Simple. Postmodernism is most guises presents us with the notion that all values are perspectival - just like big N.

Yet I feel, despite the trials & tribulations I'm going through, the question "what lies beyond ethics?" is worth asking. — Agent Smith

Of course. Beyond good and evil is the post-modern project in a nutshell. But is there anything to any subject beyond our use of language and abstract ideas? The Platonists seem to think so. The modern secular world is of course largely of the view (if they consider it at all) that all we have are human values held by intersubjective communities who share meaning. I have no idea if there is anything more than this and am generally guided by the Golden Rule or Rabbi Hillel's 'silver' variation thereof.

Well, that the pen writes well, is easy on the hand, is durable, and so on. Could we transpose the form of the good onto a human being? — Agent Smith

In that use of 'good' perhaps only if people are to be viewed as tools. For instance, when assessed by a military dictator, a person might be rated as 'good' if, like the pen, they are good at a particular function - efficient killing perhaps in this instance. But from a moral perspective, they might be seen as far from good, for the same reason. The Good is different from good at something. The Geek sense of The Good is Platonism - a transcendent value that some human behavior might be described as an instantiation of, e.g., self-sacrifice for the sake of a vulnerable community.

What makes 'The Good Life' good?
Felicity Kendal. — Banno

I think so. Penelope Keith didn't float my Aristotelian boat.

One aspect of self projection which is also worth discussing with you is the professional role personas put on, especially as mental health professionals. — Jack Cummins

As you suggest, most people put on a professional face at work. That's probably going to be the case whether you are a psychiatrist or a real estate agent. Most roles requite some role paying - especially in hospitality jobs. In medical and mental health services, as you say, you are likely to project a more bounded and attentive persona than if you're working in refrigeration. The tasks are different.

I think the question of 'authenticity' is an interesting aspect of this discussion. Do we pin this preoccupation on middle class existentialism, pop-psychology and hipsters? Authenticity seems to preoccupy a certain demographic, not just psychologically but aesthetically. Good book on this by Andrew Potter.

“The object of their desire, the “essential” core of life, is something called authenticity, and finding the authentic has become the foremost spiritual quest of our time. It is a quest fraught with difficulty, as it takes place at the intersection of some of our culture’s most controversial issues, including environmentalism and the market economy, personal identity and the consumer culture, and artistic expression and the meaning of life.”
― Andrew Potter, The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding Ourselves

I believe philosophy's central project has always been to optimize agency by helping one to unlearn self-immiserating habits through various daily reflective practices (e.g. pythagorean, epicurean, stoic, pyrrhonian, cynical, neoplatonic, peripatetic ... pragmaticist, absurdist, etc). — 180 Proof

I think this is a very helpful way to frame the subject. Nice.

:100:

Profit over People - Neoliberalism and Global Order 1999 It's up there with Manufacturing Consent.

I think politics is more specifically the interest of one social group's attempt to manipulate another specific social group or itselves undesired properties into another more desirable trait. — Vishagan

Decades of neoliberalism have poisoned minds into thinking individualism is the only truth. We all live on one world and we share it, so it seems clear that cooperation, partnership, solidarity and empathy is a better way to a fairer and sustainable future.

“Neoliberal democracy. Instead of citizens, it produces consumers. Instead of communities, it produces shopping malls. The net result is an atomized society of disengaged individuals who feel demoralized and socially powerless. In sum, neoliberalism is the immediate and foremost enemy of genuine participatory democracy, not just in the United States but across the planet, and will be for the foreseeable future.”

- Noam Chomsky

It really helps if you believe in god already to make the most of any fine tuning argument.

But a big problem with the argument is that even if you accept that it leads to the idea of a designer - it doesn't prove any particular god. It could also be said to support simulation theory or a committee of designer gods, or even alien designers.

The problem with the argument itself is summarized by physicist Sean Carroll - 'We don’t really know that the universe is tuned specifically for life, since we don’t know the conditions under which life is possible."

