Actually, my point is that what seems “evident” to objectivists in regard to such things as religion, morality and poitics, is this: that how they view any particular context is how it can only be viewed if others wish to be thought of as rational…as “one of us”. The folks who are always right about God and ethics and political issues.
My point, instead, is that these value judgments are more the embodiment of how I have come to construe “I” in my three signature threads.
And, thus, that my own understanding of moral nihilism resolves around the assumption that there is No God. And, consequently, there is no transcending font for mere mortals to establish that, say, Trump’s immigration policy is necessarily right or necessarily wrong.
In fact, in a court of law, the evidence revolves around what can in fact be shown to be true. And in regard to a very particular context in which someone’s behavior is deemed to in fact be either legal or illegal. The laws themselves however will invariably revolve around sets of behiviors that some deem moral [and worthy of reward] and others deem immoral [and worthy of punishment].
Had Jeffrey Epstein not committed suicide – or been murdered? – his trial would have revolved around the laws it is said that he broke. He either broke them or he did not. But a verdict of guilty would not have established that his behavior is necessarily immoral. That is the point raised by moral nihilists. That, in a No God world, things like individual proclivities relating to human sexuality are largely existential contraptions rooted historically, culturally and experientially in particular contexts understood by individuals in particular ways.
And that is why, sans God, narcissists and sociopaths, which Epstein might well have been, are able to rationalize any behaviors given the assumption that in a No God world, morality revolves solely around sustaining their own particular wants and needs. Which, in my view, are basically existential contraptions.
Well, if that is actually how you have come to understand a discussion of human justice, then what is left for me to say? After all, could not those you share exactly the opposite of your own moral and political values, basically make the same argument?
Until and unless someone is willing to take those “noble sounding” words and situate them out in the world of actual conflicting goods, I see no point in continuing on.
I read stuff like this…
…and my mind glazes over. What on earth does any of that mean in regard to an actual context in which conflicting value judgments precipitate conflicting behaviors.
Instead, I make the assumption that when the objectivists confront folks like me, they often stay up in the clouds of abstraction. Only when folks like you do battle with folks like Wendy do the arguments come down to earth. But: only in assuming that the specific points raised [about Trump or anything else] are not just political prejudices rooted existentially in dasein but reflect the essential oblgation of all rational and virtuous people.
What this suggests to me is that those who place the emphasis on “we” [historically, liberals and socialists] are convinced that they are being more reasonable and virtuous that those who place the emphasis on “I” [conservatives and capitalists].
But then I always come back to this: In what particular context out in what particular world based on what particular set of assumptions about human interactions?
Moral and political advocates will either go there and address the components of my own moral and political philosophy – dasein, conflicting goods, political economy – or they won’t.
Indeed, the irony here of course is that I share many of your own political prejudices. But, again, my own understanding of that is now more or less embodied in the points I raised in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=194382
We just think about these things differently. And I would certainly not argue here that your way of thinking is less reasonable than mine. Instead, in being down my own wretched “hole”, I have come to conclude that, re the is/ought world, there does not appear to way in which to determine this at all.
And, yes, the whole point for many in coming to a conclusion about God and religion and morality and political issues is in the coming to a conclusion itself. As you note, your way of thinking “works” for you.
My only suggestion is that it works for the objectivist because the whole point is to think oneself into believing that the right conclusions can in fact be derived here. Why? Because they have in fact already come to embody them themselves.
And, thus, that this is largely a reflection of human psychology embedded in the points that I noted on these threads:
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=185296
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=176529
This works here for you:
It just doesn’t work for me. Or not anymore. These “general description” “intellectual contraptions” are precisely the sort of philosophy I wish to steer the discipline away from. At least in regard to the is/ought world.
Sure, establish certain technical parameters, define your terms, try to give as precise a meaning to the words in your argument as you can.
Then bring all of that out into the world of actual human interactions in conflict.