This guy has some interesting ideas about addiction.

One might say, more generally, that the oppressed can be, and very often are, oppressive. Thus the poor are just as greedy, in general, as the rich; just as keen to avoid paying taxes, and exploit others. They just don't have the same opportunity.

But more typically, the oppressed man oppresses women; the oppressed woman oppresses children; the oppressed child oppresses the disabled child. If society teaches oppression, everyone learns it.

There is no virtue in being oppressed, it is a hierarchy of power, not virtue. Nevertheless, when one looks from above, it is impossible to distinguish those that fight to end the hierarchy from those that seek to invert it. One needs to ask whether Farrakhan's 'white man' is a race or an institution, but from the position of an instance of the institution, it comes to the same thing.

In youth, children develop three separate identities: Me, Mine, and I. Me is the social identity, and the first on the scene. Then comes the property identity, then the third personal ownership identity. — darthbarracuda

Psyche always demands three dimensions; the observer, the observed, and well, whoever is claiming there is the observer and the observed The analyst).

But in 's terms, the observed is awareness as sensitivity to self in proprioception and related sensations - the feedback between babble and hearing for example. The observer is the mirror neuron modelling process reflected upon those direct senses, and the third is linguistic.

Which is unaccountably missing from the op.

Indeed, I am the universe annihilating the opposition. Not quite so attractive an identity.

First let me say that this is a topic that really interests me, so although it may look like I'm arguing, I'm actually trying to explore the notion in the only way I have available (other than solitary reflection) which is dialogue. — andrewk

I could have written exactly this, myself; we are of one mind. But I have been rather hard on the mystical expressions in this thread; I hope I can explain why.

It seems to me that there are two possibilities in the case of someone who makes the claim, "I am the the universe...'. The first is that it is an ego identification - a theoretical construct that one adopts as one might adopt 'I am a great leader', or 'I am an introvert', or whatever. In such a case one remains, to put it simply, self-centered. One talks the talk of oneness, but walks the walk of ego, accumulating for oneself the kudos of superior awareness and the fleet of rolls-royces of your average guru.

The dangers of sustaining such a contradiction, that I have mentioned earlier are that it leads one into speaking for the universe and sometimes into imagining magical powers of mind reading and influence, manifesting as the dreadful 'law of attraction' for example.

The other possibility is that one experiences a genuine feeling of unity with the universe. In such a case, (and this is a matter of logic - I am not speaking from experience) one must have the same care and affection for others as one has for one's own limbs. If you and I are indeed one, then I must inevitably and literally love my neighbour as myself.

I have just articulated an ideal of identity, which a thoughtful person might find attractive - I want to be that. And that thought leads towards the first possibility, not the second. So that is why I am rather hard-line about this; it is not just a matter of having a pleasant notion of the oneness of the universe, but a total transformation of experience and behaviour. Otherwise the truth of the thing is betrayed, and it becomes an ugly and dangerous lie.

And for me*, the greater satisfaction comes from viewing the different phenomena as parts of a whole. It's a lucky thing that there are so many different metaphysics around. — andrewk

I'm all aboard with everything being connected. 'Each thing is everything being that thing' is a fine and dandy way of understanding everything, but it is superfluous to mention it whenever one talks about a particular thing. In the case in hand it is in particular misleading, because even accepting that awareness ( distinguished from its contents) is universally the same, that is precisely what is not being reflected upon in self inquiry, but the particularity: which is to say the contents of awareness, i.e. the self. If I am the universe being aware, and you are the universe being aware, how come we are not aware of each other's awareness but only of our own? So the metaphysic you espouse fails to explain the phenomenon in question, but the gloss being given misleads one into thinking that it does.

claims of not existing at all coming from your direction and what not... — Mongrel

I don't remember that, have you a quote?

If there is nothing you strive towards in living your life, then what stops you killing yourself? — hunterkf5732

Well I didn't quite say that. When making bread, I strive to make the best bread I can, when decorating the hall, I strive to make a good job of it. What i don't do is strive to make my life something other than my life. My goals are inside my life, not about my life. Death is the 'goal' that one cannot help reaching eventually, but I have no inclination whatever to strive to hasten it.