So, why would God bother to create an intricately fine-tuned universe for the sake of souls who don’t need one? — Art48

I understand this ingenious argument but don't think it is especially effective since we are not in a position to know why a god would do anything, let alone would create a material world. Just because it seems wrong based on our priorities and understanding of souls does not mean it is. The best I can say for that argument is that we have a question to ask God when we see them. For all we know, God may have determined that the best way of testing the goodness of a soul is to insert it into a life world limited by time, material constraints and tested by physical desires. Or whatever...

ll try, but I admit I am running out of ways to explain myself.
I've numbered the propositions below so it is easier to refer to them.

1. x cannot be used to support x. This is circular reasoning.
2. The scientific method is, simply put, verification by empirical evidence.
3. All success stories resulting from the scientific method are types of empirical evidence.
4. Therefore, these success stories cannot be used to support the scientific method.

To be extra clear: The scientific method is a correct method. It is not inherently circular. What is circular is to attempt to defend the scientific method by appealing to the scientific method. To use an analogy: The laws of logic are true. But we cannot use logic to support the laws of logic. — A Christian Philosophy

I think you've explained it pretty well. Alvin Plantinga would be proud of you. You've famed a formation argument for reformed epistemology in an accessible way. Are you a presuppositionalist?

Ha! He's certainly a sacred cow. I like him best as a de-contextualized purveyor of intermittently amusing zingers.

I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.

Agree totally but that says more about me than Him, I'm afraid.

That's says more about you than it does about Nietzsche, I'm afraid. — Tate

I agree and it was cheap shot.

Nietzsche is himself something to overcome. — Tate

Or overlook. What I've read reads like the work of a very smart incel.

I don't think it is possible to not be yourself.

When we say someone is looking for their 'true self' there seems to be an underlying assumption that the true self is a more integrated and honest account of their identity, which would (presumably) result in a more genuine relationship with the world and with others. On reflection, I think all selves are true selves, it's just that some manifestations of one's identity and will are better suited to certain tasks than others. Even if you are projecting a self you think the world wants, it is still you making the choice to project and you that is contriving a self from your own psychic resources.

My point would be that even in the face of a widely unpopular and unjustified war, many families still sent their sons to war primarily because of this flawed calculation of suffering and value - and it isn't an accident that evangelical conservatives broadly supported the Iraq war, despite the evidence - their entire doctrine is based around this flawed notion of suffering and value. They are the easiest to sway with an argument of sacrifice. — 64bithuman

My take is different, as I have already expressed. I would argue that suffering did not play the central role in evangelical enthusiasms, they were largely swayed by notions of righteousness, holy war and American nationalism. I agree that sacrifice can be used in public discourse but disagree about the extent to which it is used and involved in people's value systems. We're probably going to go in circles now, so I'm going to move on. Nice talking to you.

The christian claims: e.g. that God exists; that Christ is God; that man has a soul; that good and evil are objective; etc. — A Christian Philosophy

Not always. I've met many Christians who do not think Christ was identical to God. Some do not believe the Gospels to be accurate accounts. But more importantly, you've left things vague. Christian beliefs are all over the shop. Some think 'fags should die by fire'; others embrace the rainbow flag. Some condemn gay marriage; some support it. Some think capital punishment is anathema; other support it. Some think women should be priests; some advocate misogyny. Some think it's god's blessing to be rich; others believe money should be given away. Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the head of the KKK both identify as Christian and accept that good and evil are objective. Christianity means little until the specific beliefs are described

Does anyone use such language these days outside of archaic religiosity or fanatical devotion to a cause?

People talk about pursuing meaningful activities from which they derive satisfaction. Car collecting, helping at a charity, employment, parenting, study. I think this is normal. Some people might call this having a purpose.

Ok. Sure, I think then the argument about 'greater good' is the issue here primarily.

I think the WMD argument was unconvincing to most people as millions of protests around the world would attest. They did it anyway, using a range of arguments.

A grieving Mother seeking value in her son's sacrifice would be reassured to know that the sacrifice did have a bigger value. — 64bithuman

Which may well be true depending upon who you are and which war. Maybe not Iraq, but maybe yes Ukraine. But again, I don't think this is necessarily the suffering argument. This is the 'is war ever just' argument.

In essence, it was easier to just explain to everybody that they died for the greater good — 64bithuman

I hear you but I am not sure this kind of argument is all that convincing to people (not since Vietnam anyway)

Anyway, food for thought. I'll mull it over some more.

