I plead guilty. — ucarr

Fair enough.

He walks through his many trials and, in the end, gives Hamlet a soliloquy about choosing suicide over and above the terror of the unknown and even worse, the unearned ruin of Job's lengthy suffering. — ucarr

The famous soliloquy (at the play's half way point) isn't necessarily about suicide. Hamlet is a case of analysis paralysis. The boy simply can't get his act together. If anything his ponderousness is also a warning about speculation over action and the risk that comes with making choices. He is more of an early existentialist... and he is also a confused melancholic.

But I prefer Deadwood to Hamlet.

Wagner, who so alienated Nietzsche, composed sublime music the righteous cannot not listen to; Nietzsche, the Übermensch so politically volatile and dangerous, wrote artful narratives of anti-morality no votary cannot not read; Dickens, the despotic unfaithful husband, wrote novels no writer cannot not imitate. These are canonical names glorified within the pantheon of human deeds, yet grounded in blood and flesh mired in sin. — ucarr

This reads like uninspired journalism. It has a bit of a grandiose tone but doesn't really say a lot. In fact, I would argue the points made are moot. Is English your first language? I ask only because the sentences seem archaic in structure and the inflated style - 'the pantheon of human deeds, yet grounded in blood and flesh mired in sin' - reads like early 20th century pamphleteering.

In the end you seem to be making the commonplace observations that good art can be made by flawed people. (Let's not use archaic and imprecise words like 'sinner') And you ask is it ok to appreciate such work. This was an essay quesion I dealt with many years ago in early high school. I believe Picasso was the artist in quesion. Bit of a cliché.

As humanity survives across the march of time, human nature continues to open new chapters of revelation. The artist works to present substantial details of the revelation. The artist walks a mile in the shoes of humanity-observed non-judgmentally. The more substantial the revelation, the more likely conflict between what is revealed and the local culture's commitments to what human behavior should be. This is the conflict and the war. — ucarr

You didn't answer any of my points. Another torrent of rococo and imprecise language. Your claims need some form of demonstration.

How about one at random? You write the following.

The artist works to present substantial details of the revelation. The artist walks a mile in the shoes of humanity-observed non-judgmentally.

Please demonstrate this with examples.

There’s an endless war between art and morality. — ucarr

I don't think so. Culture wars are frequent - certain groups/people will utilize moral arguments against art they don't understand or like. The most infamous of course being the Ziegler's Degenerate Art exhibition in 1937.

Pundits tell us the engine of art is conflict. Well, conflict is rooted in sin, so we know, then, that the engine of art is sin.

From all of this we know that the artist is the town crier who tries to get away with shouting as much carnal truth about the human nature of sin as possible. — ucarr

I think most people will find this anachronistic thinking. Art as sin might fit into some old Christian worldviews. Perhaps you had a fundamentalist childhood?

The job of the moralist i.e., the job of the minister of the gospel, resides in giving instruction to the masses regarding right thinking and proper behavior. Of course, all of this instruction traces back to the modeling of goodness provided by the savior. Herein we see a curious contradiction: our job as proper human individuals is to hew closely to the modeling of the savior, and yet we mustn’t get too close to the ways of the savior lest we become full of ourselves and thereby deify ourselves. — ucarr

More anachronistic Christian derived ideas. I would say this is nonsense unless you are part of a particular subculture. Within Zoroastrian or Hindu traditions, say, we have very differnt frames.

Why don't you simply start with the premise that you are a conservative thinker with some traditional ideas about Christianity which you are projecting upon the world of art within a Western context. That might make more sense.

The local culture where it is practised is such that Islam in that culture allows or encourages it --- but there is no necessary connection. Which seems obviously true. — Jamal

Indeed, but this doesn't seem the same as some Muslim activists saying that it is not a part of Islamic culture. It ends up a bit like a no true Scotsman fallacy.

