Or die before you learn you are – or how to be – unfulfilled.

↪Echogem222 I didn't strawman you. You have this tendency to accuse others of making a strawman when they point out how your posts make zero sense. — Lionino

:smirk: :up:

:100:

A paradox is a situation that results in something impossible or contradictory. This ain't one. — Lionino

:up: :up:

Weak dodge. Your so-called "solution" doesn't matter ‐ isn't worth considering – if there is not an actual problem (or its merely a pseudo-problem) in the first place.

our ultimate moral goals. — Mark S

What exactly are those "ultimate moral goals" and, since "moral science" is not prescriptive, what is the non-scientific basis for determining such "goals" and that they are "ours" (i.e. universal)?

Hey you, Whitehouse
Ha, ha, charade you are
You house proud town mouse
Ha, ha, charade you are
You're trying to keep our feelings off the street
You're nearly a real treat
All tight lips and cold feet
And do you feel abused?
You got to stem the evil tide
And keep it all on the inside
Mary you're nearly a treat
Mary you're nearly a treat
But you're really a cry

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gZM1WQKwpl0

What do you think about the relationship between ethics and politics? — Jack Cummins

I think ethics (re: moral agency) is concerned with the cultivation of human flourishing whereas politics (re: solidarity, legitimacy) is concerned with resolving conflicts in ways which to varying degrees arrange (or derange) the material-symbolic conditions for making the cultivation of human flourishing possible.

Also, what is 'right' or 'wrong' about political correctness, and how far should such correctness go in outlawing what may some may regard as being 'offensive'?

"PC" is and always has been useless – "identity politics" shite – and, where it harms more than it helps, it's wrong. Don't be an Asshole or a Cunt! (billboards? PSAs?) – civility & (a little) empathy when in public almost always suffices. Fuck censors, prudes, fundies & other hypocritical, virtue signaling, "offended" twats! :strong: :mask:

'Blood Meridian'

... on my short list for The Great American Novel.

The quote matches the bleak, bereft setting of the book - circumstances where god seems to be missing. — Tom Storm

:fire:

... my brain generates a model of reality ... — Truth Seeker

Certainly this – what you describe here – is mind-independent, no?

Imagine trying to define a hole. — Echogem222

From a 2022 thread Does nothingness exist? ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/707639

examples: a
donut or
hole in a bucket / boat or
negative space or
randomness (i.e. total symmetries) or
blindspot or ...

IMO, no "paradox". Check (correct) your assumptions / premises.

The closest thing to a hobby I had was 20 years drinking whisky and meeting strangers in bars. Loved almost every minute of that, but quit to save my liver. — Tom Storm

Ah cool, we're former barfly brothers! (Btw, fucking "healthy livers" are overrated, mate.) :smirk:

:up:

How can we prevent all harm? — Truth Seeker

We cannot** since only the dead are free from "all harm" or conflict; however, far more often than not, we can prevent greater harms from occuring and/or reduce harms that have been inflicted. Lack of perfection** is neither a rational nor a moral argument against doing good (i.e. negating worse) whenever possible. Nonviolent conflicts are usually resolved less harmfully than violent conflicts which almost always follow from either refusing to engage in and/or defecting from nonviolent conflict (e.g. dialectics, deliberations, dialogues). So again I ask, Seeker:

Absent this Sisyphusean agon (i.e. 'the unexamined life is not worth living'), how else can we – at least some small yet nontrivial fraction of the eight billion of us – thrive (flourish)? — 180 Proof

:chin:

I sometimes think humans are addicted to crisis. — Tom Storm

:up:

To the extent our "conflicts" are not violent (e.g. win-win), they facilitate our searching for – not our ever finding "unquestionable" – truthes (re: dialectics), that is, potentially learning from mistakes errors & failures as we cross-examine one another's assumptions and mutual testing of our competing, or contrary, claims. Absent this Sisyphusean agon (i.e. 'the unexamined life is not worth living'), how else can we – at least some small yet nontrivial fraction of the eight billion of us – thrive (flourish)?

With all due respect, I didn't ask for hypothetical dilemmas; rather I asked for your experiences of kinds of harm which no one else is vulnerable to or can recognize as harm because such kinds are "not objectively defined". Have you had such an experience? If not, then isn't it more reasonable than not to conclude that everyone is vulnerable to and can recognize the kinds of harm you've experience because they are objective phenomena? :chin:

harm is not objectively defined — Lionino

Really? Name a kind of harm that you have undergone and yet, because it's not "objective" phenomenon, no one else is vulnerable to it or can recognize it as harm. (Some of the kinds I have in mind I've described here .)

So apparently some negative utilitarians think there is a "second," namely, to "maximize the total amount of happiness." The question could then be rephrased: why choose the first form of negative utilitarianism over the second form? — Leontiskos

Harm, or suffering, is not merely subjective (as I've sketched previously ) whereas "happiness" is whollly subjective (e.g. hedonic set-points are not the same for everyone or constant through time for each individual); the latter, therefore, is not as foreseeable, or reliably known, as the former such that reducing harm / injustice is a more realizable and effective moral strategy than trying to "maximize happiness" (whatever "happiness" means).

However, it's my position that on average – all things being equal – we optimize well-being, or "happiness", in any situation where harm / injustice has been prevented and/or reduced as much as possible such that it's not a binary choice but rather is a matter of priority whereby the "secondary" consideration (positive utility/consequence (e.g. more sex)) is a function, or opportuned by, the "primary" (negative utility/consequence (e.g. less illness)) and yet not the other way around (e.g. health-wealth-fame-power-pleasure "maximizing" itself cannot prevent or reduce suffering, misery or (self)harm).

Some primary influences on my moral thinking are Epicurus, Spinoza, K. Popper, D. Parfit & P. Foot.

@Leontiskos – Assuming you intend to reply, I've just edited my previous post so that (hopefully) my statements are clearer.

Causality itself implies things are caused, so I would assume causality has a cause, it is the case directly, probably by some divine force. — Barkon

"Assume" whatever you like but you've not offered a valid argument yet and without any demonstrable evidence of either "causality" (Hume) or "some divine force" (Epicurus, Spinoza, Hume) you're just talking out of your *ss – poor reasoning at best.

Yup, psychoceramics ... :smirk:

Things don't pop up for no reason ... — Barkon

What about vaccuum fluctuations, virtual particles or other random events?

And, like the "first point", or edge, on a circumference, the cause of causality itself is? :chin:

You laugh at mine [value system] but what is yours grounded in? — BitconnectCarlos

Naturalism.

Why is it true?

Naturalism is internally coherent and consistent with the demonstrable facts of both our species' cognitive limitations and the regularities of the natural world of which we are constituted.

Because Marx said it?

No. Spinoza (Epicurus, A. Murray, P. Foot, M. Nussbaum ...)

... where's our justice?

Your ongoing injustices forfeits it ... ever since "the shofar blew down the walls of Jericho." :eyes:

What does yours tell you? — BitconnectCarlos

:lol:

Our 'imaginary friend' does not tell us anything because we take our meds everyday as prescribed and do not ever oppress and ethnically cleanse anyone (Hillel the Elder).

[W]e don't exonerate murder, rape, and man stealing because one is from an oppressed group.

Oppression exonerates the oppressed. The best security against terrorism is not to practice it in the first place (re: Israel as well as the US, EU, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia & Iran). :fire:

@RogueAI @Moses et al ...

[W]hat monstrous thing is concealed in the shadows beyond this raging bonfire? — tim wood

Several decades of suffering of the dispossessed – Warsaw Ghettoized – Palestinian people.

https://imeu.org/article/quick-facts-the-palestinian-nakba

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba

And like antisemite Holocaust denial, anti-arab zionists also deny/blame their victims ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba_denial :mask:

Zionism seeks a homeland — BitconnectCarlos

... The Promised Land Grab ... Manifest Destiny ... White Man's Burden ... Lebensraum ... Making Apartheid Great Again ...

https://inthesetimes.com/article/jewish-anti-zionism-israel-palestine-colonialism-annexation-apartheid :fire:

So I would want to ask, first, why "positive utilitarianism" is not partially correct (i.e. why consideration of the harm-complement is non-moral). — Leontiskos

I don't understand the question. :confused:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_utilitarianism (I interpret this reducing harm-caused-by-personal-conduct / judgment as normative morality )

Second, I would want to inquire into the relevant definition of harm.

From a 2023 thread Convince Me of Moral Realism, by 'harm' (in some of its various forms) I mean this:

- deprivation (of e.g. sustanence, shelter, sleep, touch, esteem, care, health, hygiene, trust, safety, etc)

- dysfunction (i.e. injury, ill-health, disability)

- helplessness (i.e. trapped, confined, or fear-terror of being vulnerable)

- stupidity (i.e. maladaptive habits (e.g. mimetic violence, lose-lose preferences, etc))

- betrayal (i.e. trust-hazards)

- bereavement (i.e. losing loved ones & close friends), etc ...

... in effect, any involuntary decrease, irreparable loss or final elimination of human agency — 180 Proof

And by 'injustice' I mean harm to individuals as a direct or indirect consequence of a social structure, or lack thereof, reproduced by customs, public policies, legistlation, jurisprudence or arbitrary violence. Thus, utilitarianism is a kind (or subset) of consequentialism.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_consequentialism (I interpret this reducing injustice (i.e. reducing harm-caused-by-social-structure / violence) as applied morality )

Jenna Ellis has already flipped on her boss in Georgia so it's more likely than not she will do it again in Arizona. Rudy Guiliani is due for a meltdown since he's filed for bankruptcy and can't afford to pay for legal defense in Georgia and now in Arizona. Christina Bobb was thrown under the bus by the boss for abetting Obstruction of Justice in the Florida Espionage case and therefore is probably cooperating with the Feds and will try to get a deal from Arizona prosecutors too. And so on ... Sworn testimony by two or more indicted co-conspirators will provide more than grounds for an Arizona Grand Jury to indict Unindicted Co-conspirator-1 sooner rather than later. No need for the trial to happen before the general election since additional indictnents (to the current 88) will only compound Sleepy Don's already considerable legal and financial problems to the detriment to his so-called "campaign" (to stay out of prison). And (if I were a betting man) my money is on the "J6 Conspiracy" trial in DC to start by September/October following Michigan's "Fake Electors" indictments of Unindicted Co-conspirator-1 by August.

"Wishful thinking?" TBD. :victory: :mask:

:up: Exactly!

From 2021 ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/501897 :nerd:

In general I am apt to prefer classical justice ... — Leontiskos

Maybe I've missed it but could you briefly describe "classical justice" or link to a post upthread where you discuss it. Thanks.

You think the points mentioned in thie wiki article below are just pie-in-the-sky fantasies? My guess is we're only limited by current technology since "current science" (i.e. extant physical laws) does not prohibit "interstellar travel", just 'AFAL/FTL acceleration' through spacetime.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel

24April24

Today in Trumpenfraude:

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/04/24/arizona-fake-electors-indictments/73184206007/

When one or more of the criminal co-conspirstors Rudy Guiliani, Mark Meadows, John Eastman, Jenna Ellis (all of whom are also indicted in Georgia), Christina Bobb, Boris Epshteyn & Michael Roman flip, the GOP (Gimps for Putin) candidate for president Unindicted Co-conspirator-1 ... again will be indicted in Arizona (probably by the end of May, just in time for his conviction in NYC). :cool: :up:

:yawn:
Here's a video of an interview with Jewish-American (forensic scholar) political activist Norman Finklestein with the title: Memory Of The Holocaust Is Abused By Zionists As A "Weapon"

@RogueAI @BitconnectCarlos

This is the legacy of the Israeli oppression of Palestinians. — Punshhh

:100:

I am unaware of any hostages held by the Israelis. — tim wood

Willful ignorance (my mistake assuming the video, etc I'd offered you upthread would help educate you on this matter) or craven deceit. :shade:

Obviously, you're not serious ...

Destroy all oppression — Moses

The aggressor-oppressor (apartheid) State of Israel first. :up:

:roll: Clearly you are severely allergic – cognitively dissonant due – to the relevant historical and critical information provided most recently by and others.

Funny how they never demand a Palestine free of Hamas’s occupation & oppression. — Moses

Not half as "funny" as the apologists for decades of Israeli settler dispossession, Shin Bet apartheid and IDF collective punishment who incorrigibly fail to recognize/acknowledge that Hamas and others "terrorists" are the logical consequence of (US-backed) Irgun/Likudnik *zion-über-alles* fascism. As long as a man is beaten savagely everyday like a dog, the only moral "demand" is for the beatings to stop in order for 'the dog' to learn how to stop trying to rip out 'the dog-beater's' throat. "Eye for an eye", Moses – lose-lose or win-win: oppressor's (Pharoah's), not the oppressed's (Hebrew exiles'), choice. :brow:

1) What do you say should be done now about the hostages? — tim wood

They all should be released asap just as all the Palestinian non-militants held hostage and tortured in Israeli prisons should be released. And the nearly 2 million Gazan hostages should be released asap. Lastly, the Israeli population, who are hostages of several decades of right wing, colonizer-settler "Greater Israel", anti-peace policies, should be released as well.

2) You added to the video you reference above, "Free Palestine!" What exactly do you mean by that?

Exactly what you apologists fear – the aspirational struggle: Palestine free of Israeli occupation & oppression. No doubt, at least since 1967, opposing a free Palestine consequently opposes a free Israel.

More astra ex machina :nerd:

re: Voyager-1
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-68881369

I don't know enough ... — tim wood

Yes, that's why i linked you and others to this video on 'the history' of Israeli oppression of Gazans et al.

Also this (in case you missed or willfully ignored @Tzeentch's) post ...
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/898196

... representation that Gazans are simply innocent victims and responsibility-free.

Strawman, of course. 'Collective punishment' (e.g. domicide¹) and 'disproportionate retaliatory slaughter' of a several decades-long captive population for "October 7th" by (US client-state) Israel are, at least, ongoing war crimes.

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-04/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/amid-israeli-destruction-in-gaza-a-new-crime-against-humanity-emerges-domicide/0000018c-d585-d751-ad8d-ffa5965e0000 [1]

https://fnl.mit.edu/january-march-2024/domicide-the-mass-destruction-of-homes-should-be-a-crime-against-humanity/ [1]

18April24, Avenue C, NYC

Ceasefire NOW. Free Palestine!

Depose, Arrest, Prosecute & Punish the war criminals Netanyahu & his regime's leaders!

@BitconnectCarlos @tim wood @RogueAI & other zionfascist apologists ...

Palestinian [oppressed] kills Jew = Resistance. Jew [oppressor] kills Palestinian = war crime.
— BitconnectCarlos

That's how it works when one party is oppressed and the other is oppressed. That has nothing to do with identity. — Benkei

:100: :up:

:up:

If you believe Daniel Dennett was "the most consistent representative of scientism" (which he wasn't), Wayf, then it's quite likely you haven't studied Dennett's work or read the philosopher Alex Rosenberg's pro-scientism work e.g. The Atheist's Guide to Reality.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/898001

Is harm thought to be synonymous with justice? — Leontiskos

No. However, injustice is a kind of harm perpetrated by a group (i.e. its institutional functionaries) against individuals.

For example, if someone enters your house with a gun and you sneak up behind them and knock them unconscious in order to incapacitate them, would the negative utilitarian say that you have harmed them? If this does not count as harm ...

Not if "incapacitating" the gunman is the only or least harmful way to prevent the gunman from doing greater, perhaps lethal, harm (e.g. like surgically removing a malignant tumor or severing a foot caught in a bear trap or terminating an unwanted pregnancy before viability (or an unviable pregnancy that is more likely than not to kill the pregnant woman)).

I don’t follow your objection. — Leontiskos

What I mean is this: to say that "all human actions are moral actions" (dogma) in effect negates itself (dialectically) by entailing that there are no non-moral actions to distinguish from, and thereby identify, "moral actions". Thus, for me at least, your OP's premises are incoherent.

Also this, Leontiskos ...

The desire for what is good does not mean that the good will be found in our practices. What the good is remains highly problematic.

Reading Aristotle as if his work is not dialectical makes it hard to see that he is guided by unanswered questions rather than dogmatic answers. — Fooloso4

:fire: