Bjorn Lomborg is a somewhat questionable source. — I like sushi

Maybe you are right. But how do you know? The media's scaremongering is not a reliable source either. I'm not necessarily on Lomborg 's side either. It's just that the opposition seems to me to have abandoned objectivity to a large extent. And there are good reasons for my suspicion.

Do you know about the history of science? Or do you know how things work in the background of a science enterprise? Scientists usually argue very fiercely among themselves. Though when it comes to climate, many seem to be tacitly muzzled by social pressure.

We know very little about the mechanisms and interactions between the Earth's spheres, such as the ignorosphere, stratosphere, ionosphere, magnetosphere, etc. However, the activities of these spheres are probably determinant for our climate. — spirit-salamander

That is a fact. What do you say?

Boiling water is a complex thing too. It's fairly well understood though. — Xtrix

And I would add that we still do not understand the properties and behaviors and operations of water in certain circumstances.

Again, this has been done by climatologists, among others. Plenty of information about it for those not hellbent on ignorance. — Xtrix

In this regard, please read Bjorn Lomborg. The media portray many things in a distorted way or even simply incorrectly. For example, with regard to forest fires. Steve Koonin looked at the data from climate scientists, and they show that there is no need to panic.

Makes sense, since this isn't a philosophical matter. This is a matter of science and, in your case, ignorance. — Xtrix

Then why is it being discussed here in this forum? It can only be for the reason that science presupposes philosophy.

How do you know you're not the ignorant one? What if the Electric Universe people are right?

If you say they can't possibly be right, then you're not a true philosopher and have no business in this forum.

Yes. We can be as sure of it as we are of anything. — Xtrix

No, climate is an extremely complex thing and not like anything.

Tell people in Pakistan and California how beneficial it is. — Xtrix

That is not a substantial response. I might say severe droughts have always existed. And natural catastrophes too. How do you know that there are many more now? This could be a distortion of perception.

No one is saying 2030 is the point of no return. — Xtrix

Some say so.

Your whole response is unphilosophical.

By global warming, I assume you mean man-made global warming. That is, the idea that humans, with their powered machines and factory farming, are primarily and exclusively responsible for the recorded global warming.

Here are my opinions:

If it were clear that humans had no influence on the climate, the whole discussion would definitely be less emotional and less offensive. One would have no other choice than to accept what is necessary, as one does with one's own death. The climatic changes happening on all planets and in all suns throughout the universe are not man-made, but natural and inevitable.

Can we be absolutely sure that we are primarily changing the climate? Of course not. Science can always be wrong, because it can simply overlook many things. That is, there may be much that we have not yet considered regarding climate shifts. We know very little about the mechanisms and interactions between the Earth's spheres, such as the ignorosphere, stratosphere, ionosphere, magnetosphere, etc. However, the activities of these spheres are probably determinant for our climate.

If there should have been times in the earth's history when there was a higher amount of CO2 in the atmosphere than today and yet it was much colder, and vice versa, times when there was less CO2, and it was much hotter than today, then there would be a good reason to deny man-made climate change.

Are we really so sure about the climate issue? There are people who advocate a different cosmology than the mainstream one. For them, it is clear that “we must not be deluded into thinking [“reducing air pollution”] will affect climate significantly. The connection between warming and atmospheric pollution is more asserted than demonstrated, while the connection with variations in the Sun has been demonstrated.” https://www.holoscience.com/wp/global-warming-in-a-climate-of-ignorance/

As a true philosopher, one must remain neutral to alternative scientific models. For philosophers have often made fools of themselves in history with alleged empirical facts. The accusation of unserious fringe science is not tenable, since many great recognized scientists were ridiculed as pioneers by their colleagues back then.

The current climate debate tends strongly towards a psychogenic and sociogenic mass phenomenon, keyword alarmism, which I think is dangerous, because you lose your cool head, which you need in case of any possible danger. One should just take an in-depth look at the philosophy of science, the history of science, and the criticism of science, to be more relaxed. I am very skeptical of climate modeling. Human beings imagine that they can model everything. That is hubris. The world is always much, much more complex than we think.

Perhaps there is even no reason to panic at all, as some scientists, who seem objective to me, think: “Global warming is real. It is also – so far – mostly beneficial.” (Matt Ridley)

https://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/how-global-warming-can-be-good/

A certain Bjorn Lomborg thinks similarly.

Whoever now says that these two are charlatans has obviously given up his objectivity.

A good discussion that the climate thing is not absolutely settled can be found here:

What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters (Steven Koonin)

I agree with the following:

“Separating Science and State

Always keen to shock, Feyerabend sometimes described his position as “relativism,” but in fact he explicitly rejected what most people think of when they hear that term—namely the thesis that all views are equally true or false. What he really favored was a pluralism that refused to allow any one tradition, including science, to dominate all others politically in a democratic society. His positive defense of this view was essentially an adaptation of Mill’s On Liberty.

Mill gave four main arguments for the freedom to express one’s opinions, and Feyerabend takes a consistent application of them to entail that science ought to have no greater hegemony over society than the Church does.

First, any opinion that we try to suppress might in fact be true, so that by suppressing it we could be leading ourselves and others into error. Mill pointed out that to assume otherwise is to claim infallibility. Yet no one (other than a pope speaking ex cathedra) even claims to be infallible; certainly liberals and scientists do not. But in that case, they cannot consistently hold that some views ought to be considered beyond the pale and entirely unworthy of our attention.

Second, even erroneous and unpopular positions typically contain at least a grain of truth, while correct and popular positions are never entirely free of error. Hence, if we are to get closer to the truth, we need to allow these competing opinions to battle it out in the public square so that their adherents might learn from each other.

Third, even when some popular opinion is true, its adherents tend to become dogmatic and superficial in their understanding of the arguments in its favor when they have not had seriously to grapple with competing views.

Fourth and finally, a grasp even of the meaning of a correct opinion tends to get lost when challenges to it are never permitted. It becomes a banality that is merely parroted rather than understood.

Mill emphasized that it is not enough merely to hear out unpopular opinions in a grudging and perfunctory way. One must try to interpret them in the most sympathetic and persuasive form possible, if one is to discover what truth there might be in them and what weaknesses might lie in more popular opinions.

Furthermore, Mill stressed, it is not enough for the expression of unpopular opinions not to be legally prohibited. There must be no social sanction against their expression. Indeed, he regarded social pressure as more insidious than governmental control. By means of it, Mill says:

Society…practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself.

In Feyerabend’s view, when science arrogates to itself privileges like those described above, it violates these Millian principles. Advocates of scientism would suppress views that conflict with prevailing scientific opinion, shouting them down and preventing their expression in the public education system. They thereby implicitly claim an infallibility that in other contexts they would say no one has. They also fail to learn from their critics, turning science into an ideology and its findings into a bag of clichés repeated robotically rather than understood.” https://americanmind.org/salvo/scientism-americas-state-religion/

When someone wanted to counter me that this passage comes from a religious, conservative voice, I say: That doesn't automatically mean that this voice is wrong in this particular respect. One should beware of non- sequitur.

What if climate alarmism is a quasi-religious substitute? Since Nietzsche stated that we have killed God, the danger is great that we want to fill the void with something instead of simply accepting it.

It seems to me that humankind, as a human condition, always needs a vision of the end times in order to be motivated to act. Without a doomsday scenario with the option, hope, to be able to do something about it, humans would probably get very tired of life. So there is a psychological urge to look for reasons for a downfall. And those who seek, also find. But what if it is a mere fiction? Utility does not make truth. That it is a fiction is even more probable within the framework of this thinking. After all, why would a product of an elementary human need or urge coincide with reality. That would be just a big coincidence.

I admit, an imminent demise brings us together, makes us solidary, makes us more human, brings technical progress, makes us more heroic, and so on. Still, the downfall does not have to be true.

Anyone who thinks that we should not take any unnecessary risks and rather bet that the downfall will actually come and that we will actually be able to prevent it is doing nothing other than making a secular form of Pascal's wager. But anyone who is prepared to take this secular bet should inevitably also bet on the religious one. Because what would be the worldly downfall compared to an eternal torture in the hereafter.

The fact that there is still time to prevent the worst from happening, if we only make an effort now, will definitely motivate many. But the chance that the train has already left seems very high to me, assuming that we are responsible for the mess. But why should 2030 be the point of no return? Behind such a date lies only ideology and political propaganda.

I just want to say that there are models of a Supreme Being that it is no thing at all. For example, Hegel asserts that absolute “Being itself” seems to be indistinguishable from nothingness. So God transcends every something in these mystical models. But he is still an absolute unity and simplicity. A universal principle or source of all multiplicity which transcends all multiplicity, qualification, and differentiation.

David Bentley Hart writes about this:

"For the Neoplatonist Plotinus (c. 204–270), the divine is that which is no particular thing, or even “no-thing.” The same is true for Christians such as John Scotus Eriugena (c. 815–c. 877) or Meister Eckhart (c. 1260–c. 1327). Angelus Silesius, precisely in order to affirm that God is the omnipotent creator of all things, described God as “ein lauter Nichts”—”a pure nothingness”—and even (a touch of neologistic panache here) “ein Übernichts.”" (David Bentley Hart - THE EXPERIENCE OF GOD. BEING, CONSCIOUSNESS, BLISS)

In some of these theological models of God, the simplicity directly affects itself - resulting in the creation of the world.

If one understands “something” in a very wide sense, so that no weight is put on the thingness in it, then indeed some unitary being is assumed by some theologians, which has no parts at all, but can affect on itself directly, namely by self-limitation. The universe would be a result of such self-restriction.

Wouldn't time simply be another way in which mentation appears to us on the dashboard of physicalism? — Tom Storm

So mentation is timeless, that is, without succession? The universal mind has no dashboard of physicalism? The universal mind is unbounded mentation?

If one answers yes to all, then there is no evolution in and of itself. Our dashboard then fabricates evolution out of the time- and space-less. Evolution would be just a story we tell ourselves.

1. How we can appear to have separate people with unique conscious experiences. — Tom Storm

This is a very good question, perhaps the most important of all, to which an idealist must give a very thorough and detailed answer. Kastrup's answer to the question is very wild and speculative. The superior mind suffers from a multiple personality disorder. That's what he thinks.

Then there is the problem that the superior mind is looking through all of our eyes. But how can it accomplish all this at the same time? If this mind currently experiences my subjectivity, how should it then be able to experience yours at the same moment? It seems inconsistent. Because a consciousness of something is absolutely private and focused. If the Master Mind does not participate in our minds, then it might be redundant.

2. How reality (such as it is) appears to be consistent and regular. — Tom Storm

If it were not consistent and regular, there would be no experience in the mind. The mind operates with categories, which constitute the formal structure of the external world. And without such categories, experience of consistency and regularity would not be possible. This is the Kantian answer.

3. How evolution tracks to idealism. — Tom Storm

Schopenhauer, an idealist, considered them incompatible. Because evolution starts from the reality of time. But idealism excludes this. Time is given only ideally in a subject. Without a subject there is no temporally extended evolution. The whole millions of years of evolution are without subject actually only an instantaneous moment.

The question would be, how does the universal mind perceive evolution? With our understanding and feeling of time?

4. Whether we require a universal mind for idealism to be coherent. Other models? — Tom Storm

Yes, without this universal mind there would be no idealism. But a realism. There would be a plurality of animal minds.

Another human being, for example, whom I perceive empirically, might then be a kind of rendering of his momentary mind status into my mind.

And for plants and the elements one would have to assume an unconscious, which exists in and for itself. Panpsychism could be an alternative.

Obviously, idealists have a hard time with the unconscious. In the strict sense, there must not be such a thing for them. Everything must be conscious, at least in the universal mind.

5. Whether the Copenhagen Interpretation and the perceived flaws in a materialist metaphysics have been key in a recent revival of idealism? — Tom Storm

This Copenhagen quantum view would say that things, unobserved, are in a state of being able to be brought to mind. They are a pure potential.

But the ontological status of such a potential is somewhat obscure. On the other hand, everything is supposed to be already observed in the universal mind. This mind should always already bring the wave function to collapse.

6. What might be the role of human beings in an idealist model? — Tom Storm

The role of people's illnesses must be reconsidered in any case. Most of them are then likely to be merely psychosomatic. But all would have to be due to a mental disorder. Factors like repression, guilt, stress are then responsible for most of the diseases.

This is a logical consequence of idealism. Materialism sees everything only physically, idealism sees everything mentally.

Therefore, it is only consistent when the idealist Otto Weininger says the following:

"Every illness is guilt and punishment; all medicine must become psychiatry, care-of-the-soul. It is something immoral, i.e., unconscious, that leads to illness, and each illness is cured as soon as it is inwardly recognized and understood by the sick person himself."

I think I understand your approach.

But, as I said, one can make a philosophically justified distinction between a potential person (Newborn) and an actual one (A toddler who can say and intuitively understand I and Thou).

And such a distinction could possibly shake your argument a bit, if not completely invalidate it. That's all I really wanted to say.

so you're just changing the topic — Bartricks

Changing the subject might be relevant because there might be a suspicion that your antinatalist argument made here is based on unmentioned, implicit tacit presuppositions that have to do with your model of God.

Animals are innocent too. But why bring animals into the equation? — Bartricks

No, animals are not innocent in the proper sense. Innocent is only the one who can become guilty. Animals cannot do that. They are beyond guilt and innocence. I brought animals into the equation because babies resemble them in terms of beyond guilt and innocence.

So, the capability to become guilty must be given in order to be innocent. If you disagree, your concept of innocence is more metaphorical, symbolic, allegorical, or just fictional.

It's not question begging. — Bartricks

Okay, you may be right about that. But as far as I know, God represents for you an ultimate axiom in all questions of morality and values. If God's existence or being is the absolute good, then any form of being, including suffering, is always better than non-being.

Innocence does not always equal innocence. There is the more metaphorical innocence of the animal, and there is the moral innocence of a person.

The innocence of a baby is like the former innocence.

Animals neither deserve to suffer nor do they not deserve to suffer. Babies, being potential persons, deserve only our respect for their right to live and their right to become a completed person.

But I agree with you, an actual and therefore really innocent person brought directly into existence would not deserve to suffer. Only in the real human case it is not easy to say, because there is development.

Regardless, your argument begs the question regarding optimism and pessimism. An absolute optimism states that to be is always better than not to be, so that it is even better to be in hell than not to be at all.

Procreation first leads to a not yet fully developed person. And only a fully developed person is a person in the strict and actual sense.
A not yet fully developed person does not deserve a painless paradise.
Only innocent full persons would deserve such a thing.
However, once babies become full persons, they are not innocent because of their deeds. The deeds at the moment of reaching personhood and shortly thereafter are not innocent.

The Kalam arguments can not be used to argue in favor of god(s) .
The concept of god isn't mentioned in the premises or the conclusion so not an argument about god....but about the universe and its state of existence. — Nickolasgaspar

@Magnus

What @Nickolasgaspar says is correct.That's why Craig has to extend the argument further. And the subsequent lines of argument are controversial. At least the arguments are weaker than the Kalam argument, which itself is not fully convincing.

"It therefore follows that the universe has a cause. Conceptual analysis enables us to recover a number of striking properties that must be possessed by such an ultramundane being. For as the cause of space and time, this entity must transcend space and time and therefore exist atemporally and nonspatially, at least without the universe. This transcendent cause must therefore be changeless and immaterial, since timelessness entails changelessness, and changelessness implies immateriality. Such a cause must be beginningless and uncaused, at least in the sense of lacking any antecedent causal conditions. Ockham’s razor will shave away further causes, since we should not multiply causes beyond necessity. This entity must be unimaginably powerful, since it created the universe without any material cause.

Finally, and most remarkably, such a transcendent cause is plausibly taken to be personal. Three reasons can be given for this conclusion. First, there are two types of causal explanation: scientific explanations in terms of laws and initial conditions and personal explanations in terms of agents and their volitions. A first state of the universe cannot have a scientific explanation, since there is nothing before it, and therefore it can be accounted for only in terms of a personal explanation. Second, the personhood of the cause of the universe is implied by its timelessness and immateriality, since the only entities we know of that can possess such properties are either minds or abstract objects, and abstract objects do not stand in causal relations. Therefore, the transcendent cause of the origin of the universe must be of the order of mind. Third, this same conclusion is also implied by the fact that we have in this case the origin of a temporal effect from a timeless cause. If the cause of the origin of the universe were an impersonal set of necessary and sufficient conditions, it would be impossible for the cause to exist without its effect. For if the necessary and sufficient conditions of the effect are timelessly given, then their effect must be given as well. The only way for the cause to be timeless and changeless but for its effect to originate anew a finite time ago is for the cause to be a personal agent who freely chooses to bring about an effect without antecedent determining conditions. Thus we are brought, not merely to a transcendent cause of the universe, but to its Personal Creator. He is, as Leibniz maintained, the Sufficient Reason why anything exists rather than nothing." (Philosophical foundations for a Christian worldview / J.P. Moreland
and William Lane Craig. )

I don't know if it's been mentioned here before, but the topic reminds me strongly of a passage at the end of Voltaire's book Candide:

"one day the old woman ventured to say to them:

"I want to know which is worse, to be ravished a hundred times by negro pirates, to have a buttock cut off, to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and hanged at an auto-da-fé, to be dissected, to row in the galleys—in short, to go through all the miseries we have undergone, or to stay here and have nothing to do?"

"It is a great question," said Candide.

This discourse gave rise to new reflections, and Martin especially concluded that man was born to live either in a state of distracting inquietude or of lethargic disgust. Candide did not quite agree to that, but he affirmed nothing. Pangloss owned that he had always suffered horribly, but as he had once asserted that everything went wonderfully well, he asserted it still, though he no longer believed it."

I never took that as a serious concrete example. I don't think it's meant to be taken literally. It is rather a mere illustration, a figuration or symbol, that there might be limitations to God's omnipotence.

Because how should this example look more accurate? One needs a spatio-temporal world, gravity, a planet and stones on this planet. Should God now be outside or inside the universe? If inside, he also needs a corresponding physical design or manifestation.
If God increases the gravity between stone and planet more and more, then he destroys both at some point and the demonstration fails and is over.
The example assumes somehow that God can have resistances. But if He cancels the gravitation from the transcendence and then says it is infinite for the human being, then He cheats.

Consequences are all that matter to me, not intention or internal duty. — chiknsld

One could perhaps say that Prauss has approached Aristotle and somehow finds himself between Kant and Aristotle.

good and evil are attributes assigned to actions that directly or indirectly concern other human beings and are evaluated in light of their impact upon the lifetime of these human beings and, hence, morality and right do not dwell within our internal maxims or intentions. — spirit-salamander

Prauss is, after all, like Aristotle teleological, if we understand intentionality as a kind of teleology:

Human will is not auto-referential but by essence directed to the success (and not to the failure) of the actions in which it is implicated. Due to this intentionality, good and evil are attributes we ascribe to actions, insofar as they respect the normativity (whatever its kind might be) that the agent has adopted and thereby freely ‘incorporated’ as his actual incentive (759). — spirit-salamander

Prauss also wants to avoid utilitarianism with his idea of lifetime sacrificed, so to speak, for someone in need:

If one replaces being with will-to-live, he easily concludes that this synthesis allows for three modalities of action: “only life-to-take”, “not only life-to-take but also life-to-give”, and “only life-to-give” (1099). And if one further substitutes time for life (by which Prauss means Geistesleben), he will realize why these three modalities are not susceptible to any quantitative approach, since life-time can neither be augmented nor be re-gained and exchanged in any possible way, assuming that time is adequately apprehended as life-time [...]. Precisely because lifetime resists any quantitative approach, good and evil are categories proper to morality and right; that is to say, they are independent of any reference to goals evaluated according to the categories of utility. Hence, to ground morality and right on mere facts by emphasizing their formal (transcendental) implications is tantamount to resisting utilitarianism. — spirit-salamander

Your consequentialism would be a version of utilitarianism.

take the completely opposite side with Aristotle's teleological ethics. — chiknsld

The question that would interest me here would be how Aristotle derives normativity. An ethics without normativity makes little sense. You will perhaps answer: The teloi or the telos make it possible. But how? A precise derivation would have to be given. As far as I know, Aristotle's moral norms are based on the requirements of the polis to which one belongs. So society generates imperatives for the individual.

Ah, you are saying that kinship or commonality creates an "ought". It's teamwork. — chiknsld

In a certain sense, yes. One knows at least from oneself what it means to be an end in itself. Thereby, one is his own binding norm for himself. If outside oneself also an end in itself is given, then this has the same scope and normativity as for oneself. And how do I know that there are ends in themselves outside of myself? Intersubjectivity. Others are able to make demands on me where they themselves are the guideline.

gotcha — chiknsld

I am still working on getting an understanding of it myself. In principle, I only wanted to present the basic idea to the English-speaking world for the time being.

Okay but all suffering is not equal. Some people think they are always in pain or suffering and their life is considerably better than other people who are suffering terribly but make sure to try and be happy and make the best out of life. — chiknsld

I agree your points are valid. As I said, Prauss uses a single example for his moral theory, that of the biblical Samaritan. And this example seems to be clearer. A person is down and if he doesn't get help quickly, he will die. All other cases are then a matter of weighing and evaluation and balancing. Nevertheless, it does not attack the basic idea of Prauss. It may weaken the effectiveness of his theory in the sense of persuasiveness, but it does not refute it.

That's an ethics about love! :heart: — chiknsld

In a sense, yes. Prauss says love as paying respect. Because love as a feeling cannot be commanded.

How did you find out about him? I see most of his books are in German? — chiknsld

There is no translation yet. But there might be one someday. Prauss is very highly esteemed in Kant circles all over the world and is considered important in philosophical history. Therefore, there should be translations or monographs in English about him at some point.

So Prauss is a dualist. — chiknsld

Not a Cartesian Dualist. Rather something like a property dualist, or Aristotelian form-matter dualism. Here is what Prauss thinks about this, though the word subject could be swapped with the dynamic mental (Stream of Consciousness):

"The subject is an entity and yet not a “res . . . ,” because it is the complete dynamism of that substrate-less absolute change. “. . . extensa” is the entity of the subject only as “. . . temporaliter extensa,” which Descartes did not take into consideration. “. . . extensa” to him means directly “. . . spatialiter extensa,” and with that immediately “res spatialiter extensa” as well. And precisely in that is the reason that a “res . . .” cannot be comprehensible as “. . . cogitans.” However, as one that is only “. . . temporaliter extensa,” an entity can perhaps still be comprehensible as a “. . . temporaliter extensa cogitans” as well. As such, this entity could be related to a “res spatialiter extensa” as the body of a subject in a way in which, according to Aristotle, the anima behaves toward the corpus: as forma corporis. As an entity of time it would then be precisely the form of motion of a body. For as the subject in a form of one, namely, its own body, the subject would be exactly that which through itself as that completely special type of constant motion would place its body in motion or at rest: already as a cognizing, and thus first and truly as an acting subject." (Gerold Prauss - The Problem of Time in Kant)

Basically, Prauss is a transcendental idealist in the sense of Kant. But that would lead too far here.

Now what I would like a better understanding of, is how do you treat other people as an end without sacrificing for basically your entire life? You mentioned earlier that his ethics would require pretty much just that -a lifelong sacrificing. — chiknsld

If we start from the real everyday life, and leave extravagant purely invented examples aside, then I don't see the big problem.
You only have to help if you perceive that someone you happen to meet is in need. But you're right insofar as you watch the news on TV, for example, and find out about those in need of help all over the world. What happens then? Am I personally called upon to help? Or is it enough if I donate something because aid organizations are already on the ground?

And so, again, if one does not care or for lack of a better word, one is just "lazy" and does not feel like devoting such effort to the cause, does that make the person "evil"? — chiknsld

According to Prauss, you are obligated despite laziness. You must not make your laziness as a driving force the goal of your intention. To live out laziness would indeed be evil according to this ethical system. I think here's where you're disagreeing. Prauss stands on the shoulders of Kant with his ethics of duty (with the corresponding connection and hierarchy of feeling and will). And you have to find this ethics halfway convincing.

And how are we defining evil here? Simply that they do not feel like doing something? — chiknsld

Evil = Not doing in this case

Evil = Not Feeling to do

It is only about the actions and deeds or inaction and neglect: Not about feelings.

Surely being lazy cannot make you evil right? — chiknsld

If you are isolated at home and never go out and are just lazy, then that is not evil. But if you go out in a sluggish and lazy mood, and in front of your door someone is just bleeding to death, then you have to help in spite of your laziness and sloth, because that injured person is an end in itself, which your mind registers (or can reasonably assume that this is the case, no mumbo jumbo is supposed to be in play). The injured person sends an imperative to you, so to speak, an imperative to help, and this is morally binding. Why? Because the person is an end in itself. You intrinsically want to do justice to ends in themselves. This would not be the case with a large stone in front of your front door, nor would it be the case with an injured fly. They can not be ends in themselves and therefore are not able to convey it. But towards the suffering children in Yemen who I see on the news, for example, I may have the right to be lazy.

What if a person wants to commit suicide? Are they evil for not staying alive to help someone else? — chiknsld

That's a fair question, if I understand you correctly. You mean if I go out and try to kill myself and happen to run into someone who is in need. I would not know how to answer that. Prauss would perhaps say that suicide should be postponed for the time being because I see someone in need. The question is also whether I want to kill myself out of desperation. Then I would be a help-seeker myself, I would be in need.

What if they are on their deathbed? Should they be setting their priorities to try to live and help others at the same time? — chiknsld

The answer to your two examples:

Thus, Prauss is obliged to subscribe to two further claims: in addition to the claim that there is no morality possible between persons who are not in need, there is no morality possible between persons in need, since they have nothing to offer — spirit-salamander

Every single person on this planet needs help. — chiknsld

Though Prauss would say that in a sense most are still capable of self-help, but I agree that one can argue about what exactly that means.

Okay, but what are you searching for? An ethics that is universal or an ethics that only applies to humans? Or I should say, do you think that a human ethics can be universal? — chiknsld

An ethics that is universal. Self-knowledge is the highest thing a living being can be capable of, and this ability makes ethics and morality possible.

My initial point was that he cannot prove any of this, but now I see that he would not care about proving this in the first place. — chiknsld

Prauss definitely has the claim to support every step in his ethics argumentatively, i.e. to really derive everything instead of just giving mere assertions and posits. Kant, for example, simply postulates a moral ought. Prauss explains how such an ought comes about.

I admit that one can have reservations about Prauss. It is best to compare him with another ethical system, with any one, and so you may see his strength. In the end, I agree with Schopenhauer: "Preaching morals is easy, grounding morals hard". Personally, I still find Prauss' grounding the most successful. Which ethical theory do you find most plausible, even if you are not completely convinced of it?

I have the feeling that you look at Prauss with an absolute view without comparisons, then it is clear that his ethics has weaknesses, as Schopenhauer already says for the justification of every ethics. But everyone still moralizes somehow, you probably do too. Therefore, one should look for grounds.

What do you think makes it different from "natural law"? — chiknsld

That is a good question. To answer it, I would have to read Prauss in more detail. As far as I know, Prauss says that one cannot derive an ought from a natural (static somatic or physical etc.) being. But one can do this from a certain mental being. Nature is, for Prauss the empirical, and the mental would be something like a non-empirical apriori given dynamic "culture". Prauss wants to say, I think, that morality is not anchored in unconscious nature, but is a (potential) positing of reflective consciousness, which nevertheless has an objective validity, because the moral scheme: only as means, both as means and as end, and only as end is logical and unambiguous.

But perhaps these are all mere semantic stipulations and one could therefore speak of a kind of natural law, though Prauss would probably prefer the term mental law.

How do you decide what is worth the sacrificing of your own life for? Certainly you would first have to care about other people. If you did not care about other people then how could a categorical imperative apply to you? Would that just make the person evil? — chiknsld

These are fair questions.

I also have some reservations: According to Prauss, morality presupposes an injured subject incapable of self-help. It seems that he always assumes a physical injury in this (Prauss takes as his only example the parable of the Good Samaritan). But what about a mental or psychological "injury" that weighs heavily on one, such as a nervous breakdown, trauma, or depression? And what about someone who, after careful consideration, wants to die (and can't do so without help)? Or with homeless people who have given up on themselves without wanting to die? Prauss does not address such questions, although I think they are important.

Nevertheless, of all ethical theories I know so far, Prauss's is, in my opinion, the best out there, because, above all, the normativity necessary for ethics is derived most plausibly.

And if it is certain that there are always people in need, then they cannot demand that I sacrifice myself for them like a saint and lay down my life for them. Because holiness goes beyond what Prauss understands by morality.
— spirit-salamander

Exactly! That has been my entire point! — chiknsld

To avoid misunderstanding. I mean this, that one literally dies for the other, as in martyrdom. Because in a certain sense, one certainly has to sacrifice something of oneself with Prauss. Namely, your own lifetime.

Would you admit that Prauss is at least a scintilla more convincing here than Kant? Or what do you think of Kant's idea of the universalizability of maxims as a moral criterion? To appreciate Prauss' idea, one must acknowledge the Kantian idea of man as an end in himself. Otherwise, Prauss is not really interesting.

Hmm, no I honestly do not see how this is the same as a moral obligation existing objectively. — chiknsld

This was not meant as an objective moral obligation. But rather a necessary preliminary stage of it. That is, there are non-objective and amoral and non-binding imperatives, such as the "command" to go for a walk, and perhaps there are objective moral imperatives that are further binding.

I thought the premise was that no one else could help, you have to help her. Basic stuff. Get down on your knees, pick her up. Bring her to the hospital or wait for an ambulance with her. Show empathy towards her, console her, etc. The basic stuff. Not just make a phone call and go about your day. Again, you might just want to let the hospital know this will be occurring on a daily basis. — chiknsld

I think the idea is that you have to help to the best of your ability. There is a personal assessment where self-deception must be avoided. So to the best of our knowledge and conscience. And a phone call may be the only sensible thing to do.

It means that your premises are subjective. Wherever you choose you will subjectively input conveniences, thus moving the goalposts. Rationalization is never-ending. Which again, is perfectly fine just don't expect to ever have the work published in an soft sciences journal. — chiknsld

I still need to think about that, to what extent conviences play a factor with Prauss. Because to accidentally encounter someone in distress, like a child drowning in a lake on a cold day, is always an inconvenience. I can't rationalize anything away when the child is crying out for help. Help is objectively required.

I must admit, however, that I am not a native English speaker, so I don't quite understand your implications and allusions. Maybe that's why I can't quite understand your points.

For Prauss, it's all about the very rough and simple basic idea for the time being. You have, I think, complicated the matter, and so I don't know exactly how to respond to that. But anyway, thanks for your participation in the discussion. It seems that only a few people are interested in it so far.

Moral dilemmas are proof that a categorical imperative does not exist: — chiknsld

I'll try to be more precise about your points now. To help me better understand your position, you seem to take the role of a moral nihilist (nothing is morally right or wrong) when you say there is no categorical imperative, since there are moral dilemmas. And by such an imperative is to be understood a morally objectively binding imperative.
My post was aimed at an improvement and completion of Kant's ethical position, which, after all, represents an objective ethics, a moral realism. Discussing with a moral nihilist on my raised topic is, after all, far more difficult than with someone who somehow believes in prescriptive morality. However, an ethical nihilism will probably not be free of dilemmas and inconsistencies either, but I do not want to discuss that.

Perhaps you will admit that Prauss's position is better than Kant's, but still fails. And therefore your objections might be justified, and I try as best I can to give an answer to them.

This is a pretty rotten situation because you would have to take the bread from the mouths of little children due to your "categorical imperative" that you say exists. — chiknsld

The imperative I am talking about would "demand" that the money go back to the bank and that the children be saved from starvation. Both. The bank employees were merely used as a means, which is immoral, and not helping the children is equally immoral, who should be treated solely as an end. The question is, of course, legitimate as to who is now called upon to help the children. This may not be easy to determine, but the basic idea that the children must be helped in the first place remains unaffected. If I, as a European, hear about starving children in Africa, am I directly obliged to help? Is it a question of proximity or the means of being able to help? Am I being addressed as an individual, or is a collective being addressed, etc.? These are all legitimate questions, but, as I said, they do not undermine the core of Prauss's concept.

due to your "categorical imperative" that you say exists. — chiknsld

You cannot deny that imperatives exist in general. If I ask you to go for a walk or whatnot, I have created an imperative addressed to you. You won't deny that, right? So there are, what you can't deny, imperatives. The question is only whether there are morally binding ones. I would say that people's being an end in themselves is a good criterion for there to be some.

You are walking by a woman who needs help so you are obligated to help her? Hmm, what if you help her but the next day there is another woman laying on the side of the road needing help? And you help her as well? And the next day there is another woman, and everyday for the rest of your life there will be a woman on the side of the road that needs your help? — chiknsld

This is not yet a challenge to Prauss' ethics. After all, it's enough if I always call the ambulance or emergency services, and that's no big deal. If I leave my house and always encounter a person in total distress, then I am obliged to help. Perhaps there is a cause that people are always in need near my house, then I would possibly be obliged to follow up on it, to prevent it, to contact the authorities, to encourage other people to help.

Eventually you are going stay inside the house for a day, because you simply do not feel like helping whatever woman will be on the side of the road that day. Are you morally obligated to go outside that day? I mean, you've already helped 20 women for the past 20 days in a row, you have the energy to do it for a 21st day, but you are not morally obligated to do it. — chiknsld

Why should I be obliged to leave my house the next day? Why should I assume that another person needs help? There are no obligations. I do not see the objection. There would have to be, as I already mentioned, a reason that again and again people are in need. I would have to counteract this reason, as good as I can and as far as the possibilities are given to me therefore.

You do not have a moral obligation on the 21st day just as you do not have a moral obligation on the first day. — chiknsld

This is not correct. I have to know that someone is in need, and that was the case the first day I left the house. But why should I assume that on the 21st day I have to leave the house to help. That people were in need was a fortuitous and random circumstance.

A moral obligation has to be rationalized. — chiknsld

I don't know what you mean exactly by rationalization.

Let's say that you help this woman 1 billion times (big enough number I hope). — chiknsld

Eventually you are totally not going to care about waking up and helping another woman.

I'm sorry but you can't defeat boredom. You can't defeat "not caring". Therefore on that day you will say, "I have helped 1 billion women, and I just don't care anymore, let someone else help her". You no longer have a moral obligation to help her. — chiknsld

The ethics I start from do not take into account feelings such as caring and boredom. It is only a matter of bare duties. If by care you mean no feeling, but only an ethic of responsibility, then one must say the following. I am responsible only if I know one hundred percent that there is someone in current need in the immediate vicinity. Otherwise, no. And if it is certain that there are always people in need, then they cannot demand that I sacrifice myself for them like a saint and lay down my life for them. Because holiness goes beyond what Prauss understands by morality.

If you choose to act out your boredom when someone is in need, and therefore do not help, then that is an immoral, evil act or omission.

I don't think your reductio ad absurdum or argumentum ad absurdum works.

If you respond again with argument of empathy... — chiknsld

This is an inaccuracy on my part. For Prauss, feelings such as empathy play only a subordinate role in ethics:

Morality and right [...] represent a game that we are factually obliged to play, given the facts of self-knowledge and interpersonality; good and evil are attributes assigned to actions that directly or indirectly concern other human beings — spirit-salamander

Then I know you just want to believe in something and it's not about figuring out the truth. In which case I will say, whatever you want to believe is right! — chiknsld

I have given many arguments in my post. Therefore, it seems to me that it is not just a matter of belief. There is already the ambition to get on the track of objective truth.

Ah, that's natural law. How can you prove that there is a categorical imperative other than through rationalization? — chiknsld

Prauss would deny that his theory is natural law because no ought arises from nature. But if one understands very generally the ability of consciousness to be self-aware as nature, then one could speak of a kind of natural law. But Prauss does not do that, because for him nature is that which lacks the capacity of consciousness for self-awareness.

In principle, Prauss denies that there can be a categorical imperative in the strict sense. The moral imperative of Prauss is conditioned by a situation where there is someone who is not able to help himself.

Yes, the moral imperative does indeed arise through rationalization as the understanding of self as an end in itself.

Moral dilemmas — chiknsld

You are walking by a woman who needs help so you are obligated to help her? Hmm — chiknsld

Your examples may draw attention to problems and difficulties in grasping what needs to be done, but they do not attack the basic idea of Prauss.

Just imagine yourself in the situation that you walk by a person in distress and in urgent need of help. You would feel obligated to help, wouldn't you? Why would that be? In my opinion, Prauss gives a plausible explanation.

You're probably right. I didn't think that precisely about the title and simply identified the ethical and moral, which in the Kantian context, as you say, is at least problematic.

God is the necessary being for the physical universe, and us, to exist. — Joe Mello

I have been maintaining quite simply that in our observation of the physical universe, God exists out of necessity to logically explain it. — Joe Mello

What proofs of this do you have in mind? I can think of two: The Aristotelian argument of the Unmoved Mover and the Leibnizian contingency argument.

This 'criticism' is one that can be made of any analysis of morality. — Bartricks

How can you be so sure? And if it were so, one would have to question every prescriptive moral theory. One must then not be afraid of doing so.

Plus my view can deal with it in a way that no other view can. — Bartricks

I have also presented a theory here that may be able to deal with it:

an original transcendental (meta-Kantian) moral theory

But before I do that — Bartricks

Then give an explanation of the following problem:

there is nothing in God or outside of Him (no reason, no principle whatsoever) that would prohibit murder per se except His total arbitrariness, which, however, from our point of view, is total randomness. I don't see why God should be in any respect better than Hitler. — spirit-salamander

Don't you think it

absurd to suggest that there are no actions such that they are too evil for God to command or even just to permit[?] — spirit-salamander

But in your scenario God does not will all other things or even any other thing. — Fooloso4

I think that's the open question, whether God even wants other things as well. He might also want to be alone. According to the presented argument, however, which I have discovered and find very interesting, this God cannot exist at all due to the fact of the spatiotemporal world.

If the absence of benevolence is an imperfection then a being who creates a world where only it exists is not a benevolent being. Neither it nor the world it creates would be perfect. — Fooloso4

That's a good point.

But I think the omnibenevolence is there, as noted in my answer before (https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/657003), even when God is alone.

Because otherwise God would gain a new characteristic with creation, which would make Him changeable. That is, he would have the potential of all-goodness and with the creation of the world, this potential would be actualized. However, this would violate the given model of God.

If benevolence entails benefit to what is other then oneself, the a God who limits existence to the creation of itself would not be benevolent. — Fooloso4

In this model of God, omnibenevolence is always directed first at itself: “In willing himself primarily, he wills all other things” (Aquinas SCG, 1.75).

In principle, yes.

World 1 = God is alone

World 2 = God exists alongside a creation which has imperfections like temporality, spatial extension.

World 1 must therefore be more perfect than world 2.

The standards for perfection result from the given model of God, where he is purely actual and absolutely simple.

Francisco Suárez (1548—1617) would argue "that for a law to be genuine law and not just law in name it must be grounded in the legislative act of a superior[.]" — spirit-salamander

I did not mean to object to Moore. Bartricks was meant. But you're right, even Suarez would eventually be subject to Moore's criticism that God might be superfluous. Suárez would, however, argue "that for a law to be genuine law and not just law in name it must be grounded in the legislative act of a superior[.]"

Moore would then reply:

And this is a very common mistake. — G E Moore, Chapter IV: Metaphysical Ethics.§ 76

In any case, the subject of the discussion is complicated and definitely not clear-cut as Bartricks believes it to be.

Personally, I find Gerold Prauss' theory the most convincing.

Pavlos Kontos sums it up in a review (Kant-Studien 2009). I hope the passages are somewhat understandable:

"The very case of an action that handles another person ‘only as an end in himself’ is [...] meant to exclusively define what morality is about; by contrast, the order of right emerges once we encounter other persons at the same time as means and as ends in themselves. These two real practical alternatives describe the difference between moral good and right (morally and rightly good), whence the negative alternative of handling someone ‘only as a means’ mirrors what is morally and rightly evil.

Prauss proceeds by dealing with the exclusively moral alternative, that is, with an action that handles other persons only as ends in themselves. It proves to be the case that this action, and hence the order of morality in general, is conditioned by a very peculiar situation: a claim to morality is grounded only “when the person handled is precisely not in a position to help himself and as long as he remains in this position” (711). “This self-help represents then the decisive criterion” in order for the realms of right and morality to be distinguished from one another and, consequently, this very distinction depends upon the emergence of such a particular case (711f., note). The rationale of the argument suggests that whoever cannot assure his own life cannot therefore represent a means for our subjective purposes (1117f.).

[...]

1. Morality emerges as a relation between an actor (able to help himself and others) and a
person in need or, according to the Samaritan example, a “verwundetes [wounded, injured] Subjekt” (1111f.).


Thus, Prauss is obliged to subscribe to two further claims: in addition to the claim that there is no morality possible between persons who are not in need, there is no morality possible between persons in need, since they have nothing to offer or, in the terms that the author will later introduce, they can give no life (not even to themselves). Hence, morality is conditioned by situations that are exclusively restricted to interpersonal relations between non-injured and injured persons.

[...]

[…] Prauss reconstructs the notion of ends in a long argument that we might reformulate as follows: Human will is not auto-referential but by essence directed to the success (and not to the failure) of the actions in which it is implicated. Due to this intentionality, good and evil are attributes we ascribe to actions, insofar as they respect the normativity (whatever its kind might be) that the agent has adopted and thereby freely ‘incorporated’ as his actual incentive (759). Every kind of normativity presupposes a claim raised by the Behandelte [patient, being treated, being acted upon] (that is, stemming from the objective side of action) and a kind of Befolgung [observance] (that is, the readiness of the agent to act according to the principles he has subscribed to).

[...]

Freedom bears practical relevance only insofar as it represents the object of conscience: normativity presupposes the knowledge of freedom, not just freedom itself (799). However, this factual knowledge is not sufficient to explain why human beings are regarded as ends in themselves. Thus, a second level of self-recognition is required, namely a level grounded upon a further fact: upon the fact that human beings, bestowed as they are with Vernunft [reason] and not simply with Verstand [understanding], achieve a thematization of their conscience of freedom (840). Hence, Vernunft makes possible a self-knowledge, i.e. a self-recognition, of human beings as free creators of ends, namely, as self-creators (817). It follows that the first kind of causality recognized by a human being bestowed with Vernunft is free causality as the vehicle of his selfrealization. It is only afterwards that a human being recognizes that other beings might also operate as causes, either as natural causes or even as free animals and human subjects. Prauss’ conclusion thus leaves no mystery: “free causality constitutes from the outset the necessary precondition of natural causality” (865). The synthesis of freedom (self-realizing will) and necessity (the claims raised by others), conditioned as it is by this mutual dependence of the two aforementioned facts upon one another, admits of three modalities: ‘to be only as a means’, ‘to be not only as a means but also as an end in itself’, and ‘to be not only also as an end, but only as an end in itself’. If one replaces being with will-to-live, he easily concludes that this synthesis allows for three modalities of action: “only life-to-take”, “not only life-to-take but also life-to-give”, and “only life-to-give” (1099).

[...]

Morality and right [...] represent a game that we are factually obliged to play, given the facts of self-knowledge and interpersonality; good and evil are attributes assigned to actions that directly or indirectly concern other human beings and are evaluated in light of their impact upon the lifetime of these human beings and, hence, morality and right do not dwell within our internal maxims or intentions."

"[W]hen we do not help someone in need, we do not solely prove to be non-meritorious but we commit an evil, whatever our maxims might be. From this point of view, Prauss’ proposal should be welcomed by those who acknowledge (without, however, supplying us with a convincing reformulation) that the duties of virtue should not be regarded as a kind of moral luxury we are allowed to neglect."

That is, in a nutshell, rational agents (can) issue imperatives all the time. But only in certain interpersonal contexts do these imperatives give rise to objectively binding moral obligations.

BTW since he is using quantifiers (e.g."single source", "single mind") — neomac

Yes I agree, these quantifiers make the premises conceptually unclear.

G E Moore, Chapter IV: Metaphysical Ethics.§ 76 — Cuthbert

In this respect, he @Bartricks sees his philosophy in agreement with that of Ockham:

My view is, clearly, a form of divine command theory and, where moral imperatives are concerned, it is equivalent to William of Ockham's. — Bartricks

This is what Ockham's moral theory says:

On the other side is an extreme voluntarism that says that natural law consists entirely in a command or prohibition coming from God’s will, a view that Suárez attributes to William of Ockham (DL 2.6.4). On this view, what one ought or ought not to do is wholly determined by God’s legislative acts and, furthermore, God’s legislative acts are unconstrained. That is, there is no act that is intrinsically bad such that God is compelled to prohibit it or even prevented from commanding it and no act that is intrinsically good such that God is compelled to command it. Had God commanded us to murder and steal, then doing so would have been obligatory and good. — spirit-salamander

The last sentence is crucial:

"Had God commanded us to murder and steal, then doing so would have been obligatory and good."

So this is what B subscribes to.

On the other hand, he says:

Hitler is an excellent example. According to Salamander's view, Hitler did nothing wrong. That's silly. — Bartricks

Now, your view entails that Hitler did nothing wrong. Which is stupid. Hitler was a jerk. — Bartricks

The view that moral imperatives are our imperatives entails Hitler did nothing wrong. It is thus absurd and can be rejected — Bartricks

Surely there is a great deal of tension here. God could command Hitler's behavior from us. He could do that, and it would be all right if he did. But then why is Hitler wrong in commanding his own behavior?

According to Bartricks, there is nothing in God or outside of Him (no reason, no principle whatsoever) that would prohibit murder per se except His total arbitrariness, which, however, from our point of view, is total randomness. I don't see why God should be in any respect better than Hitler.

That's why I showed him Suarez's view as a middle ground:

Suárez, on the other hand, thinks that God’s commands and prohibitions are constrained by natural goodness and badness. As befits a perfect being, God prohibits some actions precisely because they are evil. Suárez thinks it absurd to suggest that there are no actions such that they are too evil for God to command or even just to permit. To this extent, then, Suárez agrees with the naturalist; the obligations of natural law are rooted in natural goodness and badness." https://iep.utm.edu/suarez/#SH3i — spirit-salamander

I just have never read his works in full and have not done an analysis like your OP, so I thought it interesting you made a topic about it. — schopenhauer1

A translation into English could appear at the end of the year if all goes well. But probably more likely next year.

My motivation was actually to strengthen Mainländer's philosophy a bit. Because he is hardly taken seriously by most philosophers who have read him. His basic ideas tend to be dismissed as nonsensical. And I hope to have shown with my post that it may not be so absurd after all. In any event, no more absurd than many "established" theories out there. In the least, many are fascinated by Mainländer. For an ontological nihilism has never been taken to such an extreme in the history of ideas.

The problem all these philosophers saw was being born at all. Being becomes an inescapable trap where we must constantly pretend to distract from being itself. — schopenhauer1

Although Schopenhauer is one of my favorite philosophers, his pessimism, as well as that of his entire school, seems to me a bit excessive. And when I read his Aphorisms on the wisdom of life, I don't quite buy his pessimism. The question is where the true Schopenhauer is to be found, rather in those aphorisms or even merely in his first volume of his main work. The biography of Schopenhauer also shows that he had a cosmopolitan, epicurean (both aesthetic and sensual) side.

Against what I consider to be Schopenhauer's crude (sometimes even unintentionally funny) pessimistic remarks, one can make the following quotations:

“It isn’t the events themselves that disturb people, but only their judgements about them.” – Epictetus

"It seems to me that people always exaggerate when they speak of pain and misfortune, as if it were a requirement of good manners to exaggerate here, while one keeps studiously quiet about the fact that there are innumerable palliatives against pain, such as anaesthesia or the feverish haste of thoughts, or a quiet posture, or good or bad memories, purposes, hopes, and many kinds of pride and sympathy that almost have the same effect as anaesthetics—and at the highest degrees of pain one automatically loses consciousness. We know quite well how to drip sweetnesses upon our bitternesses, especially the bitternesses of the soul; we find remedies in our courage and sublimity as well as the nobler deliria of submission and resignation. A loss is a loss for barely one hour; somehow it also brings us some gift from heaven—new strength, for example, or at least a new opportunity for strength." (Nietzsche - The gay science 326)

"The following, then, are the main tenets or golden maxims of Epicurus: [...]
IV. Continuous pain does not last long in the flesh, and pain, if extreme, is present a very short time, and even that degree of pain which barely outweighs pleasure in the flesh does not occur for many days together. Illnesses of long duration even permit of an excess of pleasure over pain in the flesh." (Robert Drew Hicks - Stoic and epicurean)

Your pessimistic remarks about the others are, I admit it, somewhat more subtle.

If you want to read more about Mainländer, you can find sources here:

T. Whittaker - review. In: Mind. A quarterly review of Psychology and Philosophy. XI (1886)

The chapter on Mainländer from Frederick C. Beiser: Weltschmerz. Pessimism in German Philosophy 1860–1900.

The section on Mainländer from "The Oxford Handbook of Schopenhauer" by Sebastian Gardner

In a sense, isn't the truly committed academics' quest that of unification of knowledge? Yet working against him is the massive amounts of data, physical properties, technologies, and such.. Minutia upon minutia, to be mongered by specialized departments, teams, and organizations.. Unification of knowledge becomes a losing game.

And in a sense, the unification sought after in Marxist and Communist theories of a unified society- one where everyone is working for a decided humanist purpose of sorts withers away to the more natural and efficient, messy markets.. keeping knowledge, goals, social interests, etc. separated into their companies, corporations, and profit-seeking ventures, competing in a market place. Unification of economics, and purpose becomes a losing game the roiling marketplace of just trying to survive by working a job where one must focus their attention on this set of inane things, not that set, you see. — schopenhauer1

Interesting train of thought

This is right up my alley. I would argue Mainlander is Philosophical Pessimism (capital "P"s) par excellence. — schopenhauer1

It is often said that Julius Bahnsen even surpasses both Schopenhauer and Mainländer in pessimism.

Does he actually believe the metaphysics of a dead god or was this more a metaphor for a unity that has exploded into a multiplicity? — schopenhauer1

Yes, more of a metaphor. He uses the Kantian regulative as-if language. As if there was an intention of self-destruction.

But since in the Philosophy of Religion deductive arguments also deal with the God of Classical Theism (a variant of the Neoplatonic One), who strictly speaking is also not a person, I took the liberty to do the same with Mainländer's "God".

[Here is an example of a deductive premise involving the classical theistic God: "1. God’s act of creation is an intentional action (if only analogously so)" (https://philpapers.org/rec/SCHCTA-28)

What is written in brackets could also be said for Mainländer's metaphysics.]

Have you heard of Lurianic Kabbalah? If so, was Mainlander familiar with it, perhaps by proxy through indirect sources even? — schopenhauer1

I have heard about it and also that a similarity with Mainländer is mentioned. As far as I know, there is no evidence that Mainländer knew about it.

I rather think of a passage by Schopenhauer:

"It would obviously have to be an ill-advised God who knew no better way to have fun than to transform himself into a world such as ours, into such a hungry world, where he would have to endure misery, deprivation and death, without measure and purpose, in the form of countless millions of living but fearful and tortured beings, all of whom exist for a while only because one devours the other. For example, in the form of six million Negro slaves who receive on average sixty million lashes a day to their naked bodies; and in the form of three million European weavers who vegetate feebly in stifling attics or desolate factory halls, plagued by hunger and grief, and so on. This in my eyes would be amusement for a God, who as such would certainly be accustomed to quite different circumstances!" (Parerga and Paralipomena, Volume 2. Chapter 5. Some words on pantheism §69)

The idea I presented is more or less from a German philosopher named Peter Bieri.

An answer should be in the following translated passage of that same Peter Bieri:

"As far as the idea of education is concerned, it cannot mean: to rule over others with one's knowledge. The power of knowledge lies elsewhere: it prevents one from being a victim. Those who know about the world are less easily fooled and can defend themselves when others want to make them the plaything of their interests, in politics or advertising, for example. Orientation in the world is not the only orientation that matters. To be educated also means to be well versed in the question of what knowledge and understanding consist of, how far they reach and what their limits are. It means asking oneself the question: What do I really know and understand, and what of the things I and others believe is on shaky ground? It means taking a cash-check of knowledge and understanding. This includes questions like these: What evidence do I have for my beliefs? Are they reliable? And do they really prove what they seem to prove? How reliable are the principles used to get from evidence to claims that go beyond it? What are valid inferences, and what are fallacies? What are good arguments, and what is fallacious sophistry? The knowledge to be gained here is second-order knowledge. It distinguishes the naive from the educated scientist, the serious from the simple-minded journalist who has never heard of source criticism. Second-order knowledge saves us from becoming the victim of superstition. When does one event make another probable? What is a law as opposed to a coincidental correlation? What distinguishes a true explanation from a bogus explanation? This is what we need to know if we are going to assess a risk and make a judgment about all the predictions we are bombarded with. Someone who is awake to these things will keep a skeptical distance not only from esoteric literature, but also from economic forecasts, election campaign arguments, psychotherapeutic promises, and brazen presumptions of brain research. And he will become irritated when he hears others merely parroting scientific formulas."

I know now how to reconcile theism with atheism: God did exist (theism), but God's dead i.e. God doesn't exist (atheism). — Agent Smith

Yes, that is also what I think. In a way, a Hegelian synthesis of the thesis theism and the antithesis atheism.

One question: God's afterlife? — Agent Smith

His afterlife takes place in or with this world of ours: The "connexion of things is, as it were, a "divine breath" blowing through the world from the "dead godhead"." (T. Whittaker - review. In: Mind. A quarterly review of Psychology and Philosophy. XI (1886))

So his last breath still exists as the resultant and resulting movement of all things and connection of these to each other in this world.

As soon as the "entropic" death of the world is reached, thus the absolute Nirvana, it is also over with that afterlife in form of the "divine" "breath" pervading the world.