Surely, not all moral principles are negotiable?

phyllo wrote:Well, you're asking for the morality to be approved by sociopaths. That's giving them control over the contents of the morality.
phyllo wrote:Which brings up 'negotiation'.
Surely, not all moral principles are negotiable?
phyllo wrote:Practically every argument that I have presented to you, has excluded God. But you keep putting Him back in.Are you arguing here that you explicitly exclude God? That's news to me.
On the other hand, I have never really been able to pin down how you actually view these relationships at the intersection of God and Reason.
phyllo wrote: God gave people Reason so that they could solve their problems.
And, by all means, site a few examples of how you, in using these "external tools", are yourself able to integrate God and Reason into your interactions with others that come into conflict re the sort of things that Gib and I are discussing re prong #2 above.
phyllo wrote: I don't remember what prong2 means.
phyllo wrote:And the decision is made in the same way by thinking and evaluating - risk/reward - cost/benefit -doable/nondoable....between arguments made regarding the most reasonable manner in which to send astronauts to Mars [as an engineering feat] and the most reasonable manner in which to decide whether we ought to given all the problems right here on earth that those billions of dollars money might be used to help solve or mitigate [as a moral quandary].
My argument however is that philosophers do not seem able to demonstrate that the sociopath is necessarily wrong [irrational] in choosing self-gratification as the moral font in a world without God.
And the fact is that many construe the aborting of babies or the execution of prisoners or the slaughter of animals or the waging of war to be the equivalent of sociopathic behavior.
phyllo wrote: If you can't solve the problem of the sociopath raping and murdering women ... what's the point of moving on to abortion?
You are admitting that you have no method or technique for making decisions.
There you go again, making the assumption that only those who think about these things as you do are able to "increase their understanding of humanity" in, say, the optimal way?
So, again, what is the "appropriate morality" with regard to the aborting of human babies? Which side has clearly "lost some aspect of their humanity"?
And how does one's belief in God factor in here?
phyllo wrote: I know. Your position is that there are no better or worse way of thinking about these things. In effect, you have turned off your brain. How can it be described in any other way??
gib replied:phyllo wrote:
Which brings up 'negotiation'.
Surely, not all moral principles are negotiable?
Depends. How important is it (morally speaking) to avoid the conflict and war that would ensue over not negotiating your principles?
The following is an old story due to George Bernard Shaw. It seems more appropriate with Groucho however.
GROUCHO (to woman seated next to him at an elegant dinner party): Would you sleep with me for ten million dollars?
WOMAN (giggles and responds): Oh, Groucho, of course I would.
GROUCHO; How about doing it for fifteen dollars?
WOMAN (indignant): Why, what do you think I am?
GROUCHO: That’s already been established. Now we’re just haggling about the price.
"one or another rendition"I had thought that you were one or another rendition of a...Christian?
phyllo wrote:Reminds me of this :The following is an old story due to George Bernard Shaw. It seems more appropriate with Groucho however.
GROUCHO (to woman seated next to him at an elegant dinner party): Would you sleep with me for ten million dollars?
WOMAN (giggles and responds): Oh, Groucho, of course I would.
GROUCHO; How about doing it for fifteen dollars?
WOMAN (indignant): Why, what do you think I am?
GROUCHO: That’s already been established. Now we’re just haggling about the price.
phyllo wrote:I'm going to bow out of this thread now so that you and Mr Big can continue your discussion.
Sorry for the interruption.
gib wrote:
That describes how you live your life, but I was asking about your approach to engaging with people, and objectivists in particular, in any attempts you might undertake towards resolving your dilemma. It seems, from my encounters with you in this thread, it's not the traditional objectivist one (arguing for why you're right), but rather an inquisitive one.
iambiguous wrote:My main contention is that the objectivist frame of mind is more a psychological contraption [a defense mechanism] than a philosophical argument.
gib wrote:Well, in my view, all philosophical arguments are defense mechanisms.
iambiguous wrote:No, not really. I'm still largely at a loss in understanding how "for all practical purposes" your understanding of consciousness [embedded in prong #1] has any "use value" or "exchange value" out in the world of human interactions that come into conflict.
gib wrote:I've been telling you that it doesn't. You seem to be stuck on the assumption that if I am to have an approach towards resolving conflict between myself and others, that approach must involve my theory of consciousness somehow, as if the only way, even as an alternative to the objectivist approach, to approaching conflict with others is by bringing your "ism" to the table in one way or another.
gib wrote:I feel my best chances at success would be to suggest new, healthier, more cooperation-inducing ideas that start with the other person's beliefs and values. <-- You do understand, this is the key essential difference between the traditional objectivist approach (as I'm calling it) and the subjectivist approach, don't you?
gib wrote:...TBH, at this point, I'm not entirely sure I know what your dilemma is...
