Iambiguous: non-objectivists should feel bad

Note to others:

Is this not but another contribution in which words define and defend other words?

“Will to power”.

Okay, let’s consider that. Do these words reflect a reasonable assessment of human interactions when confronted with conflicted goods?

Or, instead, are they too just another “intellectual contraption” embedded historically, culturally and experientially in any number of vast and varied contexts.

Entangled in turn in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

Let Jacob bring the discussion here down to earth. Let him note a particular context.

Beat it Kid!

Seriously though, reconfigure this blustering sub-mental Kiddish accusation into an assessment of your own moral philosophy when confronting conflictng goods. How are you not down in the hole as I describe it above?

And from your perspective, as you have described it, saying you do not know, not as a mere disclaimer, but up front, makes sense. Since your philosophy allows for a wide variation of reactions, necessarily connected to experiences, assuming I have a contraption and this is why I react differently does not make sense.

Pragmatism in turn allows for “a wide variation of reactions, necessarily connected to experiences”.

My point then revolves around the extent to which these individual reactions are predicated more rather than less on the manner in which I encompass dasein here: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529

In other words, given the assumptions embedded in this intellectual contraption, what makes “sense” to any one particular individual is, in my view, also going to be embodied in dasein.

Out in the world of actual conflicting behaviors.

Then it comes down to others here noting the extent to which these assumptions are not applicable to them with respect to issues like abortion or Communism or the Kavanaugh confirmation.

Sure, of course, as I have repeatedly said, experiences affect how I think and what I prefer.

Who is he arguing with?

Show of hands … does anybody think that preferences are not the result of genetics and experience? Anybody?

He doesn’t mention genetics much. When I started bringing it up, he seemed to agree, but reading most of his posts one could easily conclude he is a tabular rasa believer. That we are black slates and our preferences and morals ONLY come from our experiences.

So, we’ll see if he raises his hand.

And thus…

Had those experiences been considerably different you might well be embracing considerably different preferences.

So: Any particular sequence of new experiences, relationships and access to information/knowledge might result in preferences that are actually the opposite of what you embrace now.

All I then ask of others here [objectivists and non-objectivists alike] is to provide us with an argument [and a context] such that they are able to describe how their own reactions to conflicting goods embedded in their own chosen preferences results in them – in their “I” – not being fractured and fragmented.

Mine is. How are theirs not?

But: I don’t argue that if their “I” is not also in pieces here, it ought to be. I’m just unable to reconfigure my own “I” back into something analogous to “the real me” in sync with the “right thing to do”. Something that they [more or less] are still able to do.

So, let them encompass a value judgment near and dear to them in the manner in which I do in my abortion trajectory above. The part where experiences and ideas shape and mold each existentially into any one particular “I” here and now.

And, sure, call it a “contraption” or don’t.

First, of course, I am arguing with those who insist that, given any particular conflation of genes and memes, they have arrived at a frame of mind – an alleged optimal frame of mind – such that they are fiercely convinced that through God, ideology, deontology, nature etc., there are essential, objective distinctions to be made between good and bad behavior.

Okay, I suggest, let them demonstrate this to us.

[Though I am still utterly at a loss here in understanding the extent to which that includes you.]

And then I note how, in intertwining my very own genetic and memetic “I” in the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy, “I” come apart at the seams down in my hole.

How, then, are others able to avoid this?

Actually, over the years, my thinking has come closer to those who focus the beam more on nature than nurture.

Grappling with racism and gender roles for example.

Thus, while I castigate folks like Satyr as but more renditions of my blockhead objectivists, I think their arguments are probably a lot closer to whatever the “whole truth” may be than those who actually do believe in a “blank slate” approach to human interactions.

It’s just that, from my frame of mind, there appears to be no getting around the fact that the variables here are embedded in an enormously complex and [perhaps] hopelessly entangled “contraption” way, way, way beyond the capacity of any one particular “I” to untangle.

And that’s before we get to the implications of all of this being embedded in a determined universe. Or the part that revolves around what may well be an enormous gap between what any particular one of us here think is true and all that would need to be known about the existence of existence itself in order to know something like this.