If you accept those axioms, then we get to the discussion I was hoping to have, which is that our relationship with value and suffering is dangerously flawed and can be taken advantage of, particularly when we begin to make the false assumption that suffering always entails value and fail to recognize that sometimes suffering is just suffering, full stop. This may seem obvious, but I would argue that it isn't and that we are extremely prone to falling for this false correlation. — 64bithuman

I think you've done a better job in articulating your ideas.

Not sure I can see this as much of a risk. I don't see a significant relationship with suffering playing out in such a dynamic away. You mention Hitler - I think this is a simplification of what he was offering, based on the books I have read on his rise to power. And that was 80 years ago. Churchill, in the fight against Nazism, actually made this argument in a much more direct way - 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat..' and he was probably right. Many would say justified.

That said, can you provide 2 examples from now where the pubic have specifically been swayed by this - apart from a generalized cultural version of the Protestant work ethic which you have already alluded to?

But honesty, as Billy Joel once said, is such a lonely word. — 64bithuman

I prefer Joel to Derrida, but really of the Jewish philosophers, I prefer Marx (that's Groucho not Karl):

“While money can't buy happiness, it certainly lets you choose your own form of misery.”

Hmmm, I think perhaps you're focusing on a narrow and abstracted band of suffering, not suffering per say. Perhaps this OP is more about you wanting suffering to be a kind of Rosetta Stone of human behavior. Just a thought.

I would argue that the drive of consumer capitalism is not strictly to eliminate suffering, but rather to rise to opulence, — 64bithuman

I partly agree, but opulence is also about ostentatious comfort and this symbolizes the 'buying off' of suffering and enhanced access to pleasure - both aesthetic and embodied. A key point of opulence is that the wealthy do not need to suffer. The poor suffer. Having an opulent home is advertising to others that you don't have to deal with the same substandard tribulations as other mere morals.

Also as a sidebar to a sidebar, I don't think that technology has been developed predominantly to pamper the human body - what about missiles, medicine, etc. — 64bithuman

I meant 'consumer capitalism' expressed via technology. But note also that some military technology was also about minimizing the suffering of a nation's soldiers and preventing events like WW1's Western Front from happening again.

. I do not agree that modern Western culture is all about the avoidance of suffering. — 64bithuman

Fine to hold that view, but all of consumer capitalism goes against it. Most of consumerism - our current religion - is predicated on comfort and making life easier. We have heating, air conditioning, lighting, cars, so we never have to walk, products to keep us fit so we don't need to labor, elevators to avoid stairs, we have home delivery so we don't have to go out, dishwashers so we don't need to wash up, washing machines, dryers, massage in shopping malls...

You know where this is going. The entire history of technology is built around comfort and avoiding suffering and making life easier and pampering the human body. It's kind of our thing.

So I would say for your argument to hold, you need to refine it. Perhaps: human life in the West is torn between two cultures of suffering and hedonism. Many people belong to one camp and some drift in and out of both. In general I'd say suffering has a less prominent focus and is more likely to be a lens directed at some phenomena and not others.

Since they don't have spiritual or religious believes, thinking about it leads to emptiness, so they simply avoid it and focus on the moment. — Skalidris

That's only one interpretation, perhaps yours. They may avoid the topic because they know nothing meaningful can be said about such metaphysics.

I'm just wondering if we could deal with the fact that there is nothing, and be happy about it). — Skalidris

Sounds like you may have come from a religious upbringing or culture that privileges afterlife stories. I sometimes work in palliative care and I can tell you from experience that people who are dying and hold religious beliefs and beliefs in god are as likely to be frightened at the thought of dying as anyone and are often very angry, miserable and empty before death. It seems god/s don't necessarily provide consolation.

How you feel about death will depend upon more than mere religions. I expect death to be just like it was for me two hundred, two thousand years ago. In other words, nothing. To me that sounds perfectly fine. Nothingness is not to be feared or lamented. Am I happy about it? Happiness is such a puerile term. A warthog can be happy. Put it this way - thinking of death as cessation of all things does not rob me of any joy, but probably makes me appreciate the time I have a little more.

Some atheists consider death to be an aphrodisiac for living - an intensification of pleasure in the knowledge that we only have this one life so best we make use of it. Conversely, people with spiritual beliefs may minimize their experience of an earthy life and fail to use it well because they think it is but a temporary stop before immortality when the real fun begins.

