Needed for the society as a whole. And without involving collectivist ideas, such as saying that everyone is just a cog in the machine.

It seems to me that you're just pointing at inequality.

Just added my opinion, and my opinion is in accordance with those arguments because I disagree with changes. Main focus should be on the arguments, though, and whether they seem plausible or not.

So, changes are needed? Which changes then?

I'm a moral relativist. More specifically, I'm a subjectivist/noncognitivist/basically an emotivist on morality/ethics. — Terrapin Station

Are you trying to say that by being moral relativist you do not oppose moral objectivism? That's a very shy approach indeed, to even imply such thing. I do agree that I portrayed view of a moral relativist differently.

But if you haven't come here to actually discuss whether morals are relative or objective, then I guess you're free to go.

PS: It's not philosophical to just point out that there is some philosophical theory. I could very say that there is a thesis against the theory that you're proposing. You have to be more specific.

That's very anti-philosophical to me. Not using philosophical reflection in order to come to the conclusion of a philosophical problem is just ignorance. There are arguments for the existence of objective morals, yet you try to disprove them by completely ignoring them.

I'm a moral relativist. More specifically, I'm a subjectivist/noncognitivist/basically an emotivist on morality/ethics. In other words, I believe that moral stances are simply ways that individuals "feel" about interpersonal behavior. A la emotivism, it's more or less "yaying" or "booing" behavior. — Terrapin Station

Can moral relativism disprove moral objectivism? It does seem that moral objectivists try to prove the objectivity but moral relativists just say that they feel or believe that it is the way they see it. Hence why moral relativism is more popular nowadays.

No many moral relativists would answer that way. The problem is that you're seeing relativism from an absolutist/objectivist context. You see it as if relativists are acknowledging that ethics is objective, but we just can't know the answer to ethical questions. That's not what we're saying, however. We're saying that ethics is a matter of how people feel about behavior. So when someone asks "Was fascism bad," they're asking how people feel about fascism, and why they feel that way. — Terrapin Station

Agreed.

If we're talking about certainty in the sense of whether something "can not possibly be incorrect," we'd simply say that's a category error. Moral claims are not correct or incorrect. They're rather reports of how people feel about things. — Terrapin Station

Can you state that with certainty? You seem to be certain about the fact that it's just how people feel about things.

Ted Talk is just a cheap fast food for brains of thought consumers. In other words, it is designed for people who are not well read and will never engage in complex discussions themselves. It's a pseudo-intelectual environment for your lovely consumers.

Ted Generation is one of the problems of our age. Steven Pinker is a great example of the thought seller.

Definitely in the wrong one. Collectivism is the worst thing that could've ever happened to our society. New silent totalitarian regime. Lack of searching for truth is what helps authorities to manipulate others and thus bringing us closer to Orwell's 1984 type of society.

As for some minor problems:

https://aeon.co/essays/is-being-super-awesome-really-helping-anybody

And I don't want to steal anyone's ideas, but as mentioned in thread called Post-truth. The fact that it's the word of the year speaks for itself well enough.

But it's also the case that many of the questions sorrounding the nature of 'true goods' such as real knowledge, virtue, bravery, etc, are often left open - many such questions are explored in the dialogues, but they often end in aporia - they don't present a final definition so much as explore various possibilities. — Wayfarer

Even if they don't present a final definition, they don't start denying that there is a true/objective good, do they? It still is there for them, it's just that they can't define it.

It is precisely the absence of that sense in modern and post-modern philosophy that has undermined the background necessary for a so-called 'objective' morality (although the very term 'objective' is problematical, because the relationship that dictates morality in theistic religion is not 'subject-object' but 'I-thou'.) — Wayfarer

Did this absence arise because objective morals could not be well defined or because the term objective is problematic? I still don't see a reason to abandon the idea of objective morals.

Why do moral relativists think of morals at all? It does seem that moral relativism goes against itself because it'll start disproving it's own reasons for why an action was good or bad, sooner or later.

I would like to take a look at the list when it's done if you don't mind sharing it.

The essence of something is that which if you took it away, the identity would change to something else. Identity is usually a convention of language. Humans being the only animals with language, we create identity based on certain measurements/distinctions. Once the convention is established as to the definition of a thing, we can then determine at what point a thing is no longer a thing. Interestingly enough, once a thing has been a thing, it's parts can still be referenced to the prior situation of that thing. A smashed table, can still have legs that once were a part of the thing, but are now its own thing. So oddly, the trace of a thing can not be taken away once it has already been established. The thing can have residual existence beyond its presence as a reference. — schopenhauer1

The question would then be if the existence can be without its essense. My answer is no.

Identity is usually a convention of language. — schopenhauer1

What do you mean by this? Do you imply that essense of a human being is a language?

A smashed table, can still have legs that once were a part of the thing, but are now its own thing. — schopenhauer1

I disagree with the example used here. A table is not alive, is not living. Therefore I don't see a reason to use it as an example.

An essense of a human being is what makes us human. This essense is individual. We could say that a person is a person when he/she is alive. We cannot say the same about a dead corpse, that is no longer a living person. Person's essense is no longer present and therefore it is just a dead corpse.

Alienation of labor cuts the worker off from the goods he makes, and relieves him of any necessity (or even the point) of thinking about the products his workplace produces. (He doesn't need to think about it because his thoughts on the matter are irrelevant.) — Bitter Crank

It does not relieve him of thinking. He, himself, decided not to think. Regardless of any circumstances, it is his decision. His thoughts may be irrelevant only to the one he works for because they know he isn't going to revolt against them, even though he has different view on society and on his work.

What the alienated worker needs to think about is how to change his relationship to production, from being an unthinking cog in the works, to directing the works himself (along with his fellow workers). Maybe they will continue to produce computers when the workers are in charge, maybe not. They need to think more deeply about this than the owners of capitalism have--which is to say, barely grazed the surface of the question. — Bitter Crank

The word they is the key problem here. It, again, assumes that someone will take charge and his ideas will be the ones upon which the decision is make. It would just reverse the situation in which our worker was and put someone else in that situation instead.

I suggest, they can no longer be a collective. They have to split and go each their own way.

"Philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it" Karl Marx said. What the worker needs to delve into is how to humanize work and it's products, rather than to continue in an alienated and alienating regime. — Bitter Crank

No, philosophers have not only interpreted the world. It is the lack of philosophical thinking in other people that didn't allow them to use philosophy to make changes. Ideology does not help as it only creates a different situation in which people, again, don't use philosophical thinking.

IN a capitalist economy, the primary reason for technological innovation has to do with earning profit from manufacturing or from service. Innovative (not necessarily better) products are continuously needed to replace products which are presently being consumed. Style drives clothing purchases, for instance, among a large portion of the market. One can not be seen in clothes that represent last season's discards. Similarly, one is encouraged to think that one needs the latest smart phone. In fact, for most people, the $10 Trac Phone (which makes and receives calls) will be perfectly serviceable. Or, the $100 smart phone will serve where a $10 Tracphone will not.

The 'consumer' also needs to think about products, and whether they need to exist. Does one really need a smart light bulb? 99.999% of the population have no real need for a smart lightbulb, let alone a house full of smart lightbulbs, smart stoves, smart refrigerators, smart furnaces, smart rugs, smart toilets, and smart vacuum cleaners. Much of what we consumers buy has very little potential for increasing our sense of happiness. — Bitter Crank

I agree with the description of the capitalist economy and with the fact that we may not need things that are being constantly created. However, happiness cannot be the goal of it. I'd suggest we don't need those things, because they have a potential to change and shape our society in ways we can't fully predict and therefore it's a gamble.

Because I see life as worth living and others commit suicide. — Harry Hindu

That is only your perception and perception of others. It does not mean life is worth living for some and not for others.

We can be in pain and not dying. So pain isn't something that informs us of our mortality. Seeing others die informs us of our mortality. Pain informs us of damage to our body which could be life-threatening or it might not. — Harry Hindu

Pain can be perceived as a potential danger to our health and can be, as you said, life threatening. Therefore there is a reason to avoid it.

I would ask why are there only two alternatives (life and death). — Harry Hindu

What other alternatives could there be? We are either alive or dead, there is no other alternative.

I would also want to know why life is worth living for some and not for others. — Harry Hindu

I don't see why life would be worth living for some and not for others. How did you come to that conclusion?

Why does death often come with the experience of pain that precedes death to the point that we have created a whole industry (hospice) to avoid that pain? Why would a bad experience precede something that some claim to be peaceful? Does the pain before death mean something about where you are headed? — Harry Hindu

Pain makes us feel mortal, while without pain we don't have to think about our own mortality. What happens after death, I don't know. The idea of a peaceful realm might be constructed just to make us feel better about something we know nothing about.

Suicide is one of those choices that you can't change. You can often change your choices in life. Maybe it's the fear of making the wrong choice that keeps us from committing suicide. Many people refuse to make choices for fear of the outcome and then the decision is eventually taken out of their hands. — Harry Hindu

Does that mean that suicide is just the matter of choice? Isn't it the matter of whether life is or is not worth living? Because you seem to state that we live because we are afraid to make a change, to die.

The question of suicide masks the real issue, which is our own temporality. It's true we want to be happy, be at peace, but it this is not always possible, and living a temperate life might alleviate some pain, but in the end it is all the same, death sooner or latter. It's not meaning which counts, it is the ability to accept what is, to will what is, inspite of what is. I think that is only possible by finding something transcendent, beyond one's self. — Cavacava

So the doctor managed to accept what is even without finding anything transcendent? Why do you think that it could be possible only by finding it then? Seems contradictory.

In the first comment you stated:

It's not meaning which counts, it is the ability to accept what is, to will what is, inspite of what is. I think that is only possible by finding something transcendent, beyond one's self. — Cavacava

However, in your excerpt of Camus' Plague there is no acceptance of anything ''beyond one's self''. There is a mere realisation that at that moment he is a doctor. Because there is no such thing as he is a doctor, or any other profession for that matter.

Good parenting sets children on the path of learning, proper behavior, and hope. Later in life the child-become-adult has to decide whether what he learned, what was proper, and what could be hoped for is now adequate. Maybe the parents taught that the child should hope for eternal life in heaven or a fortunate reincarnation. The adult may decide that he can not know about heaven or reincarnation, and toss that hope out the window. Maybe the adult concludes that there is no hope for human progress, or conversely, that there is much hope. What people think they can know, what they should do, what they may hope often changes over time. The child may have been taught that he should make a lot of money. The adult may decide that he should not do that. — Bitter Crank

Hope sounds very desperate to me. It seems to be a comfortable approach to problems that would eventually end up without any solution. Hoping and believing is what Camus classified as ''philosophical suicide''.

I'm not sure if Kant meant it this way, but it seems it would make more sense if it was: ''Before abandoning hope, one must first start hoping.''

I hope pursuing these questions makes like meaningful. — Bitter Crank

Assuming we need a meaning in life.

This is the important sentence. Elsewhere Kant argues that all philosophy ultimately aims at answering these three questions: “What can I know? What should I do? What may I hope?” I have no idea whether Camus was familiar with Kant's "ultimate question" formulation. — Bitter Crank

I agree with ''What can I know?'' But I don't see much sense in the following questions.

What if I can only know that I don't know what I should do, and therefore I can't be sure whether I should hope at all?

How could he impart the concept of hope in the ultimate questions if the questions haven't been answered yet?

The question of suicide masks the real issue, which is our own temporality. It's true we want to be happy, be at peace, but it this is not always possible, and living a temperate life might alleviate some pain, but in the end it is all the same, death sooner or latter. It's not meaning which counts, it is the ability to accept what is, to will what is, inspite of what is. I think that is only possible by finding something transcendent, beyond one's self. — Cavacava

'Ability to accept what is' - That's what Camus described as 'philosophical suicide'. By finding something transcendent, one can get too complacent. Camus argues that we don't know and that we can't possibly know. That's why accepting means creating an illusion and then accepting the illusion in order to feel more comfortable.

The question is not well-defined. In the first sentence he says it is 'suicide', by which I presume he means the question 'Shall I commit suicide?'. In the second sentence he says the question is 'Is life worth living?', which is a correlated but different question. — andrewk

Later on in the essay, Camus remarks that life does not need a meaning in order to be lived, and can, in fact, be 'better' without a meaning. That is not my point, however.

My question is, whether the question of living or ending the life is the first question that one should ask before going into the other philosophical questions. Although, I admit, by taking up the other problems, one must have already agreed to live the life. Still, I assume, this idea and essay in general has a lot to add to the question of the meaning of life.

It seems to me that one would just support this as the one truly philosophical problem by saying: "If you answer in the affirmative, then all the other problems of philosophy are never addressed, and in the negative, then you may take up the other problems knowing that life is worth living" — Moliere

I do agree. But why couldn't the very first question be like this? What would be the reason to disagree with this to be the first question?

(Beware that this is not a theology but a philosophy. I use God for lack of a better word. Spinoza uses the word God as well as (maybe more fitting?) Nature, Shankara uses Brahman/Atman, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche use Will. I use the word God simply as a word for something that is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. — Miguel

Schopenhauer's and Nietzsche's Will is not God. Let alone the fact that your interpretation of God is completely different to their interpretation of the Will. So there is no similarity there.

I arrive to the conclusion that there is this ‘God’ because of the fact that we are all connected—not only connected, but one. If all things are one, then that One is omnipresent, because it is all things. Furthermore, if you add up the knowledge of all things—every stone, plant, animal, human, planet, star, molecule and atom—then you will have all knowledge, therefore that One is omniscient. And if that One is everything then it is all-powerful, because it has all power over itself and there is nothing outside of it: omnipotent.) — Miguel

How do you come to the conclusion that everything is one in the first place? If everything is one, does that also mean that nothing is one as well, therefore nothing is everything and vice versa?

And in fact, can the universe not be seen as an organism, growing and developing until it’s grown old, then shrinking again and ‘dying’? But then many things can be seen as organism—the Earth alone, for example, though I would argue it is more like an organ within an organism—and there may be an even larger system that we do not know of. Also that is God. All is God. All is one. — Miguel

This seems very contradictory to me. Organism has certain parts and those parts separately are not the organism itself. If all is one, then that would mean every little part of the organism is the organism itself which does not make sense.

We ARE everything around us and everything around us is us! This includes our thoughts and emotions, our convictions, hopes and dreams. We can affect our surroundings directly but also with our thoughts, because they are just as much a part of God. If we WANT something enough, hard enough, loud enough, even if it’s almost a subconscious kind of longing, then we will begin to affect our surroundings. — Miguel

That is merely a reaction of our surroundings. It does not support your idea of 'We are everything around us'.

The world bends to our deepest wants. Not because we are on a pre-destined path and it is simply accomplishing its role in that path: but because we are shaping a path with our mind and our surrounding reality with it. Of course, that said, God has free will: we have free will. That we have shaped a path does not mean that we must walk upon it, or walk it to the end. So then the two most important things to gain from this are these: we must want something so badly that that the world has no choice but to help us there, and: once that path in our life has begun to form, we must be fearless and confident enough to take it. — Miguel

If we are one, then why do we 'must want something so badly that the world has no choice but to help us there'? It sounds like we are going against some sort of force of the world.

What are fearlessness and confidence here for? They add nothing to your ideas.

In the end, then, we must always believe in ourselves, for to believe in ‘signs’, to believe in the world, is still to believe in yourself, for you ARE the world and you have created the signs. ‘Believe in the world: it will take you where you must be’ and ‘believe in yourself, do what must be done’ can be seen as equal statements and for maximum effect must be combined. The prerequisite, of course, is to believe in something and want something so strongly that you ‘bend reality’ with your longing. — Miguel

Is the reality separated then? If we are reality as well, why do we need to bend it/us?