The sheer spectacle of the “infinitesimally small and insignificant specks of existence” that we are putting our foot down one way or another!

Let alone taking this preposterous arrogance out into the is/ought world.

The question boils down to: Why are you NOT like me?

And I think you know the range of possible reasons as well as I do.

Why are you not obsessed with X?

is actually rather odd question.

Why am I obsessed with what I am obsessed with? That is a question I can begin to look at. I might be wrong about my motivations, but at least there is something I can feel into. Experiences.

Why am I not obsessed with arachnids?
I don’t know.

Why do I love, these days and for quite some time now, dogs or being in the forest?
Those are questions I can begin to answer.

One can make an objective distinction that one behavior causes physical pain to one or more persons and another behavior does not cause that pain.

Or one can make an objective distinction that one behavior causes painless death to someone and another behavior does not.

So it comes down to whether it can be called good or bad.

No, for me the question is still this:

In reacting to a particular context in which behaviors come into conflict over value judgments out of sync, how are you able to sustain an “I” that is less fractured and fragmented than mine?

This gap will either be narrowed or it won’t.

But forget about “X”, I suggest. Let’s bring that down to earth by exploring our actual reactions to actual conflicting goods. Let’s try to describe the way “I” reacts to this or that context given the understanding that had “I’s” experiences been very different, “I” may well be reacting otherwise.

Whereas the objectivists will argue that dasein and conflicting goods and political economy are not relevant here. Neither is pragmatism. We do have access to an objective font [sacred or secular] allowing us to make that crucial distinction between how we either are or are not obligated to behave. If we wish to be thought of as rational and virtuous human beings.

Then we are back to the extent which, in bringing “general descriptions” of this sort down to earth, existential contraptions rear their [to some] ugly heads.

That is precisely a Why are you not NOT like me question.

Why are you not like me regarding X?

I brought the issue of this Why are you not like me? questoin down to earth, with specific real case examples.

There were not contraptions involved. Just things I prefer and things I focus on and things I do not.

Why aren’t you here obsessing about how to be close to people? (a rhetorical question)

The fact is you are obsessed with someting else.

A person who is obsessed with not being able to find intimacy and the issues around ‘is it possible to really know another person’ might demand that you explain why you aren’t in their hole, might presume you have some contraption.

But it might just be that you and he are different. Different genes. Different experiences. Different current situation. Different approach to problem solving. Different skills. Different temperment.

There are so many possible factors in why one person obsesses over something and another does not.

You suffer one hole amongst many others. Or actually I would say two primary ones, if I have read right. Not being able to know how one ought to live and the fear of death. There are many people who suffer these holes. There are many who suffer other kind of existential pains that could be called holes.

YOu seem not to focus on those other existential crises. Does this mean you have contraptions? Maybe, maybe not. YOu are a particular organism.

Great, that’s clear. Nature and nurture. Same page on that, then.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5M_Ttstbgs[/youtube]

The hole is just your soul. Its just you man.

Concision. Something for me to learn.

No, in the world of conflicting goods, it generally comes down to those folks who insist that particular behaviors cause more pain in the folks that they care about than in the folks that others care about.

Thus with respect to an issue like capital punishment, if you put a prisoner to death it can cause pain [even great pain] for those who love him. But if the decision is made not to execute him, it can cause pain [even great pain] for those who loved the person that he murdered.

What we call things here is in my view embedded [and then manifested] in the components of my own philosophy.

Behaviors are rationalized from a particular point of view.

And it does not appear [to me] that philosophers/ethicists/political scientists etc., are able to construct an argument such that the pain becomes part of one or another moral obligation in sync with that which all rational people are obligated to embrace in their actual existential interactions with others.

Hell, I was watching a true crime doc a few weeks ago in which one man argued that the execution of a particular prisoner didn’t go far enough. In his mind, the pain that the prisoner caused him was so great, he felt the man should be tortured instead.

So, is that necessarily a moral or an immoral point of view?

Again, I’m missing something here.

I want to take this discussion down to earth and explore our respective assumptions pertaining to a context most here will be familiar with.

Instead, you want me to explain why I am not like you regarding “X”.

Note to others:

What am I missing here?