Yeah, this sounds “deep”. But until we take these words down to earth and situate them in a particular context, we won’t be able to grasp how “for all practical purposes” they are relevant to the lives that we actually live.
Did folks invent philosophy all those years ago so that flesh and blood human beings could grasp only the “technical” aspects of human language/communication: “reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity.”
Or [sooner or later] would this technically correct knowledge have to confront those “strict principles of validity” that revolve [existentially] around assesments of “I” out in a world of conflicting goods rooted in one or another extant configuration of political economy.
Depends on who you discuss this with.
Of course there are those who can draw a thick, impenetrable line between right and wrong, but they still lie along a spectrum. And they may still assess differing penalties for not following the rule, which modifies what would otherwise be an absolute position.
Yes, but this spectrum is no less situated out in a particular world historically, culturally and experientially. And the rules of behavior that are chosen are, in my view, no less the embodiment of dasein, conflicting goods and political economy.
So, imagine then someone who professes to be a “serious philosopher”. What “technically” can she tell us about these flesh and blood interactions when they come into conflict over value judgments? How would she assess each point on your list above as they are pertinent in a particular context?
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.
No one can “reach” objective values. That is a hoax.
You can’t possibly know this. Not until you are able to grasp an understanding of the existence of existence itself. There may well be a God. There may well be a correct deontological assessment of human interactions. There may well be an optimal political ideology. There may well be an entirely coherent assessment of Nature.
And you might have gone in another direction even if there were. You continually manufacture, out of whole cloth, a problem that does’t exist.
I’m not arguing that the problem exists for all of us. Only that “here and now” it exists for “I” out in this particular world.
And to avoid this “whole cloth” I ask others to bring their own moral narratives out into a particular context in which we can explore the extent to which there might in fact exist a Real Me in sync with The Right Thing To Do.
They don’t exist for me. But only “here and now”.
You simply are afraid of the freedom to choose that you have. Not that there aren’t consequences for our actions. But these are societal. Don’t ever confess to a murder. Unless they have you anyway.
First, of course, we don’t even know for certain if this freedom is not just a psychological illusion. This entire exchange may well be just a necessary component in/of a wholly determined universe.
And, sure, if you want to argue that this is all about me being afraid of freedom, so be it.
We simply construe the meaning of “I” as an “existential contraption” here in different ways. Trump isn’t afraid to build his wall and others aren’t afraid to oppose him.
But how on earth might that not still be understood given the components of own frame of mind – as a moral nihilist.
Just because one is not afraid to choose does not make the choice itself able to be confirmed by “serious philosophers” as that which all rational men and women are obligated to choose in turn.
Especially when confronting serious philosophers who are as well conflicted regarding what is said to be the right thing to do.