Not all suffering is equivalent.

Christianity is a key to this one.

t is also true that often the poor suffer tremendously and work very hard only to die destitute. — 64bithuman

Of course - capitalism relies upon a series of stories to stay afloat. One is that if you work hard you will make it. Obviously bullshit, but I guess it has traction because most people appreciate the notion of 'no pain no gain.' And we know that hard work (saving, studying, training) can pay off.

Christianity relies upon a similar story - suffering will be rewarded in the next life.

This is kind of what I'm trying to talk about, our expectation that suffering inherently holds meaning — 64bithuman

I don't think it does much today - modern Western culture is all about the avoidance of suffering in every possible way. However in many Christian cultures, suffering held central importance for centuries. Remember suffering came to a perfect world because god gave humans free will. We messed up creation and pay the price through our daily travails - child birth, labour, etc. Jesus, of course, sanctified suffering - his burden was to suffer greatly to redeem human beings. Suffering became central to the West's most enduring myth about transcendence.

Romans 5:3-4
More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,

Philippians 1:29
For it has been granted to you that for the sake of Christ you should not only believe in him but also suffer for his sake,

1 Peter 4:1
Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin,

Philosophy is the search for truth; thus if Christianity is in fact true, then philosophy will find Christianity. And if Christianity is not true, then philosophy will find that too. — A Christian Philosophy

Not sure that philosophy is the search for 'truth' as such. Philosophy is divided on approaches to truth and some schools deny truth in any transcendent sense. Some philosopher's would already say that Christianity has been found inadequate: case closed. I am assuming you would disagree with them because you are Christian in some way? I am also assuming that to many believers truth isn't ultimately important because there is faith and emotion at work.

What would it mean to say Christianity is true? Is this a philosophical question or a historical/scientific one? Which version of Christianity would you want tested in this way?

Getting back to Trump, isn’t his genius that he doesn’t even make an effort to fill in the blanks of his sophist arguments. He just puts the idea that needs justification out into the public sphere and demands folk find the justification. — apokrisis

Agree. He's like an empty vessel that has been filled with the hemorrhaging resentments and dissatisfactions of American cultural life.

(This is of course a caricature. When actual PoMo texts aspire to rational discourse, the standard socialised mistake they make is to discover the dialectic at the centre of every metaphysical debate and huff, well if two opposites can both be true, then nothing can actually be considered the stable truth. — apokrisis

:fire:

we can presumably move on to the complete liberation of primal screaming. :up: — apokrisis

Isn't that how we ended up with Trump?

I have a couple of translations and I can't get through this book. I don't know that I would call it 'unreadable' as the critic Harold Bloom did, but I did find the work's grandiose parodic style tedious and unappealing. I think I got about 1/4 of the way through. I'd be interested to read other people's reactions to it and find out why they like it.

Fair enough. You're right, I do tend to privilege empiricism and don't generally see any merit in speculations which cannot even (as far as I can tell) be assessed. The world of appearances holds the only map of reality humans can access, although it can be fun to read people like Don Hoffman and Bernado Kastrup on the illusions of materialism. Enlightenment? I have no sense of this term or whether it refers to anything except perhaps a primordial, Jungian-style archetype for a type of wisdom which I am not convinced exists.

Why wouldn't you want to use simulation theory as a tool to refine your understanding of reality and epistemology? — Yohan

Because, as I said, there is no way of knowing if simulation theory is useful for understanding anything. How do you propose demonstrating that simulation theory (or idealism, which is what it amounts to) is a true account of reality? Answer: you can't.

And even if someone could somehow prove that idealism is true, it would not change how I behave (as far as I can tell). The world we appear to share may just be appearances, but really we have no choice but to accept it as provisionally real.

This is a meaty philosophy topic. One of greats. — Yohan

Agree. But I have no confidence humans can make any progress on the matter of what is 'real' or indeed what 'real' is meant to refer to.

Its simple. I have yet to find any solid foundation on which life as we know it is grounded upon, therefor I remain open to the possibility that no such foundation exists. — Yohan

Sure. Me too. But I'm not investing energy plunging down those capacious rabbit holes of possibility.

It is the biggest show on earth, and maybe the cosmos. So there's a rather obvious project. Organise your life so as not to miss any part of this ultimate story. — apokrisis

That's a genuinely interesting response. 'Ultimate story' sounds suspiciously like a grand narrative. But I have to say none of that matters to me. I am much more interested in making a cup of tea and sitting in the winter sun, listening to music.

I meant the opposite. It is the compounding of the confusion dressed up as continental cleverness. — apokrisis

Fair point. Sorry, don't know why but I thought you were a PoMo spear carrier.

Are we gonna spend our lives trying to get satisfaction and meaning out something that might not even be real? — Yohan

You need to provide a compelling reason why you would take this seriously first. 'Perhaps' isn't enough. The world is full of 'perhaps' none or many of which we don't engage with. Have you ruled out Scientology or Catholicism? The simulation model to me seems just an updated tech-inspired form of idealism of which there are many models and possibilities.

I'm not big on attachment theory but I appreciate the dominant nature of this narrative in theories of trauma. Judith Herman has a lot to answer for.

a fragmentary or fragile self that it becomes unstable. — Jack Cummins

'Fragmented' people in a post-traumatic sense don't necessarily benefit from a more stable self - they tend to respond to clear boundaries set by others and some skills development in emotional regulation DBT, etc. But of course, only a small percentage of this seems to work. We're heading down the murky road of psychology and therapeutic interventions.

The search for a 'true self' as you put it is generally a search for a better way of coping. But how do you identify 'better' if it is one's inadequate or 'lesser' self selecting the frame of reference?

Or do you think someone in her position should not drink at all? — Fooloso4

The assumption by many seems to be 'politics is sober and serious, please don't have a life too.'

A pretty pessimistic conclusion where the only alternative is to be ... a poet and philosopher. — apokrisis

Or not give a shit - this is always an option, surely? The situation is hopeless, we must take the next step (Casals), We are free to forge our own (perhaps limited) values and narratives in as much as this is possible (notwithstanding some inherited frameworks & untheorized howlers).

Roll on the PoMo revolution. — apokrisis

Can you, in simple dot points, articulate why such a revolution (do you mean transformation?) will help?

I agree with what difference does it make.

A movie metaphor is one thing, but are we really going to spend our lives trying to break away from a simulation that 1) hasn't been demonstrated to be the case and 2) if true, may well be inescapable. Do we want to dedicate our lives to such a sci-fi conspiracy theory? It's no different really to dedicating one's life to a religious pathway, in the hope of reaching paradise.

I am asking the question of what it means to find the "true" self. It is a fairly complex question because it involves the social and existential sense of selfhood? How important is the idea of a 'true' self? To what extent is the self bound up with relationships with others, or as being, alone, in relation to the wider cosmos, and making sense of this? — Jack Cummins

I don't think there is a true self. But people do live lives based on what they think others or 'society' or belief systems expect from them. Often it is a projection, a ghost driven narrative. "I should be more like..." everyone knows variations of this. The stories people tell themselves about themselves are critical and I have lost count of how many ostensibly successful people I have met who are filled with self-loathing and insecurities about their identify and who make a great effort to project a compensatory confidence. I generally hold that it is best not to be driven by expectations and not judge yourself against others or against impossible standards. How this looks depends on what you are a slave to and especially upon how much insight you have.

C) being a member of the Republican party — Real Gone Cat

or Trumpian.

I don't like your proof because it proves me wrong, and I simply reject it possibly with some baseless argument or foolish comment. — SpaceDweller

Generally this would depend upon the fallacy people are using to reject it. The generic terms for this is fallacious thinking or non sequitur. Mostly I encounter people who use appeals to ignorance, arguments form incredulity or tu quoque fallacies.

As to whether I'd rather hire a prior drug user to deal with drug policy — Hanover

Of course. Maybe off topic, but if you are dealing with providing services to people with problematic substance use - people who need support - policy matters little. It's all about how to connect and engage people in new ways of living without using. That can benefit from working with people who have 'been there' too. I've seen it work powerfully in practice, but it is not the only way. If it's policy and research you want, that's all about the nerds - who can take your data and skew it nicely to demonstrate that your hypothesis is correct, regardless of what the case may really be. :razz: