False. A moral agent can be rational without having affirmative values, so long as they're willing to look beyond their irrational vital impulses.

LOL. Says the guy who fantasises about pessimism having the responsibility, because there is the capability, of wiping humanity out with nukes. — apokrisis

I mean, I am a consequentialist. I'm not exactly going to endorse paradoxical agent-centered restrictions.

So pessimism is based on the completely faulty notion of ending the pain inherent in living. But you can see how naturalism only wants to remove the accidental pain - so as to maximise the scope for purposive pain. And likewise, naturalism would want to remove accidental pleasures, to make pleasure properly purposive. — apokrisis

"Naturalism" is the buzzword you use to describe anything you personally advocate. It's not as if all naturalists automatically believe everything you do regarding politics and ethics.

And no, pessimism is not based on the desire to end all pain. It's focused on the possibility of ending all purpose-less pain. Give us a good reason why pain has to exist. If, for example, you could enter a hedonic machine that would give you pure enjoyment without fail - would you hook yourself up? Of course you would. Why stick around in a world of both pain and pleasure when you could experience a world of simply pleasure? If you would take an aspirin for a headache, why not take the hedonic experience machine for relieving the stress of life?

So this whole "you can't have the good without the bad" rhetoric only applies so long as you keep this crypto-theological notion that life, and humanity, is "supposed" to be some way. It's a pretty sneaky aesthetic.

I instead understand my nature because I can see why pleasure and pain are psychically joined at the hip. Perfection in the real world lies not in one reigning absolute, the other banished from the kingdom. Instead to flourish is to live with that exquisite balance where you thrash yourself up mountains (both literal and metaphoric) as living hard is living best. — apokrisis

That's it? Once again we have this sneaky aesthetic of the gritty survivor as a demonstration of your so-called naturalist ethics. Living hard is living best - but why? Certainly going to the supermarket is easier than growing your own food or hunting for meat. Guess you should stop going to the supermarket, since apparently living hard is living best...

Living creatures are almost always in a state of discomfort or stress. It's not enjoyable. It's tedious, annoying, frustrating and difficult. It's in the brief intermissions when you're able to relax, and in this relaxation you basically forget what it was like to go through the day. You mistake the intermission for the play.

It is also much easier to deal with life when you live it "again" through other people. Hence why so many people have children, those ultimately useless additions to the world. People like to see other people live life, so long as they don't have to live it themselves.

So why don't we stop beating around the bush and admit and agree on this: life was never meant to be enjoyable and it's childishly absurd to believe the universe was meant to make us happy or comfortable. It does not care for our well-being - we are given this responsibility from the genesis of our existence and it's a real pain in the ass. I didn't want this, and the irritating part is how people like you are so willing to hold a blindingly obvious double standard and ignore this fact. It's just as I've been saying from the beginning - affirmative morality is inherently aggressive and hypocritical, especially in regards to the edges of its domain.

Greatest game I've ever played.

Wait, what argument?

Sorry, I looked hard but couldn't discover any actual counter-arguments in the rest, just a lot of laughably lame ad homs. — apokrisis

mkay, as I suspected you respond to nothing and redirect the blame onto others. Good job!

What are called facts are just approximate opinions shared by many people, always subject to change. You may consider that you are alive to be a fact, but even that is subject to change. Is like knowing you are awake, just before you go to sleep. Everything is always changing and any fact is just a memory waiting to be uttered but subject to change between the memory and the uttering. — Rich

Is this just an approximate opinion? An approximate opinion that everything is just an approximate opinion?

Is that a fact? — Bitter Crank

Was exactly my thought, BC. Any all-encompassing metaphysical position has to be able to account for itself.

You want to divide the world up into opposing absolutes. The world being completely "the bad" is how you can - tragically/heroically - imagine yourself as the entrapped "good". The basic Romantic trope. Liberate me from this constraining world. — apokrisis

I mean, this has been a major topic investigated by existentialists and phenomenologists. Levinas, for example, specifically analyzes transcendence as an attempt to escape.

You keep trying to nudge these phenomenal experiences out of the picture as if they're not important or relevant to the discussion. So what if the world isn't actually divided up into these absolutes? How is that relevant to how we ordinarily approach the world in everyday life (what we might call "nature")?

But of course I can go about things from a different angle. Hypothetically speaking, if you had such godlike powers, would you start life on Earth all over again? Would you try to prevent it from developing? None of your hand-waving now: if you were God, would you do it again? This thought experiment is intentionally made to put phenomenal value back on the drawing board.

But I make the other case. There is no good and bad. There are instead only the complementary limits on being that seek their equilibrium. So at the level of human social being, those complementary limits on free action are the instincts towards competition and co-operation. Living well is doing both in the right way. Hit the balance and life feels great. — apokrisis

First you say there is no good and bad, and then try to recommend a lifestyle of equilibrium (how incredibly novel! wow I never thought about that before...) that inevitably spirals back to hedonic satisfaction. Scienced-up taoism. Sounds great on paper!

So sure, you can trim your sails and tailor your life to equilibrium - until something inevitably disturbs this equilibrium in the form of accidents, pain, disease, aging, and death. You can tune a guitar only so much until the strings just break and the whole thing is fucked.

Schopenhauer1's (and others') point has been the absurdity of being forced to do this to begin with. The environmental and biological system we live in places constraints that, for a self-conscious, time-conscious being like us, can be coercive. Analyzing it objectively and removing any sort of anthropomorphism does not just magically woosh the oppression away, as if this knowledge correlates to calm tranquility in the face of danger. So yes, describing life in the textbook-manner style you prefer can be emotionless and passive, but life is not lived in this textbook-like manner (unless of course you are extraordinarily lucky or just blind). The biologist may recognize that death is the natural and eventual outcome of any biological system, but nevertheless retain a fear of it.

It's also helpful when you happened to get a lucky roll of the die. Far from being determined by reason, lives are dictated by chance and fortune. So you drew a comparatively good lot in life. At least have the decency to recognize when other people didn't and cannot raise themselves up to your unrealistic, dogmatic and coercive expectations.

A population of organisms (not just r-selected) is sustained by an implicit emphasis on the species rather than the individual. Individuality is tolerated only so long as it is beneficial to the survival of the species as as whole. As I'm sure you are aware, human's ability to "transcend the immanent" is an important part of existential and phenomenological analysis. Now that we are capable to reflecting upon our condition and the world at large, we can wonder whether we want to keep going. We can understand that individuality came from social interactions without making the mistake of valuing is less because of it. If we value individuality, and if this individuality puts us into conflict against the wider cosmic entropic "plan", then so be it. Maybe we were meant all along to go extinct. This rhymes well with Zapffe, Freud, Nietzsche and Unamuno's analysis of the tragedy of consciousness. As you said before elsewhere, the mind must find the right "balance" between seeing enough to survive but not too much to be overwhelmed. I'm obviously coming from the perspective that we see too much and that this inevitable disposition is the cause of the majority of our problems.

"Human existence is a penal colony; a sexually transmitted disease; a disappointment; nothing but suffering; “a sky-dive: out of a cunt into the grave”; a one-way ticket to the crematorium. “Nobody gets out of here alive”. Every day is a grim passage, a struggle through moments and hours of loneliness, boredom, emptiness, and self-loathing." — Colin Feltham

The sad thing is that the comparatively optimistic perspective you espouse inherently has to either ignore or forget about those like Mr. Feltham, myself, Schop1, Thorongil, and others who can't seem to figure out how to enjoy life like you seem to be able to. You play by nature's rules and you get to survive. You go rogue or fail to meet expectations and you're purged. And the train keep chugging.

Now you're thinking more pessimistically!

One of the nice things about being a pessimist is that you have nothing to lose if you're wrong.

Goddammit CDPR, where the fuck is Cyberpunk 2077?!

(Just kidding, please take all the time you need and don't rush it.)

Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality by Douglas Portmore

These guys killed it live at concert:

I don't think it's the naturalistic fallacy. Under that logic, you could say that the instinctual aversion to tall cliffs doesn't cut it, or that the aversion towards impalement is not a good enough argument. Also I don't really get how the rest of my view commits it.

Indeed, to add on, this is why people like Julio Cabrera call pain, particularly extreme pain, to be ethically disqualifying. We aren't disqualified due to some intrinsic gnostic evil, but because we live in an environment that places pressures on us and forces us to act in rational self-interest even if it's not the ethical thing to do. A spy who spills the beans while being tortured may have done the wrong thing, but cannot be blamed.

Well, forgive me, but this sounds hypocritical and seems to commit the naturalistic fallacy I mentioned. — Thorongil

I'm not sure I follow.

I also failed to mention that a major part of my "reason" to live has to do with a personal commitment to the welfare of sentient organisms, particularly non-human animals. I can't exactly help those in need if I'm rotting in the ground.

So why do you continue living? — Thorongil

Curiosity, a fear of death, the aesthetic of a spontaneous explorer, and the attitude of "modest arrogance", i.e. I'm sticking around to see if anyone can convince me there's a reason to stick around. I'm also fairly healthy and young so I might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

The best we can do is make peace with this fact and try to live accordingly. — Thorongil

An issue I see with this is that is seems to require a nostalgia for pre-Industrial history, before there were such things as nukes and pandemics. Now that we have the capability of destroying the planet, what side should the pessimist be on? They no longer have the convenience to sit back from the world as they did before when there literally was no method of ending the suffering.

I'm not saying we should launch the nukes. I think that might be flexing our muscles too much; I dont' know if we have that sort of authority to make that decision. But certainly we can still approach an Armageddon with open arms. Technology has shown its ability to change something that seemed to be metaphysically un-changeable.

Other people have to gin up some sort of "AWE" (capitals intended to show its overinflation).. AWE of knowledge, AWE of nature, AWE of other cultures.. Somehow, it's as if the scientific-minded, like priests of old, want to shame you for taking for granted the AWE of this or that aspect of existence.. yet they too are falling pray to cultural cohesion- of group think, of survival for survival's sake without question. — schopenhauer1

Reminds me of a quote from Thomas Ligotti's Conspiracy Against the Human Race:

“One cringes to hear scientists cooing over the universe or any part thereof like schoolgirls over-heated by their first crush. From the studies of Krafft-Ebbing onward, we know that it is possible to become excited about anything—from shins to shoehorns. But it would be nice if just one of these gushing eggheads would step back and, as a concession to objectivity, speak the truth: THERE IS NOTHING INNATELY IMPRESSIVE ABOUT THE UNIVERSE OR ANYTHING IN IT.” — Ligotti

It reminds you of some people on this forum, doesn't it?

As trade increased, this democratized existential thinking, and while some indulged in self-reflection of our own existence and questioned why we procreate in the first place, most people seemed to follow the inheritance of our early human ancestors- which is to worry about how to put forth a next generation without questioning why. It's as if the original use for something was no longer needed, but people still did it anyway out of habit. — schopenhauer1

Yes, it's as if every generation struggles with the same fundamental questions as the previous generations. There's nothing new under the Sun. It's the same old story with different characters who all believe themselves to be entirely unique, who only learn life is not worth it when it's already too late. Disappointing, to say the least.

Yes, life is not a self-justifying peepshow, but that doesn't mean it can't be justified. Because it's not self-justifying, there needs to be an argument as to why suicide is not the most rational response to it. "Because it's painful and other people might feel sad" doesn't cut it, for to be opposed to something merely on instinctual or emotional grounds is to commit the naturalistic fallacy. Not everything painful need be bad, just as not everything pleasurable need be good. — Thorongil

I would say that this is one of the few issues I truly have with Schopenhauer's philosophy. He accepts that the justification of life is not easy, and defends the right to kill oneself. But ultimately he comes back full-circle by arguing suicide only gets rid of the phenomenon, and not the noumenon.

I don't see this as very satisfactory. Who gives a damn about the noumenon?

To be short and sweet, then, I don't see any rational reason to continue living. It's absurd. Not only is life generally mediocre but it also has the potential to be really, really, unimaginably bad. So bad that you might wish you had died earlier. I see the possibility of horrible trauma and pain as a sort of undeniable "trump card" on the side of the pessimists - opponents may try to argue that it's all about "perspective" or "trying harder" or something, but you can't just get rid of extreme pain by a switch of attitude.

I've come to see this equation as problematic. Life is suffering, but all suffering arises through lack or want of a thing, and so life as a whole is a kind of non-being that lacks being. — Thorongil

I don't think it's adequate to say all suffering arises through lack or want. Clearly getting impaled through the stomach will cause someone to suffer, but it's not as if the only thing going on is a desire to not be impaled. There's a metal rod puncturing the stomach, it's going to be painful regardless.

Our well-being is basically dependent on the health of our bodies, of which we have limited control.

So any sort of eudaimonology is going to have to deal with the looming possibility of horrible, disfiguring, traumatic episodes of pain, physical and emotional but especially the former.

^Apple user...lmfao this is so petty.

Yep. I've just explained at length why I wouldn't invest a cent in the sad dualistic combo of mechanicalism+romanticism. So what's your point exactly? — apokrisis

What's your point, exactly? You haven't refuted shit. I have very little respect for your obsessive devotion to a metaphysics that has not relevance to half the things you claim it to be relevant to.

Appealing to subjectivity is metaphysics. — apokrisis

But not the sort of metaphysics you seem to be invested in or expect from this discussion. Phenomenology is front-and-center here. How humans are affected by their environment from the perspective of those involved.

Instead you want to make some kind of transcendentally absolute deal out of suffering. — apokrisis

Nope, once again you fail to grasp the simplicity of my position. It's not supposed to be metaphysical.

If I understand you correctly then it means you think both ships are valid referents of ''the ship of Theseus'' because both of them evolve through time developing relationships with other objects (sailors, ports, events, etc). — TheMadFool

I would say that it shows that there never "was" a Ship of Theseus in the material sense, because the existence of relations makes material composition vague and indeterminate.

But you are again straying from nature's own logic. Failure spells non survival. So the ability to persist is definitional of what it is to flourish. That is the actual structure of the world. — apokrisis

I would say you're equivocating here and getting dangerously close to the naturalistic fallacy. Being able to live long enough to pass on one's genes is not the only requirement for something to "flourish". Clearly the satisfaction of preferences is an integral part.

One of the pessimistic points, then, would be that the biology of humans and the environment humans live in are not sufficient to maintain a prolonged eudaimonic, flourishing life. We persist not because we enjoy it or because it's good for us to persist, but because we don't really have any other choice. Well. actually, we do have a choice, but it's an unspeakable choice under an affirmative framework.

It isn't me who marginalises failure. Failure marginalises itself. — apokrisis

...victim blaming? Those who can't cope with the demands the universe puts on them are failures...

And thus antinatalism is simply being unwittingly proactive in stepping up to the plate, putting its head on the block sooner rather than later — apokrisis

...but then again, we're only failures under your affirmative framework. If you value being more than non-being, then of course antinatalists are going to be seen as failures. But if you value non-being more than being, or even just a more conservative ethical appreciation of free will, antinatalism could be seen as the height of success. To break out of the cycle of life. That takes real guts.

When I say I didn't say it, perhaps you ought to take note? — apokrisis

And like I said before, you don't have to say something to imply it.

Alternatively, we are meant to flourish. Or same thing, flourishing would be what would be meaningful. (Try and deny it.) — apokrisis

Alright, I'll try. We're "meant" to survive in a hostile world, as I've already said. Flourishing is contingent and transitory with no guarantees of success. You can marginalize the failures all you want, this doesn't mean they don't exist or haven't existed for the past countless eons.

Why do you keep trying to make out that I say things I don't say? Is it because your argument is otherwise so weak? — apokrisis

I love anonymous internet belligerence so much.

Whether you said it or not is irrelevant, it is implicit in your position. Affirmation of life; i.e. "it's worth it". It may be a mixed bag under your view, but the contents favor overall positive value. Otherwise there'd be no reason not to be a pessimist.

Hah. I hear your discomfort and note you have no counter-argument on that point. You are promoting a philosophy that is self-defeating in only securing what it hopes to avoid. And that fact exposes a basic failure of analysis. — apokrisis

You didn't even really give much of an argument. Something about antinatalists giving more population room for breeders, or something. Either way, someone gets born. Okay...?

Yet nature is structurally a mixed bag in the end. — apokrisis

Depends on what you mean by nature. I'm clearly not meaning nature by the entirety of existence, as I've already stated as such. If that's what you mean, then my position in accordance to this would be that life is one of the negative bits in the mix.

Yep. I've been pointing out the self-defeating nature of anti-natalism in that it in fact must result in the eugenic strengthening of the pool of willing breeders. So it really blows as a practical philosophy in that sense. — apokrisis

As have I, when I said the zombies will inherit the Earth. But you didn't like that description that much...

Even if antinatalism is pragmatically self-defeating (which I doubt, of course), this does not change the formal, ideal value of it. Non-ideal bullshit shouldn't affect the validity of a formal argument.

But yes, it is a consoling thought, that antinatalists might inflict their pessimism on everyone they possibly can, but at least not on their own kids. That counts as a small blessing I guess. — apokrisis

I don't get it. If you don't like pessimism, and if you don't think pessimism is a "real" philosophy or something, then why are you wasting so much time and energy on what you see to be a failed cause?

I have to laugh as life is interesting because it is complex, both in terms of its responsibilities and its delights. Yet you choose to be as crudely reductionist as possible so as see it as structurally black.

This is the actual philosophical sin here. Mistaking absolutism for profundity. — apokrisis

This hand-waves the issues away by trying to make life seem like a mixed bag of goods and bads. We've been saying it from the start, we are not meant to be happy, we are not meant to be secure. We are meant to survive and survival requires us to suffer. Suffering is the structural integrity of life as experienced by those involved in it, i.e. the phenomenological natural-ontology.

So you're coming from the perspective that being is generally, if not intrinsically, good. Yet when asked to justify this, you must appeal to the ontic complexities of life. Naked being cannot be defended, it must be concealed by appealing to the transitory ontic intra-worldly beings, while systematically obscuring/denying the reality of non-being, i.e. the non-being of being. Being-towards-death.

To affirm being is not to find something about being that is good, but to point fingers at the stuff within being to justify being. Ironically enough, the being that is apparently so good is the same being we have to protect ourselves against.

Stick around, act helpless, be a drag on the rest. Then the whole thing might indeed collapse (only to be reborn much the same - sorry, nature and the second law are relentless like that.) — apokrisis

If you think that's the best course of action for me, then I'm already doing that. Although I try not to be too much of a drag.

Why must you keep misrepresenting what I say? I'm not arguing for optimism in place of pessimism, but instead pragmatism. — apokrisis

And once again, optimism and pessimism are comparative terms.

My reply to the OP was about why it would make no difference as that just creates more room for those with a wish to perpetuate their kind. — apokrisis

So your argument against antinatalism is based on a dubious empirical prediction about the consequences of adopting antinatalism in a non-ideal environment?

How does this affect the validity of the antinatalist view?

You have yet to pull words out of your own mouth that would make a coherent case as to how a structurally black world could be quite fun and meaningful in practice. — apokrisis

The point is that it's actually not all that fun or meaningful, but a certain aesthetic can be cultivated in the absurdity alongside the occasional moments of joy and excitation. A world need not be 100% doom and gloom and horror in order to be classified as structurally negative. It could be mediocre, like a B-rated movie that nevertheless has some cool action shots and a steamy sex scene.

Your objections continue to miss the mark.

Your best attempt was to label people who might have a different opinion "the inheriting zombies." Nice. — apokrisis

Thanks, I call it as I see it. Those who disagree can either show me where I'm wrong (and I'll gladly take it!), or they can go about their merry way. But for some funny reason, people take it as a personal insult when other people don't like the stuff they do, as if everyone at the party (that nobody was invited to!) has to enjoy it.

Why is this? Why do dissidents have to be forcibly convinced to be optimistic? Why aren't they automatically optimistic, and why can't they just be left alone if optimists don't like them?

You don't have to agree with everything the pessimist says to understand the principle behind antinatalist arguments. Choice. Had I payed for a bad concert, it wouldn't be right for me to complain about its quality. I knew what I was getting into. Not so much for life.

Rubbish. The bar on what counts as being properly human has simply been set impractically high by institutionalised Romanticism. That is the subcontract causing all the problems. — apokrisis

Except your revisionary history leaves out the pessimists of the ancient world...try again I guess.

If you expect your life should be Picasso, Einstein and Pele all rolled into one, you might indeed view your lot rather pessimistically. — apokrisis

I don't expect it to be anything. That's you putting words in my mouth and assuming pessimism is merely a reaction of disillusionment.

Suicide is a logical thing to encourage biologically as a way to deal with the diseased or malfunctioning. — apokrisis

Antinatalism is never going to be accepted, so the next-best thing is to promote the legalization of assisted suicide for those who aren't satisfied with the lot they were forced to draw in life. But of course that's probably never going to happen, either, because people don't like to have the concept of non-being around in an affirmative society.

So self perpetuation is no evolutionary mystery. Voluntary eugenics can only ensure the strengthened identity of what you claim to detest. You are only making yourself part of the process of institutionalised self perpetuation in trying to promote the self annihilating trope of anti natalism. — apokrisis

That's the sad thing - the world has and always will be inherited by the zombies.

False dichotomy.

This whole white-grey-black thing is an oversimplification. The good parts of life are not illusory (non-existent) themselves (rather, transitory), but they are a source of illusion. They give us the illusion of security, permanence, and meaning; they seem this way when they are not. The man wins the lottery and believes himself to be a happy man, yet less than a week later he will return to the equilibrium and perhaps even be disappointed by how little money he actually gets to keep. Previous good experiences are used as justification for an optimistic prediction of the future, yet curiously bad experiences tend to be marginalized and forgotten. And with the death of God, the secular man is left with nothing but the future to reassure him when his secular theodicy support structure fails to do so.

As I've already said before, there is nothing incoherent in accepting that life is not worth living yet continuing to live anyway. There's no logical connection here, even if you demand there to be. Existence is absurd. We're seduced into continuing living by some little novelty. The ennui emerges from the constant tension between this and other related realizations and the systematic covering-up of them by society at large. It's madness.

Once you swallow the absurdist pill, you can move on and start to make the best of the situation you're in. The false dichotomy you present is such because it simplifies the matter to suit your agenda. I can accept that happy people exist, no problem. That's not what's at stake, though. What's at stake is the fragile contingency of this happiness, and the looming threat of disorder that oftentimes puts people in situations of suffering above that which they can handle. And, in general, the observation that these people are happy oftentimes only due to a structure of illusions that provide comfort and security. Once you have this realization, it's hard to go back. You've transcended the immanent.

There's also no need to give life or existence "objective" value in the sense you seem to be demanding it be. Life is what it is. However, how it is experienced by those involved in it is inherently value-laden. To be conservative, then: life is bad for those involved, even if it takes a lifetime for them to realize it.

How can you see grey in a world that is structurally black? What is going on there? — apokrisis

I already explained this already, try to keep up.

If you see only grey — apokrisis

But I never said I see only grey. And I never said the world was black through and through. I said it was structurally negative.

Take, for example, how you presumably see human life as generally positive and worth continuing. That doesn't mean bad things can't happen. And so in the same vein, I see life as generally negative and not worth continuing, but recognize good things when they do happen.

If we ask ourselves, "what makes that telescope that particular telescope?", we have already assumed that there are such things as telescopes. We already have presumed it right to believe objects in general exist.

But what would make an object? What composes or constitutes an object?

I think it is fairly common to see artefacts, or human-made stuff, isn't really "anything" outside of what we see them as. A hammer is only a hammer to the eyes of the wielder.

But what about modern inventions, like genetic engineering or artificial intelligence? If there's no ontological difference between a solution of hydrochloric acid in the lab and hydrochloric acid in a digestive tract, then what is the difference between a cow born naturally and a cow cloned in a test tube?

And the fact is that humans are not separate from the rest of the world. The world produced humans. The phenomenon of human creativity is not something spawned from the endless depths of some ethereal dualistic plane of existence, but a phenomenon that is rooted right in the world as a whole. The world produces agency.

So we can ask a further question: what difference does it make if objects exist or not? Would it make any real difference in the grand labyrinthine causal structure of the universe if a telescope actually existed, or if it were simply a structure of simples organized telescope-wise?

Neither theories seem adequate in my opinion. There is too much ambiguity and vagueness in nature to be able to set any real strict boundaries between material objects. But there are patterns the universe falls into, patterns which the mind is able to pick up. And here we have the threat of extreme nominalism: maybe all the "work" is done by the mind, maybe it's "all in the mind". But we simply have to put this into the perspective of a cosmology and evolution, and question how or why something like a mind would arise out of a mess of non-patterns and disunity.

So the verdict, in my view, is that the reality of objects is determined by their causal role in a system, which includes minds. What we call something is irrelevant, the fact is that something materializes as a real entity as soon as it becomes an active part of a causal system, and dissolves or mutates into something else as soon as it loses or switches roles. This includes things that signify or represent something else: a piece of clothing may not "actually" be a piece of clothing, but it is something that tells me I can wear it for warmth and to avoid indecent exposure. It's not an "object", but it's not "nothing" either. What something is is not simply a question of its material constitution but of its relationship to other things as well.

For a different, idiosyncratic perspective: Utilitarianism as virtue ethics.