Suppose we have satisfactorily resolved all our questions about first causes and unmoved movers. We don't think we need either. — Count Timothy von Icarus

But what would such a state of mind even be like?

If we had satisfactorily resolved all our questions about first causes and unmoved movers, would we still wonder about things such as "spontaneous creation" (or much else, for that matter)?

Your thought experiment requires that we work out of a state of mind that we are simply not familiar with, and as such, is impossible to carry out.

Ever heard of the reasonable person test? — Benkei

Would a reasonable person go on criticizing Trump the way so many of his critics do, on and on and on?

This is from the film "The Ides of March" (2011), two campaign managers from the Democratic Party talking to eachother:


DUFFY
None of this is about the
democratic process Steve, It's
about getting your guy into office.
Simple as that.


STEPHEN
This is the sort of shit the
Republicans pull.


DUFFY
You're right, this is exactly what
the Republicans do, and it's about
time we learned from them. They're
meaner, tougher and more
disciplined than we are. I've been
in this business for twenty five
years and I've seen way too many
Democrats bite the dust because
they wouldn't get down in the mud
with the fucking elephants.

And remember a wise saying by Democrat statesman and politician Daniel Patrick Moynihan: Everyone has a right to their own opinions, but not to their own facts.

It is a fact that Donald J Trump lost the last election and failed in 60 lawsuits to have the result overturned.

It is a fact that, in the words of the January 6th Committee, Trump called the mob, motivated the mob, and lit the match that resulted in the disgraceful, deadly mob attack on the US Capital on Jan 6th 2021. It was not a peaceful protest or a false flag event, but instigated and encouraged by Donald J Trump, who is due to face court for his involvement in these events in the next several months.

Hope this is all sufficiently clear. It will be repeated as often as is necessary in this thread. — Wayfarer

Wrong approach. If force and "facts" worked, don't you think we'd have seen results by now?

As long as Trump's critics play into his game, he's got the upper hand. Republicans and rightwingers of various flavors have one thing in common: the desire to rule. And they are not ashamed of it, they do not feel guilty about it. As long as their critics can't come up with a similar desire to rule, their efforts will be in vain. Because politics is about ruling people.

How can we abandon firm and stable grounds of self-nurturing while avoiding the pitfalls of self-oblivion?
— Number2018

Well, I don’t think following Habermas’s Kantian modernist path is the answer. — Joshs

Then what is the answer?

^Sorry, posting from the phone, it doesn't let me edit posts.

In the case of the Israel-Palestine discussion it just feels like a perfect example of neither side listening to the other, both handling facts and knowledge like weapons to win an argument without regards to their validity or caring to accept the level of validity of the other side’s presented facts. — Christoffer

I sometimes wonder whether this is actually the point of those "discussions". To verbally and vicariously extend and participate in the war that is being discussed. That not listening, not engaging fairly is a virtue.

I just discovered, while reading up on Die Kuns, Recht zu behalten[/bli], that there are textbooks teaching argumentation in law that instruct lawyers to use what in philosophy is known as informsl logical fallacies.

It is a good example, consistent with the adage not to discuss religion and politics. — Hanover

... in polite society.

My New Year's resolution is to stear clear of the political threads. — Hanover

Will you give up acting like a lawyer at a philosophy forum?

The threads tend to create bad feeling, accentuate our closely held personal differences, do nothing to cause reconsideration of our views, and generally piss each other off.

Not the threads/topics themselves do this, but the adversarial approach to interaction with others, as if this was a courtroom and the whole point was to win a debate before a judging audience.

but he doesn't need to be an Overman for the concept to hold water. — Count Timothy von Icarus

With Nietzsche, I can never tell what is merely rhetoric and what is it that he really means. Perhaps it was his intention to make a point of this dichotomy.

With texts like his, I always wonder how come the author published them*, or, if the individual author isn't known, how come they've become published.

For example, why did Robert Greene publish The 48 Laws of Power? It seems contrary to those laws of power to publish them. Similar with the Chinese Art of War or Thirty-Six Stratagems.

How is it that texts praising power, strength, supremacism, cunning get published at all?
The fact that they are published contradicts their content. What gives?


(*Granted, in Nietzsche's case, the publication of his works is convoluted.)

Umberto Eco is pretty good on this apparent contradiction in political narratives. His "Eternal Fascism," is a good example. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Thank you for this reference. Eco's list of 14 features of ur-fascism seems rather general. But I agree, it confirms my intuitive suspicion that there is something fascist about, say, high EU politics.

I find esoterica quite interesting, but this facet of it can make trying to discuss it extremely tedious. "Oh, you don't agree with/love x, well then you absolutely cannot have understood it. It wasn't written for you." Ironic, in the esotericists themselves have a tendency to lambast competitors in stark terms. — Count Timothy von Icarus

"Those who can't, teach" comes to mind.

Someone who is serious about their own spiritual (and other) advancement wouldn't make a point of spending their precious time reading or debating opponents and those who are less than fit.

I'd go further and call this crap a cultural or human thing. Democracy has always contained the possibility of its own undoing, it just takes a majority vote of someone non- or anti-democratic. — jorndoe

More than this: people are typically not democratic to begin with. They like democracy insofar it means that the political option they favor can win (and for a short enough period of time to avoid bearing responsibility for their actions in any meaningful way). But they resent democracy when it means that they will be ruled by a party they don't like.

Democracy brings out the worst in people. It pits people against eachother. It breeds hostility. It encourages adversarial thinking. It pushes simplistic us vs. them thinking.

Those who believe he is a good business manager bought into a false image and are ignorant of his "small loan" from his father (one million dollars plus) his business failures, his cheating, his stiffing contractors, his misrepresentations, and his "business strategy of repeated bankruptcies.

He covers his failure to deliver on promises by making further promises. — Fooloso4

On the contrary, his, let's call that "specific business practices" are possibly what many people can relate to the most, because they themselves use those practices or wish they could.

It seems to be easier to propose that people are basically good, but weak; than to consider the possibility that people are basically evil and strong.
— baker
Both are distortions. Some people are basically good and others are not. Some are strong or weak in some ways but not others. There is no correlation between being weak or strong and good or bad.

I'm talking about what some of Trumps' critics might find more acceptable. It is easier on the ego of those of Trumps' critics to say that Trump has "mislead" or "deceived" people than to consider the possibility that many people already are that way, with or without Trump.

Doesn't countering other's arguments require reflecting them accurately rather than beating up on strawmen? — Count Timothy von Icarus

From what I understood, the theory of informal logical fallacies seems to be a rather novel development, and that in the past, what are now considered informal logical fallacies used to be considered valid means in debate.

When we now read, for example, Schopenhauer's Die Kunst, Recht zu behalten, we read it as satire, as examples of how not to engage in discussion and debate, but apparently he actually believed that this was how to go about conversations/debates.

You don't like him because you don't like me. — Vaskane

Lol. The self-importance!

Negation has traditionally been thought of as a lack, an accident, something standing in the way of and opposing itself to the good and the true. — Joshs

This has got to be a Western phenomenon, though, because in Eastern philosophy, the distribution seems to be more even. There, some desirable, positive phenomena or traits are defined in terms of negation (e.g. ahimsa 'non-violence'), but also some negative ones (e.g. avijja 'ignorance').

He wrote:

I am compelled to ask, with Nietzsche: ‘As for sickness: are we not almost tempted to ask whether we could get along without it?’—and to see the questions it raises as fundamental in nature. — Joshs

A Buddhist teacher once said that when going to the doctor, one should not say "Doctor, something is wrong with me", but instead, "Doctor, something is right with me", reflecting that in some other cultures, disease and other forms of hardship are considered an ordinary given of life, far more normal than in Western culture.

A common critique of Nietzsche is that his philosophy doesn't work in the social dimension. How does a whole community of Overmen interact and actually form a cohesive society? A common rebuttal to this is that Nietzsche simply isn't writing for the masses. He doesn't even want to be understood by most. He's writing for a small elite, the few.

But then why does this self-concerned elite need the reigns of temporal power, which also tend to bind? Can't they do their own thing? — Count Timothy von Icarus

It seems to me that overall, Nietzsche (and Rand etc.) are trying to do something similar as Machiavelli did with The Prince, except that unlike Machiavelli, they weren't actually functional parts of the ruling elite, and it shows in their reasoning.

I imagine that the true Übermenschen don't write books about Übermenschen, and don't read them either. It seems to me that for the actual aristoracts, the actual elites, actually making a point of saying the things Nietzsche (and Rand etc.) do would be considered vulgar and unbecoming, even if they, ie. the aristorcrats in fact believed those things and held them close to their hearts.

“Out of life's school of war—what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger.” (Twilight of the Idols) — Joshs

This is obviously not true on the face of it, as evidenced by many broken people who have survived a serious physical injury or disease, or a socio-economical fall.

It seems to me that the famous saying is actually intended as a motto, as a life maxim, in a sense like, "Make every effort to overcome life's hardships and don't allow yourself to be adversely affected by them."

There is an old trend of formulating advice or motivation in the form of statements in the indicative, as opposed to in the imperative or some other irrealis grammatical mood.

In Nietzsche's case it is a question of perceived by whom. He does not want to be understood by just anyone who reads him. His explicit about this. Perhaps being aware of the fact that a philosopher cannot control how he will be read, he attempts to have control over how he will be misread.

Our highest insights must–and should–sound like follies and sometimes like crimes when
they are heard without permission by those who are not predisposed and predestined for
them. The difference between the exoteric and the esoteric, formerly known to
philosophers–among the Indians as among the Greeks, Persians, and Muslims, in short,
wherever one believed in an order of rank and not in equality and equal rights –….
[consists in this:] the exoteric approach sees things from below, the esoteric looks down
from above…. What serves the higher type of men as nourishment or delectation must
almost be poison for a very different and inferior type…. There are books that have
opposite values for soul and health, depending on whether the lower soul, the lower
vitality, or the higher and more vigorous ones turn to them; in the former case, these
books are dangerous and lead to crumbling and disintegration; in the latter, [they are]
heralds’ cries that call the bravest to their courage. Books for all the world are always
foul-smelling books.
Beyond Good and Evil, 42 (aph 30) — Fooloso4

From the introduction to a Hare Krishna book:

This small volume will be well regarded by purified clear- headed individuals who are thoroughly honest. Narrow-souled superficialists or spiritually maladroit, externally oriented prakrita-bhaktas of meager metaphysical or internal devotional acumen will have to muster the requisite spiritual integrity to deeply enter into the spirit of this dissertation. The subject matter of this book, like the highly elevated topics revealed in the later cantos of Shrimad-Bhagavatam, should not be intruded upon by the ineligible, hypocritical, corrupt, or envious. If the boot in any way fits, promptly close the book. What need is there for any further introductory elaboration? It is as it is. Generously remitting the numerous literary imperfections herein, simply open your heart and allow the substance of this presentation to transport your inner- dimensional quantum beyond the confines of vapid ecclesiastico-conservative conventionalism to a Krishna conscious paradigm of enriched profundity. Hare Krishna!”

https://blservices.com/product/the-heart-of-transcendetal-book-distribution/

There's a pattern for dismissing some potential readers, and it can be found all over the places and genres. Once one has seen a few of examples of it, it starts to get silly. All these exalted, oh so special people. And so many of them, so many!

I mean, Nietzsche seems to be seething with resentment for the "slave morality" which is pretty equivalent to Rand's "collectivists" not letting the elite industrialists, inventors, artists, and scientists reach the necessary heights they are capable of. And a Randian would argue that by allowing the maximum individual freedoms of these individuals, it WOULD unleash a magnanimous outcome for humanity. — schopenhauer1

I just want to know what John Galt and co. eat and who is cleaning their toilets.

In other words, Rand always struck me as a plebeian attempt to reimagine, reinvent aristocracy, with all its entitlements.

People spread germs which can harm a strong person etc etc, a weak person might try to entrap a strong person to child payments etc etc. — Vaskane

How can someone still rightfully be called "strong" if they can be overcome by germs, entrapments, etc.?

It’s more a matter of constraining the impulses of strength within oneself. By ‘strength’ Nietzsche meant a will to continual self-overcoming ( not personal ‘growth’ as in progress toward self-actualization, but continually becoming something different). The weak path is toward belief in foundational morality, a god who favors the meek, universal truth and the supremacy of proportional logic. — Joshs

You first said:

Especially the part about morality being a trick of the weak to constrain the strong. This is what Nietzsche called ressentiment. — Joshs

I don't understand. How is morality "a trick of the weak to constrain the strong"? Where's the trickery? Even when it is in reference to self-overcoming?

Since Trump was elected Plato's warning about how democracies degenerate into tyrannies through demagogues has frequently pointed to. The demagogue poses as a champion of the people. Because they feel powerless and unable to make things better for themselves they turn to someone who promises to do it for them. They are willing to cede power in order to get the results they hope for, but rather than seeing this as ceding power they believe they are gaining power. — Fooloso4

Things like this are often said, but I need something more to become convinced of this. From what I've seen of Trumpistas and the like, they aren't "buying into" what "their leader" says. They haven't been "deceived" by a "demagogue". It's simply how they are already.

Saying that they're "buying into" what "their leader" says etc. seems to be primarily a rhetorical move by their critics. But if it's more than just a rhetorical move, if the critics actually believe that, then it seems it's because the alternative (and what it implies about human nature) is too scary. It seems to be easier to propose that people are basically good, but weak; than to consider the possibility that people are basically evil and strong.

I'm just patiently waiting for the US to implode due to its corrupt and vacuous politics. — Benkei

Let's just hope it doesn't take (much of) the rest of the world with it.

Orbán has Trump's back.

'Evil is eating away at Western democracies,' says Hungarian PM Orban — jorndoe

What many people don't seem to realize is that this, too, is democracy. The problem isn't Trump, isn't Orban, it's the very phenomenon of democracy itself. In a democracy, people defend their own interests. And this inevitably leads to tensions. A common way of coping with those tensions is to try to discredit the others.

O sancta simplicitas!

Thus, ego-friendly. With a vague approach like yours, you can always feel good about yourself and always feel that you have prevented or relieved more suffering than you caused.
:lol:

They are not simply biased tribalists either, as is evidenced by how they cut ties with or get rid of those who no longer serve their cause.
— baker

It's because they're Trump loyalists who will buy into whatever argument Trump advances regardless of the evidence supporting it or the logical consistency of it.

His supporters bought into and still buy into the argument there was a nationwide conspiracy to rig the election in every contested district across the country. Despite no evidence, he continued to try to obstruct the result, all the way down to convincing his followers to physically standing in the way of it. — Hanover

Are you saying this because you actually believe this, or are you saying it merely for rhetorical purposes?

If you say so ... — 180 Proof

It's vital to the topic at hand. (Waiting for @Joshs to chime in.)

"Measure" what? I didn't propose to quantify anything. — 180 Proof

You said:

'Prevent or relieve more suffering than you cause'. — 180 Proof

If you want to "prevent or relieve" _more_ "suffering than you cause", then, clearly, you need to have some measurement in mind. How else can you know whether you're preventing or relieving more suffering than you cause?

Tread more carefully in your attempts to describe Jewish theology so as not to appear anti-Jewish. I don't trust that your description of the way Jewish theology describes evil is entirely a misunderstanding, but I am more convinced it's a desire to cast the religion in a bad light. — Hanover

Actually, I heard about the need for hatred from you for the first time. I was quite taken aback.
But some things started to make sense.

Instead, I'll just tell you to end your Judaism bashing.

Is it even possible to say something about Judaism without the Jews feeling offended?
Religious/spiritual people tend to have toes all over the place, it's impossible not to step on them.

So why don’t we dump moral realism and moral subjectivism and all other moldy conformist dictums stuck in the 18th century, which blithely ignore all the exciting ideas coming from current research in evolutionary biology, anthropology , psychology and language studies? — Joshs

We don't dump them because in order to be able to dump them safely, without adverse consequences for ourselves, other people would have to dump them as well. But this, clearly, isn't happening.

Yes, and what if you are absolutely sure that something you enjoy is wrong and something you're disgusted by is right? Would you change your behaviour to reflect your moral knowledge, or would you decide to continue as you were? — Michael

I have been faced with similar situations when I approached some religions/spiritualities. But I wasn't actually sure that something I enjoyed was wrong, and I wasn't sure that something I'm disgusted by was right -- instead, I felt enormously pressured to have such surety, and my continual involvement was predicated on at least aiming for such surety. I couldn't stand it for long, though, and eventually broke off my involvement with them. I'm also facing such situations in relation to politics, and as things stand, my current means of coping is cynicism.

But, realistically, as years pass, I can see on my own example that Kohlberg's theory of moral development applies, esp. the part where he notes that changes in moral reasoning happen gradually over long periods of time, through personal experience, discussions with others, reading, reflecting, as opposed to people changing their moral beliefs simply after reading a syllogism. For me, this manifests in having developed a new framework for understanding religious/spiritual claims and expectations, and a kind of -- not exactly stiff upper lip -- but a certain, let's call that, inner, non-verbal rigidity because of which those religious/spiritual claims and expectations can't take much hold of me (unlike they did in the past).

If it could be proved beyond all doubt that there was a God, that divine command theory is true, and that we have a moral obligation to kill infidels then I still wouldn't kill infidels because I don't want to be a killer. Morality be damned.

While a person's moral stances can remain the same for long periods of time, things can change. External events might provoke one to think and act in ways that one previously thought unimaginable, not only impossible.

1. No morality but everyone believes that it is immoral to kill babies
2. It is immoral to kill babies and everyone believes that it is immoral to kill babies
3. It is moral to kill babies but everyone believes that it is immoral to kill babies

What is the practical difference between these worlds?

It seems to me that only moral beliefs matter. Whether or not the beliefs are true has no practical relevance. — Michael

The problem is the bit about _everyone_. It's usually not the case that everyone thinks the same way. This is why the issues of whether moral facts exist or not and whether a belief is true or not come into play. As soon as someone is "different" than the majority, this will have some practical consequences for the person (often adverse ones), and the person will try to make sense of this being different and of how other people treat them because of it.

Perhaps I should have said that it isn't necessarily a sufficient reason. If I were to somehow know that I have an obligation to kill children, I would need a more convincing reason to carry it out. That I am obligated isn't reason enough for me. — Michael

Because you haven't internalized the metaphysical framework needed for said obligation to make sense.

So what is the motivation to obey God's moral laws? — Michael

For most people who (claim to) obey God's law, that motivation appears to be pre-cognitive; ie. they have internalized it before they were even old enough to think about it.
For many of those who first turn to obeying God's law as adults, there's some trauma or crisis.

I, for one, am not motivated simply by the belief (or knowledge) of what I ought to do. — Michael

Moral obligation only makes sense in a religious framework to begin with.

I can't make the possibility of any kind of moral obligation believable. That's really what I'm trying to show here. — Michael

As is inevitably the case for someone who is not religious or whose sense of morality is not shaped after religions.

If it's logically possible for there to be a moral obligation to harm and if it's logically possible for there to be a moral obligation to not harm, and if there's no practical difference between being morally obligated to harm and being morally obligated to not harm, then moral obligations are a vacuous concept.

Because moral obligations only make sense in the framework of religion. Only religion has the metaphysical underpinnings needed for making moral obligations intelligible (and the practical means for raising prospective believers).

Again, "Why be moral?" is an infelicitous question - being moral is what you ought to do. Hence the answer to "ought you be moral?" is "yes!" — Banno

If only it would be clear what "moral" means, in any particular instance. Hating your enemies (the persons), like the Jews do? Stoning infidels, like some Muslims do?

Perhaps we could say that it is best for us to live the truly moral life. But what if what is right is what we find reprehensible?
/.../
Would you accept a morality that stands in stark opposition to your personal values? What would it mean for you if you'd found this to be the case? — Michael

Insanity.

And what difference would it make if there was no morality at all?

Insanity.

It seems to me that the only difference is that in the second one we would be correct in believing that it is immoral to kill babies. But what difference would being correct make to being incorrect? Presumably, regardless of what is or isn't the case, you wouldn't kill babies. Or would you convert to baby killing if you'd found it to be moral? In the unlikely case you'd say yes: then it's your belief that matters, not the fact-of-the-matter -- what difference does the fact-of-the-matter make?

It seems to me that the implicit assumption in all this is that people don't know, aren't sure about what is moral and what isn't. That there is a fundamental possibility of moral doubt (in every person?).

Usually, people don't seem to indulge in such moral skepticism, so your thought experiment is moot for them. A philosopher cannot just ignore such things about people. It seems that most people are intuitively and absolutely sure about their sense of right and wrong, and this surety being intuitive and absolute is essential to their sense of morality.

If you told me baby murdering were ethical, I guess I'd have to murder babies even if it made me sad to wrestle them from the hands of their mothers and dash them upon rocks. — Hanover

While you believe in a god who kills babies en masse.

So you argue in favor of physicalism?

Are we to simply presume that what these terms stand for is transparently obvious to everyone? — Joshs

It seems the OP and several other posters here take for granted that the meaning of hate/harm (as well as goodness, evil, etc.) _should_ be transparently obvious to everyone. And that if a particular person doesn't think/feel the way they do, then the fault is with that person (ie. said person is "morally or cognitively defective").

Isnt the problem of interpretation the central issue of ethics? And doesn’t this problem make all ethical questions inherently political?

Yes and yes, I agree.
There are many issues here. To begin with, how do we account for the fact that different people have different ideas about what counts as "good"? Should those who think differently than oneself simply be written off as "morally or cognitively defective"?

More or less – I'd put it: 'Prevent or relieve more suffering than you cause'. — 180 Proof

How do you propose to measure this?

And yet there are people who pretty much live like zombies, at least some of their time. Not people in a coma, but people who mindlessly peruse Facebook and such.
— baker
Those people are not physically identical to us, and so aren't relevant to Michael's argument. — wonderer1

What do you mean? That people who mindlessly peruse FB have mush for brains?

Are these sorts of maxims ultimately just variations on, 'Do not cause suffering?' — Tom Storm

Or, to quote you, "Don't be a cunt."

It's just that for Harry, Dick is a cunt, and for Dick, Harry is a cunt, and neither of them think of themselves as cunts. Now what?

To begin with, iIf something is a "commandment", who is the one doing the commanding, to whom, under threat of what penalty?

Do you still want to go with "commandment", or would something like "motto" be better for your purposes?

The OP thought-experiment mentions "commandment" for nonreligious persons. Nothing I've said here has any whiff of "divine command theory". — 180 Proof

Of course it does. Your system of morality is structurally the same as a religious one, except that in your case, it isn't a god sitting at the top. But you operate from the same assumptions of objectivity and universality of morality as religion does.