So one cannot reduce it to 'the plastic bag is the pile of horse manure' — andrewk

One can however reduce it to the plastic bag is a container, horse manure smells, and I am self aware with no loss of meaning and even more satisfaction.

This just seems majestically misguided. — hunterkf5732

I entirely agree. It is intended as a reductio ad absurdum of the quoted and applauded "I am the universe becoming self aware."

As if life is a game of fucking football. I refuse to strive, even for the ending of strife. It is enough to live. Don't forget to grit your teeth while doing it - not.

I just hate the mentality that regards cracking security as a worthwhile activity. It's a total waste of everyone's time. — Wayfarer

One only needs security if it is worth cracking. You seem to think that what you are doing is something different from what hackers do, but bankers and bank robbers have the exact same interest - money.

There's something in a box but I don't know what that thing is. I want to know what's in the box. Would you say that I know what I'm looking for or that I don't know what I'm looking for? — Michael

Well, Pandora,talking of myths, I'm inclined to say you don't, and when you find it, you'll wish you hadn't. But life begins with 'suck it and see', and probably ends the same way.

The folly of arrogance is best explained by the most arrogant one among us. — Mongrel

I'll toss you for the title.

You're saying that the universe is an exaggeration/fabrication of ego? — Albert Keirkenhaur

The universe is the universe. A plastic bag is the universe becoming a container, and a pile of horse shit is the universe becoming aromatic. Every-damn-thing is the universe being that thing. So the claim amounts to nothing more than the claim to be self-aware. But not so self- aware, it seems, as to see the vacuity of the claim.

I am the universe becoming self aware. — m-theory

bingo — Albert Keirkenhaur

I am the universe becoming pissed. Which is probably why I don't remember putting those two posts up in, for some reason, a pair of different names.

This my polite way of calling bullshit and hubris. 'The universe' is an identification, which is to say an ego label, but with the pretentiousness to claim that it is 'reality'. No, mate, you do not speak for the universe, you are not aware for the universe. You don't even do it for the little bit writing this grumpy post.

Examining how the balance of power between the colonizer and the colonized remains relatively stable, Freire admits that the powerless in society can be frightened of freedom. He writes, "Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift. It must be pursued constantly and responsibly. Freedom is not an ideal located outside of man; nor is it an idea which becomes myth. It is rather the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion".
Wiki

But of course, I cannot speak for Them. — jamalrob

Oh we don't mind - anything that distracts you from what's really going on.

Values are the dominant behaviours and beliefs of a society or a group" and that values have nothing to do with individuals.

If there are behaviours and beliefs that dominate a society or group, it seems likely that there are also minority behaviours and beliefs. Presumably, these form a sub-group within which they are in turn dominant. Thus 'wages for housework' might be a subgroup within the larger feminist group which is in turn a sub-group of society at large.

However, it seems to me that a sub-sub-group can onlybegin with an individual having a new, or modified behaviour or belief, and recruiting converts. Such people used to be called 'prophets', but social science has no room for such as this, and so is forced to resort to random magic to explain how dominant values change and develop.

It's as silly a position to take, as if a physicist were to claim that the properties of materials have nothing to do with the atoms that compose them.

I think society is divided because people are divided within themselves; it is a matter of psychology rather than law. If society was not divided, there would be no law, merely custom. It is because we are greedy, careless of others, and selfish that we have to restrain ourselves. In that sense it is always unsatisfactory.

Normally there is a threefold justification of punishments: retribution, reform, and deterrence. These are additional to the immediate benefit of prevention already mentioned. We know that we are greedy, and want to take stuff without paying, and we know that the distribution system of shops cannot work on that basis, so we seek to deter with the threat of punishment, and reform with the act of punishment.

Retribution is, to my mind a concession to, and substitute for, revenge, and thus a way of avoiding feuds. This gives rise to the notion of proportionality. The best deterrence and reform is execution or a life sentence; there is no recidivism. But execution for dropping litter, while effective, would be disproportional to the offence.

But you are wrong about this:

All laws have a 100% commitment requirement by the very nature that they are defined as laws. — John d baptist

Most laws incorporate exceptions, from speed limits excepted for the emergency services to killing another excepted for self defence.

