I don't get Buddhism

A few weeks back I (mindlessly) strained my coffee into the sugar jar instead of my coffee mug… I have been mindful to not do it again, ever since.

Minor errors can force the practitioner into a place of even more mindful awareness, major errors can force one into turmoil and despair… the trick is, not to make major errors.

Zen master Nan-Chuan said:

This depends on what one means by an obligation. If, in regard to any particular moral conflict, it could be determined – and then unequivocally demonstrated – what the most rational reaction is, then if people want to call themselves rational human beings they would be obligated to react appropriately. But that’s not the same thing as saying that they are obligated to react that way. For whatever personal reason they may choose to react differently anyway.

In regard to, say, the behaviors you choose with respect to the burgeoning coronavirus calamity. The narcissistic sociopaths may still act only in regard to their own perceived self-interest. Period. Fuck being rational like everyone else.

Thus if a God, the God, your God was in fact demonstrated to exist beyond all doubt, would not a rational human being be obligated to worship and adore Him? Assuming some measure or human autonomy is reconciled with His omniscience.

[b]On the other hand, over and over and over again, I acknowledge that this too is just an existential reaction on my part. I may well not be thinking this all through correctly. So, in places like this, all I can do is to note how I do think it all through “here and now” and note the reactions of others.

Just like you.[/b]

For those folks who study the coronavirus, those scientists and medical professionals trying to figure out its origin, what it is capable of, how it infects, how it spreads, what might contain it, how a vaccine can be created to stop it…does rational and irrational thinking come into play for them? Is there a more logical and epistemologically sound manner in which to share their information and knowledge with the world?

Well, suppose philosophers and ethicists had access to the same sort of rational information and knowledge. Suppose they were then able to share that with the world in terms of how people react to the virus, in terms of how the politicians and law makers and government officials ought to create policies that channel human behaviors in their communities so as to be in sync with the most rational possible world.

Says who, you? Based on what…your assertion that there is fact an objective morality derived from whatever manner in which you connect the dots between that and God. And thus that stealing per se is necessarily, essentially, inherently a bad thing. Like, say, Communism?

No, I wish only to point out the dangers embedded in a world in which the moral and political objectivists gain access to power in any particular community and are able to enforce only their own conclusions regarding human behaviors with respect to the coronavirus.

Only their own means and ends count. The right makes might folks.

Only [of course] for some of them this would revolve not only around infectious diseases, but around all other conflicting goods as well. It’s always their way. Period. With respect to, among other things, race and gender and sexual preferences and ethnicity and religion and abortion and gun ownership and the role of government and animal rights.

One or another rendition of religious or ideological or deontological or natural law.

Only, unlike other pragmatists who champion democracy and the rule of law, I am not able to think myself out of feeling profoundly “fractured and fragmented”.

The part that the objectivists [and even some pragmatists] wish to avoid at all cost.

Uh, maybe even you?

You’re using the words ‘rational’ and ‘ethical’ as if they are the same. They are not. It’s possible to be rational and unethical.

Scientists and medical professionals have goals and methods for achieving those goals. So do philosophers and ethicists.

I try to point out that there is more to stealing than rationality and I get this typical knee-jerk reaction of yours.

Then you ought to ask yourself why this bothers you so much.

How Does a Buddhist Monk Face Death?
An e-mail interview in the New York Times between George Yancy and Geshe Dadul Namgyal, a Tibetan Buddhist monk

As though somehow managing to think yourself into accepting that, “oh well, if you live you must die”, makes the part about all of the terrible things death entails in regard to losing all that you love and cherish about life just evaporate into thin air.

Why on earth do you suppose that religion and the Gods were invented in the first place? Sure, if, somehow, existentially, you do manage to calm yourself down by fitting death seamlessly into life itself, more power to you. But don’t expect that to really catch on among those not able to think themselves or will themselves or delude themselves into believing that reincarnation or Nirvana or immortality or salvation or paradise are actually real things.

