or there is a price to be paid.