But then it is hard to identify consistent facts in any religion that are consistent across that religion. Biblical literalism is not found across all Christianity, nor are Trump supporters, nor is belief that Jesus rose from the dead. Just about everything held within a single religion is contested by others within that religion. I struggle to see exactly where the demarcation is between culture and religion, whether it matters and how any distinction can clearly be understood. Who do we blame for what? :wink:

Nicely written. Yep, you're going to get some 'robust' feedback. I'll read it again tonight when I'm free of other entanglements.

And we must remember to distinguish between morality and custom in order to avoid condemning what is contrary to our own customs but not to morality. — Leontiskos

I agree with much of what you have said.

How easy is this in practice? For instance, how women in some cultures are treated might seem a moral issue or just a custom, depending upon one's values.

When you can't figure out how to ground morality objectively, then you just stop at the level of culture, and that's what Rawls did. — Leontiskos

This may be true. But how do we ground morality objectively? There is certainly no agreement on whether this can be done.

'Foundations' such as well-being, human flourishing, rational consistency, divine command, etc - are choices which seem to reflect subjective and cultural assumptions and preferences. Can there be a purely neutral way to choose one grounding over another, without invoking some form of value judgment or preference?

Is it your view that the current Labour party is no longer really a Labour Party (like New Labour before it), just a managerialist, neo-liberal entity which obediently services the status quo?

Female circumcision in Muslim countries - is this an expression of their religion or their culture? Or both? Muslim apologists in the West will frequently argue that this phenomenon is not a part of Islam, but a cultural phenomenon. I wonder how easy it is to separate culture from religion. Is American evangelical Christianity a form of Christianity? Or is it an American cultural phenomenon? Or both - a religion reimagined through a cultural milieu.

Anything else isn't morality at all, it's social control - what society does to keep the skids greased. — T Clark

I'm not talking about a morality as a code of conduct, I'm talking about whether or not right and wrong have any meaning apart from cultural and personal? What do you think of this issue?

If all it is entirely personal, then why would you or I judge others for making bad or wrong discussions or celebrate good actions?

From what I've seen, many philosophers are at least as big assholes as you and I are. — T Clark

:rofl: That's funny.

I don't think I've ever done wrong by accident - because I didn't know it was wrong. It's not that I've never done wrong, but when I did it, I knew it. It isn't that hard to tell. — T Clark

Yes, and I agree. I don't 'use' philosophy when I make decisions. I go by intuition, which no doubt is influenced by culture, upbringing and language.

But here's the thing, we are discussing how moral behaviour works and this concept of 'the good' keeps arising. What is it? I am interested in how doing wrong make sense if there is no foundational basis or transcendent source of the good. Seems to me that what @Joshs wrote earlier is accurate - when a philosopher seeks to situate morality some place, it often seems to end up as:

...the usual reliance on some universalistic grounding of ethical normativity mixed with a sprinkling of cultural situatedness. — Joshs

Determining right from wrong in a particular situation is easy. What is not so simple is recognizing the subtle way our criteria of ethical correctness shift over time. — Joshs

What Joshs says. And my curiosity here is what 'ethical correctness' consists of. It's likely not the same thing as 'the good' given its contingent and shifting nature.

I doubt that you — T Clark

has trouble knowing the difference between right and wrong very often. — T Clark

Whether you or I can make reasonable choices on occasion is not really the point. The point is what lies as foundational for moral behaviour and why. Uncovering this seems to be the role of a philosopher, it's probably beyond the intuitions of a couple of assholes on the internet.

I’ll save you the trouble of reading the other two. It’s the usual reliance on some universalistic grounding of ethical normativity mixed with a sprinkling of cultural situatedness.
Let’s just say I find their universalism to be riddled with parochialism. — Joshs

Seems to me that people are forever banging on about 'the good', as if it were out there to be discovered, or simply a matter of common sense, but actually, it seems slippery, a contingent thing, a piece of construction work. I am happy to be guided by the idea that one should try not to cause suffering and work to prevent it. But this is always tied to a point of view, or a set of values. There is no transcendent source material.