iambiguous wrote:[My dilemma] is applicable to everyone. Well, if in fact it is. And, admittedly, I have no capacity to demonstrate that it is. Merely that, here and now, it seems reasonable to me that it is.
gib wrote:Ok, but this is why I'm getting confused about what your dilemma is. Sure, it's applicable to everyone, but what are you more concerned with--how it applies to others or how it applies to you--this will tell me which is more of a dilemma to you. Based on your response just above, it seems I was right to second guess your concern over your own 'I' fragmenting as you seem, based on what you said, to have a relatively strong sense of self given that you identify it with the substantial, objective, etc., etc., etc., world around you (thus confirming what I said: the real empirical world has far more sway over one's beliefs than mere philosophical contemplations).
gib wrote:On that point, there's also a bit of confusion, on my part, over prong #2 of your dilemma. You talk about real-world consequences, but what are you more concerned with here--what's more of a dilemma to you: the fact that we have to deal with inter-personal conflict, or the fact that objectivists have not (or cannot) arrive at a demonstrably correct argument about all things moral?
iambiguous wrote:iambiguous wrote:True, but that does not make the sociopath's rationalization [self-gratification] any less persuasive to me.gib wrote:Really???
Yes. It can be construed as a persuasive argument. It is a perfectly reasonable assumption to make in a godless universe. Which is to suggest that philosophers are unable to demonstrate that it is instead necessarily irrational.
gib wrote:This can only be the case if you're actually cooperating with the sociopath to establish reasons why he should kill you (agreeing to stick to reason is a form of cooperation with your contender), which tells me that you're interested in exploring the sociopath's justifications only to the extent that you're interested in a bit of armchair philosophy.
gib wrote:But if a sociopath actually had you cornered in a dark grungy basement with a knife in his hand ready to kill you, and he took a moment out to justify why he was killing you (like the villains often do in the movies before they attempt to kill the good guy), I highly doubt that Biggy would sit there contemplating the sociopath's reasons: hmmm... well, let's think about this for a second; he does raise some interesting points. In a world sans God, what reason does he not have to satisfy his own self-gratification...
phyllo wrote:"one or another rendition"I had thought that you were one or another rendition of a...Christian?
I have been talking to you for years and you still don't know shit about me.
I'm just "one or another rendition" of a stereotypical objectivist.![]()
Thanks a lot.
iambiguous wrote:Mostly what I do here is to look for arguments that might poke a few holes in mine. I wonder: Have I finally talked myself into a philosophy of life that I can no longer talk myself out of?
Only_Humean wrote:iambiguous wrote:Mostly what I do here is to look for arguments that might poke a few holes in mine. I wonder: Have I finally talked myself into a philosophy of life that I can no longer talk myself out of?
I disagree with your self-perception. Whenever you're faced with serious philosophy, you retreat to the argument that "you're actually only arguing against the fundamentalists and objectivists who claim that they are certainly right". You're not looking for a philosophy of life; you're looking for the religious certainty you lost.
Of course, this is only my perception.
Faust wrote:What are "existential dynamics"?
Faust wrote:Ohhhhhhhhhh.
iambiguous wrote:How, philosophically, 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.
....a frame of mind either more or less applicable to your own behaviors?
Only_Humean wrote:iambiguous wrote:How, philosophically, 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.
....a frame of mind either more or less applicable to your own behaviors?
I don't believe that in any moral decision I might just as well have chosen the opposite, and neither do you.
But: What is the philosophical argument [in a world sans God] establishing that setting fire to the orphanage and blocking the exits is necessarily irrational and immoral?
iambiguous wrote:Well, admittedly, I am still not entirely certain myself of the manner in which Gib differentiates Prong #1 from prong # 2. As near as I am able to understand it so far, #1 revolves around human consciousness itself [the nature of it] while #2 revolves more around its use value and its exchange value when the conscious minds of mere mortals come to collide out in a world of conflicting goods.
gib wrote:Well, let me put it this way: if prong #2 can be summed as: conflict with others, then prong #1 can be summed up as: conflict with one's self.
I realize there's a lot more to it than that, but I think for our purposes that's a good enough "rough and ready" interpretation.
Prong #2 happens all the time all around the world--it more or less arises naturally--but prong #1 arises only through the realization that you've made plain several times:iambiguous wrote: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.
Notice that this ends with "I" fragmenting. So this realization, which few people come to despite their being enmeshed in prong #2, results in one being conflicted with one's own self. The self "self-desctructs" so to speak
iambiguous wrote:Fortunately [or unfortunately] I rarely engage with people anymore. Other than virtually. And even that has largely become just another distraction embedded in my own rendition of waiting for godot.
Mostly what I do here is to look for arguments that might poke a few holes in mine. I wonder: Have I finally talked myself into a philosophy of life that I can no longer talk myself out of?
After all, in the past I once subscribed to any number of philosophies that I [with the help of others] managed to talk myself out of. But this one has admittedly stuck around the longest.
iambiguous wrote:Yes, but some arguments are more clearly applicable to all of us than others. That is always the distinction that I look for.
iambiguous wrote:The difficulty I have revolves more or less around this: How can one have a "theory of consciousness" without [eventually] connecting the dots between human consciousness itself and the behaviors chosen by individual minds out in a particular world bursting at the seams with conflicting value judgments? One way or the other "consciousness" is involved.
iambiguous wrote:Until I am able to get a better grip on how you situate/integrate dasein, conflicting goods and political economy into your "subjectivist" perspective, I can only note again that I don't see your point here as anything other than another way of embracing what I do: moderation, negotiation and compromise in a democratic political context.
iambiguous wrote:But: whether one set of behaviors is "healthier" than another is true [from my point of view] only to the extent that particular people in a particular context [here and now] can agree that they are. Whatever "works" in other words. But that's not the same as demonstrating that they are "in fact" healthier.
iambiguous wrote:There are still no moral values that can be demonstrated to reflect an optimal frame of mind.
iambiguous wrote:3] Finally, whatever I might personally believe about the morality of abortion, out in the world with others what counts is the extent to which I am able to enforce my own values if they do come into conflict with others.
iambiguous wrote:Since my interactions with others has now more or less ground to a halt, I'm less concerned about these things than I am curious as to how others react to my dilemma. And thus in exploring how it is not deemed to be a dilemma in their own life.
Then I take it that, as a matter of mere curiosity, this isn't really a dilemma for you (at least not one you lose sleep over); the real dilemma, I take it, is captured in what you said above: the fact that you live in a world in which your values must be enforced (despite having no firm grasp on a solid objective foundation for your values). And given that your interactions with others has (more or less) ground to a halt, I take it this dilemma is a thing of the past. Am I wrong?
And, yes, I is as substantial to me as it is to others. At least in the either/or world. Only with respect to my identity as a factor in the accumulation of value judgments --- in the is/ought world --- does "I" manifest itself.
iambiguous wrote:Again, less concerned than curious. Curious to find out if I ever will come upon an objectivist agenda that strikes me less as a psychological contraption and more as a philosophical argument that really does give me pause. A frame of mind that actually succeeds in challenging my assumptions above.
iambiguous wrote:Rationalizing a behavior because you believe that in a godless universe any behavior can be rationalized is a frame of mind that many, many, many individuals literally act out from day to day. And, in particular, when, first and foremost, you strive above all else to satisfy your own wants and needs.
How then does the philosopher come up with an argument able to demonstrate that this sort of reasoning is necessarily wrong?
iambiguous wrote:Any reason at all will do. Or no reason at all. You need God here or the sociopath's frame of mind would seem to fit snuggly into this: "in the absense of God, all things are permitted".
And are you seriously going to listen to that? In a dark grungy basement while he has you cornered with a knife?
Isn't that why we invent Gods and all of the other secular objectivist contraptions: to make that go away?
I supposed it's one of the reasons, sure.
If only "in your head"?
iambiguous wrote:But this basically reflects the subjunctive reaction that most will have to behaviors that are deemed to be particularly ghastly. We ourselves simply cannot imagine not being appalled morally by those behaviors.
Yet had circumstances been such in my life that I came to embrace a sociopathic frame of mind, then any and all behaviors are sanctioned if 1] it gratifies me and 2] I am willing to accept the consequences of being caught by those who are in fact appalled by what I do.
But: What is the philosophical argument [in a world sans God] establishing that setting fire to the orphanage and blocking the exits is necessarily irrational and immoral?
Sure, subjectively, I can think of any number of arguments for not setting that fire. And it is true that, given the manner in which existentially I have become "me", I can't imagine doing it myself. But in my view that is not the same as establishing that those who do choose to do so [for whatever personal reason] are essentially, objectively, ontologically...Evil.
Faust wrote: iam - You have consistently failed to justify why anyone should consider a sociopath just as capable as you or me in making moral judgments. By definition, the sociopath is not as capable.
But: What is the philosophical argument [in a world sans God] establishing that setting fire to the orphanage and blocking the exits is necessarily irrational and immoral?
Faust wrote: There is none and there are people who say there is one.
My friendly advice is to get over this. There is no conclusive argument against this act (outside of a specific context). No argument ever means anything at all outside of some context. No utterance means anything at all outside of some context. No political negotiation means anything outside of some context.
Faust wrote: It is not productive to ask which philosophical argument accomplishes anything outside of a context. That context includes culture and it includes assumptions.
Faust wrote: That's just the way it is. Why can you not accept this? You ask the same question over and over - but there will still be people who think that Rationalism, or "objectivism" even means anything.
So what?
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