By labeling some laws as 'counter-productive' and others 'oppressive' we are stating that those laws are counter to our morals and ethics which then makes such laws unworkable. — John d baptist

Well the laws of slavery in the US and elsewhere were perfectly workable, but morally repugnant to me, but not, presumably to those who enacted them. The law is merely another human construction, and is prey to all the human failings that it seeks to ameliorate.

You seem to be starting from an anarchist perspective. I have some sympathy for that, but I fear we already live in an anarchy; there is no law against forming governments, making laws and imposing punishments. And given that folks just insist on doing it, there is nothing for it but to try and make the best laws we can. If we don't impose our hopefully liberal, proportionate law, the Mafia will impose their rather harsher and more arbitrary law on us.

I like laws. I like for examples that you have to pass exams before you can call yourself a doctor, that if you sell food, you have to list the ingredients, and submit to hygiene inspections, that you are not allowed to print your own money, that you have to drive on the one side of the road and pass a test and have insurance. These are laws that make life better, even if not everyone likes them and not everyone always obeys them.

One of the neat things about putting people in prison is that it takes them out of circulation for a while, if they are rapists or violent or fraudsters, this is quite nice for the rest of us.

So while law requires general consent, it does not require 100% commitment to be beneficial; while sometimes laws can be counter-productive, and sometimes they can be oppressive, it is the exception rather than the rule.

If I can drag you away from your analogy for a moment - no, it's impossible.

Well then, allowing that playing tonal music together requires agreement on a key, it does not follow that such agreement requires an authority beyond the authority of the agreement. We can agree on a key without that it is your key or my key. One uses a tuning fork, but it does not exert it's authority to demand that you be in tune with it, it is a simple tool.

"You ought to do good, but you will not." — unenlightened

My initial thought was that, supposing this true, it would fit snugly into the category of facts which morality is concerned about, but wouldn't fit the category of moral fact -- because it wouldn't prove that I should do this or that. — Moliere

I'm not one to defend the notion of moral facts, or of mathematical facts for that matter. (The latter because exceptions such as rotting apples and breeding rabbits "don't count".)

Nevertheless, I think moral talk is meaningful and connected to the world. After Hume, is is clear that one needs to start with one or more moral premise, just as mathematics begins with commands - "let x be... "

So one needs a starting premise that lays out the domain of discourse. So the domain is human conduct, you and I acting in the world, and it starts with the division of the individual. It is about intention (will) directed towards the future, and about the conflict of will that arises, such that morality is _ I hesitate because it is liable to drag us into a byway - unnatural.

Briefly, the nature of the beast is, for example, that it nurtures its young, or that it eats its young according to the sentiment of the moment, but does not seek to operate on itself to do one or the other as the good. Whatever a beast does is whatever it deems to be good. The human condition is that it is not good to eat your children, even if you are very hungry, and despite their nutritional value.

So one has to say that the nature of morality is unnatural in that it contradicts human nature - as a beast.

So this is how I start to unpack my statement of principle and set out the realm of discourse of morality, in a way that I think coincides with the way we generally moralise. In this sense, I am seeking to be descriptive and definitive rather than argumentative of moral discourse.

You are quite right though, that there is as yet no moral content, that informs or proves what is the good, it merely establishes that it is not what you want. It is, as it were, a preface to moral discourse that requires filling out with a positive content - that the good is what God wants, what nature as a whole wants, or humanity in general or in the particular other wants, or some other thing.

Try this for a moral fact:

"You ought to do good, but you will not."

I deny your presumption that every black person suffers from prejudice every single day in the west, or America. If that claim is true than it stands to reason that every single fair-minded white person in the west contributes to the oppression of blacks every single day in the west, right? I'm sympathetic to your experiences, but this is not the world that I see. — VagabondSpectre

I quite understand that white folks don't see it and don't want to see it. I could present experimental evidence, as I have in the past, and reference psychological theories to support my position, but if you deny my direct experience, then you will easily deny the supporting evidence, so I won't trouble.

It is, alas, the smallness of each incident that makes it deniable; how the good looking people always 'accidentally' get the best table at a restaurant, how the concerned citizen chooses to intervene on the occasion when the suspect just happens to be black, how the store detective just happens to be watching the foreign woman for some very good reason. You know it took me a while to notice it myself; perhaps if you chat to some of your black friends and neighbours about it they will start to point it out to you as you go about town. Each time it will look like bad luck, or coincidence, until eventually that cannot be sustained.

Prejudice is not how the mind works... Prejudice may be a natural phenomenon of minds, but so is acceptance and loyalty, learning, and even open-mindedness.

On the one hand you say humans are just naturally prejudiced, on the other hand you say that we are prejudiced because of a "legacy of prejudice" which is due to the history of "white supremacy and patriarchy".

So which is it? Both? Which prejudices are inherent to all minds and which are the prejudices I inherited because of history? — VagabondSpectre

Prejudice is the mind's heuristic in action. Quick and dirty - women are ... something probably comes to mind and when you see a woman, that comes with it. In this sense it is a natural process. I've seen some swans and they were all white, therefore...

And one learns, not only from experience, but also from the culture, and culture is the presence of history. So I am saying there is a natural proclivity for prejudice on the one hand and that one, not inevitably, but inevitably if one does not struggle to make oneself aware of them, inherits the prejudices of one's culture.

This may be true to some degree, but there is a distinct and massive degree to which it is not true. Crime rates in black communities really are higher than any other racial demographic and no amount of police training and acknowledgement of prejudice can affect the root causal forces that contribute to this undeniable reality. — VagabondSpectre

Yes, I do not wish to deny the fact that crime rates in black communities are higher. But please try to see that the 'true to some degree' has a huge impact psychologically, and hence socially. 'To some degree' the police are the enemy out to get you if you are black; even you admit it. It is really important to try to turn this around, because the police being seen as the enemy is a major contributor to crime in black neighbourhoods. So it is really important to acknowledge the limited truth underlying the perception, and act on it, in order then to be able to gain the support and confidence of the black community at large.

The rest of your post seems to be largely addressed to a position to which I do not subscribe - You might consider that it could be that prejudice leads you to assume that if i make this claim, then I am the kind of someone who makes that claim.

Perhaps when they have a weapon in their hand and are pointing it at you? — tom

Yes, perhaps. But perhaps when you suspect they might be going to point it at you. And perhaps you might be more inclined to suspect that of a black man. This is the difficulty, that the world is made of expectations. My hope is that we philosophers at least can try to see some of the difficulties and complexities and show some charity to both the police and black people. I suspect that both have faults and virtues in full measure.[

I speculate that this lady is manipulating information to foster her conservative ideology. — Cavacava

There may be something to that, but I think there is also a deal of truth to the general thesis that black neighbourhoods are badly policed and black on black killing is a far bigger problem than police on black.

The whole gun thing is very far from my experience in the UK, where carrying a knife in public without good reason is an offence. But I notice the phrase "armed suspect" and wonder what makes an armed person into a suspect in the circumstance where being armed is not itself suspicious?

You're equating past patriarchy and white supremacy with a "legacy of prejudice" that exudes constantly from "fair-minded folks"... I think you implicitly meant fair-skinned folks here because surely it is possible for a fair minded person to not actually discriminate against black people in any meaningful or perceptually significant way. — VagabondSpectre

I'm specifically not equating them, but relating them. No, I meant fair-minded. I know from my own case that one can be minded to be fair but fall into prejudice. Indeed prejudice is how the mind works - once bitten, twice shy.

I know prejudice exists, but you make it seem like every single black person in America experiences racism "day in - day out", and we're all to blame. — VagabondSpectre

I am not in America, and so My experiences are of British society, but I am telling you the truth of my life. I don't imagine that Americans are less prejudiced that the British, so my expectation would be that indeed every single black person experiences negative stereotyping prejudicial behaviour multiple times every day, day in day out.

When I was a kid there was a nasty little trick we used to play on each other; sticking a notice on someone's back without their knowing, saying 'kick me', or some such. One could spend some time wandering around wondering why folks were behaving oddly, staring, pointing, giggling, and occasionally kicking.

The nice thing about carrying such a sign, is that as soon as you know about it you can take it off, and that is why folks straighten their hair with caustic soda and try to bleach their skin.

When it comes blacks getting pulled over by police way more often for driving expensive cars (under suspicion of having stolen it), yes it is prejudiced discrimination on the part of the police; it's not fair to make a presumption of guilt based on race ("presumption of guilt" is unlawful entirely). But there's an underlying problem that is totally missed when we think to ourselves "Ahh, these police who pull over blacks more often are simply racists". It's an uncomfortable reality that vehicle theft is a crime very prevalent in black communities. Cops in certain areas are actually arresting blacks for auto theft way more often because they happen to be committing vehicle theft much more often. The police then go on and allow these experiences to affect their decision and judgment of who to randomly (a questionable act in and of itself) pull over, and wrongfully so. It's in my view not actually a legacy of racism that makes some police more likely to pull over blacks, it's the result of ongoing stereotyping caused by disproportionate vehicle theft rates in the black community. — VagabondSpectre

This is one small example of how prejudice is self sustaining. Because it is 'known' that black people are more likely to be involved in car crime, black people receive more attention from the police; because they receive perhaps twenty times more attention, more black people are discovered to be involved with car crime. So the statistics prove the prejudice. It's an excellent of how the legacy of racism is an ongoing sustained stereotyping.

...very often people wielding this definition turn around and say "all white people are racist, and minorities simply cannot be racist". — VagabondSpectre

Some people say this, but I am not one of them. I would say that everyone is prejudiced in various ways against short people, ugly people, women, gingers, the disabled, the poor, the foreigners, whatever. No one is immune, and black men, for example are quite capable of overt sexism, and very prone to stereotyping white folks.

There is however an important difference between the racial prejudice of a minority and a majority; power. The prejudice of black folks has little impact on the lives of whites.

It is especially the denial of the existence of a problem that is the daily experience of black people that becomes - maddening. — unenlightened

I repeat myself for emphasis, and to make clear that when I say 'maddening' I mean it literally. To have one's experience systematically denied by society at large is to be thrust into a solipsistic nightmare world of paranoia - is it a conspiracy or am I mad?

It is neither, of course, but it is real and it is being denied. Quite often the understandable response to having one's experiences denied is to exaggerate, to become angry, to separate from that group that is denying, and you will see all this in the media. It is not helpful, but it is understandable, just as it is understandable but unhelpful that white folks of goodwill quite honestly deny their prejudice because they fail to see it. It is the nature of prejudice that one looks through it, like tinted glasses, and doesn't look at it.

Harmony comes at the cost of all being in the same key, for starters.

Nowadays, that is regarded as authoritarian. — Wayfarer

I used to play music with a chap like that; he was an excellent violinist, but could not play with another, but had always to have others play with him. In the end, such authoritarian harmony cannot be sustained; a mutuality of listening is required rather than a one way affair. Authoritarianism is exactly the demand for harmony alongside the refusal to pay for it by attending to others.

The instrumentality of "If you want..." produces morality because, as has been pointed out, I want to live in harmony, but I'd rather Mrs Un did most of the housework. This conflicted passion produces a gap between what I instrumentally ought to do for the sake of harmony, and what I instrumentally ought to do for the sake of comfort and idleness.

Unfortunately, harmony does not come cheap. We don't have it because we will not pay for it, and so we moralise instead.

Some will question whether it's characteristic of a human being to want to live in harmony with others ... — jamalrob

It would be nice if it was.

We have real examples of history to informs us what white supremacists institutions and policies look like.
And that is not what our current system is.

The same goes for patriarchy, we have real examples of cultures where women amount to property...and that is not how the west operates in terms of social values. — m-theory

I tend to agree with this, and It would be nice if it were possible to talk in a more nuanced way about things. But I think it misses an important feature of the lived experience of women and of black people in the culture.

I speak as a white middle class dude who likes to think he is liberal and for equality in such matters. Having a partner and children who are mixed race has rather changed my perspective about things.

I would like to distinguish racism as a belief system held by a few and not implemented in social institutions beyond marginal groups, from prejudice, an unconscious attitude that alters behaviour based on race or gender as the case may be. This latter is what your account leaves out, and since it is more or less universal, it is quite devastating in its effects.

Mrs Un goes into a shop, and is immediately under suspicion; if there is a random check at the airport or the roadside, she is randomly chosen. Every relationship is tainted by not only racial prejudice, but also the performance of non-prejudice. White women in particular go out of their way to talk and act friendly, in a somewhat patronising way that quickly turns to resentment when it is not particularly appreciated. They want to have her as a friend as a symbol of their lack of prejudice - but at a safe distance, especially from their menfolk.

This plays out in wider society cumulatively; each little incident is deniable, no racist language is used, no views expressed, but when one dude is stopped twenty times in his car by the police, and another never, with no violation recorded for either, there is something going on statistically that is unidentifiable in any single incident.

Given that our recent past is that white supremacy and patriarchy were institutionally sanctioned and enforced, it is inevitable that there is a legacy of prejudice. And given the experience of this prejudice alongside its universal denial, it is inevitable that there is some anger and paranoia amongst the sufferers. It is especially the denial of the existence of a problem that is the daily experience of black people that becomes - maddening.

So I do urge all you thoughtful people to investigate a little more carefully and sympathetically the complaints that are made. It's not special pleading, there is a real problem for black people day in, day out, and it is fair-minded folks like us that are the source, if we do not pay close attention to ourselves and to those 'others'.

I am a consequentialist, specifically a hedonic prioritarian [...] I see only the perfect as the good. — darthbarracuda

A small child gets up early, and creates a disaster area in the kitchen before scattering the results of their efforts all up the stairs and triumphantly presenting their parents, three hours early, with a completely inedible breakfast in bed.

The love is perfect, but the execution is lacking and the consequences are nothing but trouble. For myself, ethics are a matter of the heart being in the right place.

I'm saying that I'm not so sure that moral facts are too weird to be true. — anonymous66

Predictions are truth apt. Sometimes they turn out to be true. But they are not facts. I buy a lottery ticket; I predict that I will not win anything, but it is not a fact that I will not win anything.

You ought to understand that not all statements are 'is' statements, but this does not entail that they are not true or false. So it is true that a firefighter ought to fight fires (in given circumstances), but it is not true that a slave ought to slave.

Now folks are likely to ask me to justify this pronouncement, and I am going to have to disappoint them. However, Hume tells me that any justification must begin with a moral premise that will commend itself to these folks as in some sense foundational - love thy neighbour, or whatever.

I woo it.

Ought from is:

She is a firefighter.
Therefore she ought to do whatever a firefighter ought to do.

This works because a firefighter is defined functionally. There is a function characteristic of a firefighter, and this is what it is to be a firefighter (telos and nature are one).

Or does it work? Discuss... — jamalrob

She is a firefighter.
Therefore she does whatever a firefighter does.

This works. But the obligation only has meaning when there is the possibility of not 'following one's function/nature.

And your example seems to have force because we do not define firefighters functionally. I have fought a fire, but I have never been a firefighter, because that is a matter of uniform, training, qualification, etc. And because one can wear the uniform and ride on the fire-engine and not do what one ought to do, the conclusion has moral force and does not follow from the premise.

She is a firefighter who broke her leg yesterday.
Therefore she ought not to do what a firefighter does for the next few weeks.

Hume's dictum saves obligation from becoming identical with logical/physical necessity.

That, to me at least, seems to imply there is some connection between the is and ought statements. — m-theory

Well of course there is a connection. There is a connection between a prediction and a fact too, despite that one cannot derive a will-be from a has-been. Hume does not present an argument, but merely declares that it ''ought to be'. There is a deal of evidence presented that 'it is'.

You ought to think this through. If you do, then the facts will be identical with your obligation just declared.

But if you don't, then they won't, and that is why your obligation is not a fact, but an admonition.

If you want to be logical, then you ought to follow the dictates of logic. This is an unproblematical conditional ought precisely because it is conditional on a passion - the passion for logic. The appropriate passions obligate (motivate) virtues.

The passion to flourish obligates one to have a passion for correct reasoning, because it helps one to flourish, by avoiding superstition, reaching true conclusions etc. To the extent that such passions are ubiquitous, moral obligations become universal.

I'm not sure if this answers your question, as you have not in fact provided a counter example by way of an argument...

And I'm saying Hume can't have it both ways.... either you can get an Ought from an is, or you can't. — anonymous66

You cannot. It is a matter of logic. However, this does not preclude telling folks what they ought to do, fortunately. It merely precludes telling them that the facts (the is-ness of things) prove it.

His 'ought' here is a recommendation in order to avoid error. If one is in the business of proving conclusions from premises, one cannot get an 'ought' conclusion from 'is' premises. If one is in the bullshit trade, other considerations apply.