After all, hasn’t Geshe Dadul Namgyal, a Tibetan Buddhist monk, managed to convince himself that, for all practical purposes, death is just a transition to a world beyond? Really, how hard can it be to fit death seamlessly into life if you are able to believe that death itself is not the obliteration of “I” forevermore.

He speaks of “reality as it is”. What he means of course is reality as he believes it to be “in his head”? And then when folks like me ask folks like him to go beyond that and to demonstrate why it is reasonable to believe what he does – and not what dozens of conflicting religionists believe instead – we have people here who argue that this in itself is not really appropriate!

Haven’t many philosophers in the past basically done the same? From Plato and Aristotle to Descartes and Kant to the Libertarians and the Ayn Randroids today.

What makes a behavior moral for many is precisely because it is seen by them to be a rational behavior.

Cite some examples from your own life of behaviors you have witnessed [your own or others] that you deemed to be both reasonable and unethical.

Instead, there are any number of circumstantial contexts in which William Barrett’s “rival goods” present themselves. One side cites what they construe to be reasonable arguments for choosing one set of behaviors in reacting to the coronavirus, while another side cites what they construe to be more reasonable arguments. Or the most reasonable arguments of all.

Who then gets to connect the dots between rational and ethical behavior and rational and unethical behavior here? What might some examples be that philosophers and ethicists can all agree on?

From my frame of mind, no God, no vanatage point [philosophical or otherwise] able to pin this down. And, from the vantage point of some, no God, and “the right thing to do” ever and always revolves around what they deem to be in their own best/selfish interest. In fact, I suspect you’ll bump into these folks more and more if the coronavirus pandemic really begins to spin out of control.

Again, we clearly make a different distinction here.

And I try to point out the parts embedded in an actual instance of stealing that, from my point of view, revolve around dasein, conflicting goods and political power. And here there is definitely more than rationality involved.

There is, in turn, varying degrees of ambiguity, ambivalence, uncertainty, confusion, bewilderment and perplexity. Unless, of course, as an objectivist, all of that is subsumed in one or another intellectual contraption, moral narrative or political agenda.

Huh? Isn’t that basically what you come back to in regard to the Communists? Or what others point to in regard to one or another religious denomination’s rendition of sharia law?

On this thread I’m just curious to explore how close or how far Buddhists come to this when they connect the dots themselves between enlightened behavior here and now and sustaining “I” beyond the grave.

Sure. But that doesn’t mean it makes any sense to reduce it down to rational and irrational.

Stealing is rational for an individual - he gets stuff for nothing. But it’s damaging to a society to have people stealing. It’s considered unethical in practically every community. (Yeah, some communities consider it okay to steal from those outside the community but within the community, it’s a wrong.)

Ethics is about groups of people.

For an individual, there has to be a balance between self-interest and group-interest. You could say that someone who steals has too much self-interest, he’s misjudging, he doesn’t see the benefits or consequences, but you can’t say that it’s irrational.

Yeah, it’s not irrational or unreasonable.

What “actual instance” did you present??

No.

I’m not on a crusade against Communists. I’m not demonizing or stereotyping Communists. I’m not complaining about them in this forum or any other forum.

I doubt that actually. They might see it as a necessary condition, but harldy a suficient one.

Well, that doesn’t really work for me, but most people when applying their morals to the behavior of others consider the rationality of a choice to be insufficient as a criterion. In fact there can be many rational choices - which means one looks at the situation and reasons one’s way to consquences and chooses according to one’s desire, perhaps - but often only one moral one.

Well, there you go. You obviously see the answer to your own questions and should be agreeing with Phyllo instead of appealing to the authority - and not well - of some dead philosophers. You obviously know yourself that different moral conclusions and behaviors can be arrived rationally by different people. Why? Because the moral axioms (at least) are different. Something is not moral simply because it was arrived at via rationality to MOST people. You also have to have the right values.

So you’re incredulity in the face of Phyllo’s pointing this out is not only contradicted by what you write and have written thousands of times but does not fit what people beleive out there.

It makes no sense to conflate rationality and morality when referring to most people. And that’s not a dig at most people. It’s just pointing out the obvious.

Phyllo:

Notice: THE DANGERS.

Not: things that he doesn’t like. THE DANGERS.

If objectivists are in power they are able to enforce their objectivisms and this is bad. It makes no sense to take this paragraph as anything other than an objectivist evaluation of the bad things that happen if objectivists have power.

This hash been pointed out to him before. What he tends to dois say things like ‘I have repeatedly said that my own veiwpoint is just another one made by dasein…’ But it makes no sense to year after year no stop making objectivist statements if he thinks objectivism leads to bad stuff. Here he is talking about THE DANGERS - that is a term referring to objectively bad stuff. He’s a hypocrite who occasionally is blunt about his hypocrisy. We should applaud him when he’s honest. We won’t work up a sweat, but it’s a fair thing to do.

As decided by the democratically elected government, businesses are shut down, assembly is forbidden and we are in isolation in our homes.

If those decisions were made by objectivists, then how would anything be different if the non-objectivists were in charge?

Or were those the decisions of non-objectivists?

But isn’t that precisely what any number of the moral and political objectivists do? You’re either reasonable and think like them or you’re not and don’t.

But we still need a context. What is deemed reasonable and unreasonable in a particular set of circumstances? And how do individuals then connect the dots between things deemed rational to them and things deemed ethical?

How do you do it?

Or, for any number of religionists, the connection is made between behaviors deemed sinful or not. Through God.

Or, for Buddhists, things deemed enlightened or not. Through…what exactly?

But how does that change the unimaginably vast sets of circumstances that any particular individuals might find themselves in that shaped and molded their thinking and behaviors in regard to stealing this particular thing in this particular situation? You can pile up your “general descriptions” of human social, political and economic interactions but where are the philosophers/ethicists able to come even close to the role that God/Enlightenment plays for the religious here?

Or what of those who argue that property itself is theft? Those who insist that the capitalist system is inherently immoral. That “stealing” can all be perfectly legal if the laws sustain only the interests of some and not others. Or considerably more the interests of some than others.

Or those who scoff at all of these “intellectual” scrapes and are quite content to go on acting out only that which they construe to be in their own selfish interest?

And then those “here and now” about to gobble up the biggest slices of pie pork as the federal government here in America doles out billions trillions to “the corporations” as the coronavirus wrecks the lives of millions that don’t have access to connections on K Street.

Cite some examples from your own life in making this distinction.

Instead, from my frame of mind, it is straight back up into the clouds…

Insufficient in regard to what set of circumstances? And how might a moral nihilist, a moral objectivist, a Christian or a Buddhist describe their own reactions as more or less sufficient given that set of circumstances?

The coronavirus for example. If the rationality of any particular choice is insufficient as a criterion for judging the behavior of others, what might be more sufficient? Or sufficient enough. And if the assessments here come into conflict, what then?

From my point of view, “I” here is either more or less “fractured and fragmented” in any context in which value judgments clash.

In other words…

I am still entirely unclear as to how Phyllo manages to intertwine objective morality and God in his reactions to the behaviors of those who also intertwine objective morality and God but come up with completely conflicted sets of behaviors that are deemed to be either right or wrong.

How is he not fractured and fragmented here as “I” am? How is this…

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.

…not applicable to him?

Or not applicable to you.

That’s all I can really do here is to continue to probe the arguments of those who don’t think like I do.

Yes, but the moral objectivists subsume rationality along with everything else in one or another God, political ideology, or deontological bent. MOST people don’t think these things through as “I” do. MOST people aren’t stumbling around juggling their fractured and fragmented selves.

We’ll need a context, of course.

Again, a discussion regarding how we react to a particular set of conflicting behaviors in a particular situation. Then as my points unfold you can note specifically when I do these things.

Literally, these responses to my post consist only of questions! That’s it … only questions. :open_mouth:

Pshh that’s nothing. Ever read one of kropotkin’s posts? That guy will hit you with 17 questions in one post. That thread of his is like the Spanish Inquisition. I feel like I’m in one of those interrogation rooms and Pete’s standing above me at the table holding the light in my face. I’m wondering if I should call my lawyer first before I click on a post. ‘what do YOU value? how will YOU create meaning in your life? start talking, buddy. I’ve got all night and you ain’t goin nowhere’.

Good catch.

Not that I noticed any answers. :wink:

In online marketing this procedure would be called clickbait. You click and often get somewhere to click again, thus tallying up ‘customers’ but serving no one.

The distinction between necessary and sufficient? You don’t know what those terms mean?

It might be rational to not covet your neighbor’s wife because he’s a big guy and if he even sniffs you staring at her he might preemptively beat the shit out of you. I lived next to a guy like that. They exist. They consider women their property. It is rational to not covet her. That doesn’t make it moral. You have to have a certain attitude. Get it (the behavior is rational, and that’s necessary for most people’s conception of moral behavior ((or lack of immoral))) but it is not enough, you also have to do it for the right reasons. Or when the skinny little guy comes along with the hot wife, you will be immoral.

Further there are rational reasons for stealing as Phyllo has pointed out: do I need to hold your hand through that also? A behavior being rational - that is you effectively move towards a goal through it, arriving at your behavior through logical analysis - is insufficient to make it a moral behavior. Stealing, to most religious and even most secular people, is not moral, though it can be seen as rational by many.

Not insufficient in relation to circumstances. Insuffienct as a criterion for moral. To be moral you generally have to be good.

I swear, you gotta be just playing dumb to torture. I can do the time crossword and use, on some of the questions, rational deduction to come up with the answers. That doesn’t make it a moral act. And if my wife was suffering in the bedroom and asking for water, most religious people would say that while I approached solving the puzzle rationally I did not act morally by ignoring her calls. It might even be rational for me to do this. Perhaps I stand to inherit big bucks and I am an unloving ass and her dying in there benefits me. But that ‘being rational’ is insufficient to meet the criteria of being moral.

Now you are just muddying the waters and throwing a bunch of unnecessary things at me. Take small steps. Resolve one issue, if possible, move to others.

Exactly what I said above…

Now I am supposed to solve conflicting goods. What have I told little iamb about that? Hm, remember?

Right now we are discussing if rationality is a sufficient criterion (as opposed to a necessary one) in most moral systems. It’s not. And regardless of whether one can solve conflicting goods, it’s not.

You can’t follow simple arguments. You have the entire edifice of your position with you at all moments. So when we are focusing on a specific issue, you drag the whole house in so nothing gets anywhere.

It’s an illness. We could, for example, have dealt with how being rational is not a sufficient criterion for being moral (as morality is conceived). Then moved on, in small steps. But you flood every interchange with the whole ball of wax as if any argument that does not immediately solve the entire thing solves nothing.

REmember the Tylenol thing, where some guy poisoned the batches. There were rational arguments in a number of directions and the CEO decided that the moral response was to recall all Tylenol. And it turned out to be a great long term strategy even though it cost them terribly for a while. One could have made and one did make rational arguments for many approached. In addition to the rationality were moral criteria. The rational arguments were inssuficient to be moral ones, in most people’s sense of morality. He felt that taking care of the customer’s safety was THE Priority. Regardless of how this affected the company - as it turned out even that went well, but his decision was based on rational argument plus a moral value. And generally - here’s a hint - religious morals tend to ask people to put aside self-interest, especially on certain issues.

Now I know what you want to do now. You want to find out how to resolve conflicting goods. Jump right from this to pointing out how other businesses do not act like that or how do we know which value to prioritize and so on.

A simple bit of advice. Take small steps in a conversation. You have a habit of inserting the entire project into posts when a small issue is potentially being dealt with.

It muddies the water.

It is ‘as if’ anything I said, for example, solved conflicting goods.

It is for the moment irrelevant. Imagine…

we agree that most morals consider rationality to not be a sufficient criterion for a behavior. We find a way to have that small successful shared conclusion.

THEN

you can slowly reintroduce the other issues, step by step.

If during an exchange of posts we do not agree IT STILL DOES NOT HELP.

Keep a focus. You are being extremely rude when you do otherwise.

The frowning upon describing ultimate reality by words is common to all teachings of the Buddha.