Have a read of Moore's Principia Ethica. Then Philippa Foot. Then Martha Nussbaum. — Banno

Fair enough. Probably won't have time. I did read Nussbaum's Capability Approach. It all seems very middle class (human rights/human dignity). Does she not essentially argue that human flourishing should be the universal goal of all ethical systems? Which doesn't mean it is wrong. But not being a philosopher, I can't tell if this stuff is useful or not. I need others with some deeper reading/interest to talk about it.

How do you identify what is good? Is good situational or intrinsic? Or is good, like truth, a range of potentialities?

While all tragedy/suffering/negative emotion is poignantly unique (and as such has a capacity for emotional and intellectual depths unrivaled by even the deepest of oceans).

Agree or disagree? — Outlander

How could we demonstrate that this is the case?

This is pretty obvious though ... or so I thought. — I like sushi

It seems obvious to me that change can mean going backwards.

Didn't W simply mean that philosophy clarified conceptual issues for philosophical problems in much the same way that therapy is meant to provide insight into life challenges?

This only holds true if you believe that a lack of conceptual clarity is causing you harm. As someone who views truth and reality as either largely out of reach or contingent human constructs, I find that there’s only so much clarification I am interested in. Most of us require neither therapy nor philosophy to be content.

Change is good if you are able to change your mind about something. Understanding that what you once thought was correct is actually not as solid as you first thought is a step towards independence and away from indoctrination. — I like sushi

Not necessarily. You can change your opinion for the worse. It happens a lot. The radicalized terrorist is an obvious example. But also the person who converts from a moderate position to a dogmatic or zealous one, be it religious or political. Or the person who suddenly questions everything they once thought and now follows a narrow doctrine.

In what sense do you mean improve and to what ends? — Jafar

What improvement might look like wasn't in scope in my comment. I was simply making the point that improvement in some way seems to be what 'change yourself' amounts to. My question is the same as yours - what does such an improvement really amount to? How do we tell if 'improvement' is good?

You say that a part of philosophy is to change oneself. Change oneself in the sense of changing our knowledge of certain topics or maybe giving us a new perspective? — Jafar

I know this isn't meant for me, but is there is a kind of bourgeois conceit that education (literature, good music, philosophy) will improve you? It's this notion that lies at the heart of most 'change yourself' or 'understand yourself' rhetoric. If the change wasn't improvement, why would we bother? Certainly not to change ourselves for the worse. The problem is, it seems pretty hard to tell if we have indeed been improved by an idea. Can we trust our feelings on this? All those lost little boys that have found Jordan Peterson consider themselves improved, if not saved. So do most people who are radicalised by some fresh notion they've picked up, whether it is derived through philosophy, religion or politics. How do we tell if philosophy is any good or not?

If we are to go down this "biblical worldview", we are to go down a road whereby suffering for humans is warranted. This is deemed as good, but then this does not bypass the dilemma of two views of suffering.. The subjects of suffering (humans), and the one who wants to see the suffering.

Many times the abused identifies with the abuser- they deserve it. It's their fault. They should have done better.

Many times the abused excuses the abuser- it's their nature. Who are we to disagree. — schopenhauer1

I think you nailed it. Certainly this seems how one of the more prominent theistic fictions would have it.

By human standards (do we know of any others?), the Biblical god is often evil and seems to be compelled to do evil. Why else would he drown all men, women and children with a great flood - just one example? His omnipotence gave him the power to end all life painlessly, but he decided to opt for cruelty and drown them all, babies included. We really only know this god is good because he tells us he is. But isn't that what an abusive parent/spouse says? 'I'm doing this, because I love you.'

Of course many who defend such a malevolent deity will argue that humans don't have the capacity to judge god and that he has his own special wisdom or celestial discernment, which humans couldn't possibly understand. It's that kind of thinking, I suspect, which leads to mass murdering children because god says it's ok.

And before anyone says it is only crass atheists who argue like this, I have met more than my share of Christians who consider Yahweh to be a cosmic berserker and scourge. My favourite (now dead) Episcopal bishop, formerly of Newark, John Shelby Spong, viewed the Bible as a collection of frequently awful stories which should be ignored:

The Bible says that women are property, that homosexuals ought to be put to death, that anybody who worships a false God ought to be executed, that a child that talks back to his parents ought to be stoned at the gates of the city. Those ideas are absurd.

JS Spong

I've seen this argument. I find it very persuasive. But I don't think that a "pro-lifer" would. — Ludwig V

Fair point. A 'pro-lifer' is a member of a tribe, no matter how persuasive an argument might be, the matter is settled for them.

:up: Very interesting.

There's also the boldly autonomy argument to defend pro-choice.

In this it doesn't matter when a fetus 'becomes human' what matters is the bodily autonomy of the mother. In other words, no person is morally obligated to use their body to sustain another life against their will, even if that life is dependent on them. Just as one cannot be forced to donate organs to save another person, a woman cannot be compelled to use her body to support a fetus.

.

Otherwise, please highlight where these words: abortion, slavery, women's rights etc appeared in the OP. I'll be waiting. — Benj96

Of course you didn't. You seem determined to not understand the point.

I am saying that truth may be deliberately and carefully rejected by people because it is assessed as appalling.

One such account of 'truth' allegedly from god is The Bible with its evil stories and directives (slavery, genocide, etc).

This goes to my point about an Option 4 - that people may reject truth in full knowledge of what they are rejecting. You don't seem to understand this point and keep banging on about ignorance.

But this point would work just as well with The Koran or any other holy book full of despicable information, generally held to be truth directly from god.

You cannot assume that a god represents goodness. The so called truth may well be despicable. Which is how many view the alleged truth contained in the Koran or the Bible.

I think the best we can do is be aware of them. Even when we examine our beliefs, we cannot do so by stepping outside of them. Philosophical dialogue can help, but we often tend to defend our beliefs because they are our own rather then test them to allow them to stand or fall based on the strength of the argument. Easier said than done. — Fooloso4

Thank you. Nice to read I'm not the only one with this view.

On the whole, though, it seems that others' are more inclined to pick apart my beliefs than I am, so the idea of an individual overcoming their biases isn't even necessary because the individual doesn't do that alone. — Moliere

Agree, but it only works if you have access to others with whom you are in dialogue. I suspect most people's beliefs go unchallenged, probably because we tend to stay in our tribes.

What in particular do you find unassailable in introspection? — Jafar

I didn't find anything unassailable.

I said this -

I question the extent to which we are capable of examining our own beliefs - our cognitive biases and our unconscious processes might well be unassailable. — Tom Storm

I wonder if we can get past these factors? I'm framing it as a question, not as a claim.

You’re doing great so far, by the way.

The Emerson doesn’t do it for me, I’m afraid. Too cryptic. Many of the people I have known who championed introspection have been breathtakingly arrogant and appear to lack self-knowledge. (I don’t think you’re one of those.)

I question the extent to which we are capable of examining our own beliefs - our cognitive biases and our unconscious processes might well be unassailable. I do think that people can change, but this process may well be separate from whatever introspection they might imagine they are pursuing.

Happy to change my mind on this, if I hear a good argument.

You make me laugh.

You mean the God of the Old Testament? — Janus

Sure, that one is clearly a prick. But we can imagine any god being a nasty piece of work. It does not follow that if there is a god and that god holds the truth that this truth is ipso facto beneficial. This is only the case if you play the definitional game wherein you decide that god is identical with goodness. Which invariably makes anything god does good because he did it. Whether he's drowning all the men, women and children on the planet, or allowing AIDS to tear through the gay community.

I don't believe morality is either complex or dependent on religion. At least when it comes to the most significant moral issues. Those regarding theft, assault, rape, murder, child abuse and so on. Morality grows out of pragmatic social necessity. — Janus

Indeed. And as a social species, where strength comes through community, it would be difficult for us to survive without codes of conduct like this.

I would imagine the truth would be horrible for those that can't stand it. I imagine they would be the intolerant pissants in this case. — Benj96

That's' a very limited account. What if god is a mafia thug like Yahweh? He is evil. The truth may be horrible because it is horrible and we are correct not to stand for it. We can definitively visualize a version of reality where if there is a god that god is nefarious.

Well,

Matters like abortion, women's rights etc are all important and need due discussion but have little to do with the core of what was set out in the OP. — Benj96

You are trying to limit your accoutn so that the flaws dontl show. You have mentioned 'the truth'. The question remains what is the nature of this truth? If it advocates for slavery and genocide and violates the rights of minorities and women, then this truth is problematic and quite possibly evil.

The context is everything in this thought experiment. As they say, the devil is in the detail. :wink:

I will be clear: when you think in absolute nothing, what comes to your mind? Everything white? A sparkle? A very deep, dark, and cold ambient? — javi2541997

You are imagining something. Nothing is the absence of any qualities or attributes. It can't be imagined because by that very act you are imagining something.

Do we have any evidence that there was ever such a thing as nothing? As far as human experince is concerned the term 'nothing' is incoherent unless it is attached to a sentence like 'nothing up my sleeve' :wink:

That a simplistic picture in my view. If the person was merely saying "we should be good to one another" then that would be hard to argue with. But its not as simple as that when it comes to religion. — Janus

Indeed - there's still those matters of foreskin, the rights of women, abortion, etc, etc. How do we rule out a god (if one exists) who is also an intolerant pissant? What if the truth is horrible?

Good points.

But if the case is that you're ignorant, your "certainties" are falsely placed correct? Someone who opts for choice 2 (ignorance) can still exert what they "think" is true and ethical. That doesn't mean their actions are well rationalised. Intentions are not enough alone. — Benj96

No, as I see it. You have this scenario -

Consider someone declares they are God and that this statement is the absolute/fundamental truth or "the word". They then offer you a trinary choice: — Benj96

People may decide that this god is a prick and that the truth they are peddling is bad for humanity. I may do this in full understanding of the content of that truth.

For instance: let's pretend that the Bible is true. There are plenty of folk who consider the Bible to be full of evil advice (it's pro slavery, misogynist, homophobic, sanctions genocide, etc). People may chose to oppose this truth in full knowledge of its content. Many people would consider Yahweh (as described) to be a Mafia boss style tyrant.

You seem to make an assumption that truth - even if understood - is always welcome. They know exactly what is going on and what this God stands for but consider this god objectionable.

So option four remains on the table. The active opposition.

But a theist, creating such a thought experiment will already have made the assumption that only ignorance would oppose any truth presented by a god. I would maintain that this can't be demonstrated and is likely to be wrong.

]The options you have presented seem limited and skewed i.e., they don’t seem plausible,

I do not see how ignorance and knowledge are the same.

Well ought you be the sole/exclusive decider of whether the truth has bad consequences for society? Surely that's highly autocratic. As any democracy is based on many people being allowed — Benj96

If you are certain it is harmful you may think this is vital work. But in this scenario have you ruled out others also taking a position against the content of the word?

Ignore the word - in this case you remain ignorant and at the whim of manipulation/mis-direction/ the agenda of others. Disempowered, confused and vulnerable to being misled. — Benj96

In addition to my other comments, this to me does not follow. How would you demonstrate that ignoring the word leads to any particular outcome? Why wouldn't it lead to happiness and satisfaction? Hence ignorance is bliss?

Might it not also be the case that knowing and accepting the word could lead to being misled and misdirected by others? We know this is how religion works all over the world. What version of truth are you describing where there is no possibility for it to be misused by bad faith actors?

It is. And by trying to keep the truth to yourself alone whilst another actively shares it (the originator) then by default you're opposed to them spreading it as throught their action it is less ajd less in your sole posession. — Benj96

No - to me there is a fourth option - to deny it from a position of knowledge and to actively work to take it down because you beleive the truth to have bad consequences for humanity.

or object it (deny it despite knowledge of it) — Benj96

I thought your third one was keep it to yourself?