The Christian in you dies hard, eh?

Actually that ref to the Bell Curve was from a blog post I wrote some time back. It was a response to Sigmund Freud's well-known quip that 'the aim of psychoanalysis is to convert hysterical misery into ordinary unhappiness'. What, I thought, of ecstacy, religious or artistic, or even that which seizes scientists when the curtains are parted and they glimpse some fundamental truth? (Like Planck did when he discovered Planck's Constant).

But it's not elitist. It ended with:

For those that have seen beyond it, normality is simply a set of shared conventions and beliefs, a familiar milieu within which we can all pursue our limited aims. And nothing wrong with it, as far as it goes. Normality beats schizophrenia and alienation any day. We do not want to fall short of normality.

But normality can also be surpassed. As far as the self-realised are concerned, our 'normality' is very similar to what us 'normal' people understand as the reality of psychopaths and schizophrenics. However, self-realised individuals are generally compassionate and kind, and they generally won't cast aspersions on normal people or look down on us in any way. Rather, they will, as they have throughout history, gently, persistently, unfailingly, ceaselessly, remind us 'Normal People' that many of the things we take for granted, are empty, unreal, phantasmagorical. They will attempt to help us, in exactly the same way that we attempt to help those among us who need guidance.

And so we all move along, through the bell curve of normality.

:wink:

Probably.

But perhaps it's easier for the bungled and botched to 'surpass normality'.

The Christian in you dies hard, eh? — Wayfarer

That made me laugh out loud.

After Buddha was dead, his shadow was still shown for centuries in a cave - a tremendous, gruesome shadow. God is dead; but given the way of men, there may still be caves for thousands of years in which his shadow will be shown. -And we- we still have to vanquish his shadow, too.
Nietzsche: The Gay Science

The unfortunate fact is that it’s complete bollocks. There was no such myth about the Buddha, who Nietzsche grossly misinterpreted. (This is the subject of a book The Cult of Nothingness, Roger Pol-Droit, which looks at the way that 19th c European philosophers seized on the teaching of śūnyatā as nihilism, which it isn’t.)

perhaps it's easier for the bungled and botched to 'surpass normality'. — Banno

The problem for secular western culture is that it’s kept the equality of individuals, but ditched the moral framework, the covenant, within which it was meaningful. The alternative isn’t Neitszche’s ‘Uber-mensch’ but a return to philosophical spirituality.

Hey, I don't care much for Nietzsche, I think of him as a didactic humorist with a mean line in oxymora. I think he got Christianity wrong too.

The alternative isn’t Neitszche’s ‘Uber-mensch’ but a return to philosophical spirituality. — Wayfarer

Nice words. The devil is in the detail, the myth that will accompany the spirituality, the lie-to-children.

See the Phaedo thread. @Fooloso4 perhaps has something along these lines in mind in his account there.

It seems to me that the Ubermensch is in the ascendence.

The alternative isn’t Neitszche’s ‘Uber-mensch’ but a return to philosophical spirituality.
— Wayfarer

Nice words. The devil is in the detail, the myth that will accompany the spirituality, the lie-to-children.

See the Phaedo thread. Fooloso4 perhaps has something along these lines in mind in his account there.

It seems to me that the Ubermensch is in the ascendence. — Banno

A proper understanding of the ubermensch is that it is a return to philosophical spirituality. Only it is not Christian spirituality or any transcendent spirituality. It is Dionysian. A spirituality of the body and the earth.

For Nietzsche it is not the lie to children, but rather the child who has not yet been lied to:

The child is innocence and forgetting, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a sacred Yes.” (Zarathustra, Three Metamorphoses of the Spirit).

What is necessary is that the deadly truth be hidden. But in truth it is too late. Thus the spirits need to forget and create a new beginning.

It seems to me that the Ubermensch is in the ascendence. — Banno

I thought they lost in 1944.

They're back...

We need the input of an actual proponent of moral realism here. The only one I can think of is .

I guess "moral facts" are a third main category of facts that otherwise tend to be divided into the main camps of empirical and logical and which tend to have robust methods of defining truth values and conditions. Anyway. I have always found moral realism odd and unproductive. It might be true, who can tell, but it is definitely unhelpful. If there are moral facts, they seem rather shadowy and elusive, slippery things - there is little or no clarity and lots of seemingly arbitrary characteristics.

So, perhaps it is similar to the case when we state, “Onions taste awful,” that the syntax is configured in such a way to be making a general statement when in actuality, we are making a particular subjective statement.
— Cartesian trigger-puppets
/.../
But I do think that as our language evolved it was heavily influenced by the absolute and objective sense of moral values (and to a lesser extent an egoistic sense of aesthetic values) imposed by religious authority and thus retains a theocentric syntactic structure of the vast majority of time that our language's has undergone it's development. It is reflective of a time when divine command was the objective truth and fact of moral value. — Cartesian trigger-puppets

There is also the issue of cognitive economy and other issues of practical economy.
In the light of this, a list of commandments like the biblical ten commandments is actually to be read as a bullet point list where each point is intended for further elaboration and where contextual knowledge determines what the proper elaboration is.
Much like a shopping list: when you make for yourself a shopping list, you write just "bread" and not the specific type of bread you intend to buy, even though only a few types of bread are acceptable for you. Someone else who is not familiar with your bread preferences doesn't know this and couldn't adequately shop for you merely from reading your shopping list.

We can surmise from the Old Testament which provides the context for the ten commandments that the ten commandments, even though they are composed in an absolute form, are not to be taken that way. For example, in the OT, there are many God given laws as to who is supposed to be killed, even though a commandment states that one should not kill. So the OT's stance is not "killing is wrong", but, at most, "killing otherwise than stated in laws given by God is wrong."

(Leaving aside for the moment that chiseling all those additional words onto stone plates is rather laborious and would require them to be much bigger and heavier than they are (which is an issue when you travel by foot or donkey).)

Somewhere along the way, by omitting references to the divine source of morality, some people ended up with a simplistic notion of moral commandments that is impossible to live by without such adherence becoming detrimental to one's survival and wellbeing.

It's highly useful. The issue is how do we identify moral behaviour in doctors (or anyone)? We only have one way: their actions. The fact that you may not see them at work is irrelevant to the point. The point is ethical behaviour is demonstrated you can't discover it by what someone says publicly or writes about it. In the case of doctors and mental health professionals - given that they work openly with patients every day - it is actually very easy to see what kind of person they are. — Tom Storm

Except that the relevance of this observation depends on one's position in the hierarchy. A patient's perception of their therapist's behavior is irrelevant, because the patient has no actual power in the situation. Similar to the way a student's perception of their teacher's behavior is irrelevant, or the employee's of their employer.

Yet only psychologists/psychiatrists have the legal right to interfere with the lives of others. There's a clear power imbalance.
— baker
This is factually wrong.

Now who's pessimistic?
The pair being discussed was philosophers vs. psychologists/psychiatrists.


Which gets me to my point: In practice, what gets to count as moral has a lot to do with one's position in the hierarchy.
If a child lies to her parents, that is morally wrong. If parents lie to their child, it's generally not. If the child lies to a stranger in a white unmarked van offering her sweets and a ride, it's not wrong.
Taking eggs from a hen is not stealing. Using the company's car for your own private things is.
And so on.

Philosophy is self-serving nonsense - as Witti showed. It is easy to mythologise the philosopher king, to suppose that the philosopher has something worthwhile to add to the discussion. Mostly this is a mistake. — Banno

Philosophy as one massive argumentum ad absurdum?

Philosophy as elitism.
— Banno
yells the mob. — Wayfarer

Only the elite have the time for philosophy.

Only the elite have the time for philosophy. — baker

Who are the élite?

And such principles are validated against ethical systems, not against predictive empirical hypotheses. — Wayfarer

And how does one verify or falsify an ethical system? Is there a way to show that utilitarianism is false or that the categorical imperative is true?

Presumably you understand the difference between a lie and a truth...? — Banno

Yes, in such cases where I understand what would verify or falsify the claim. I know what it means for "the cat is on the mat" to be true as I know what to look for to verify the claim. I know what it means for "2 + 2 = 5" to be false as I know how to count to falsify the claim. But something like "I ought not kill"? I don't know what it would mean for the claim to be true or false.

And how does one verify or falsify an ethical system? Is there a way to show that utilitarianism is false or that the categorical imperative is true? — Michael

Only in the laboratory of life - but who will be the judge? There's the rub.

Who are the élite? — Tom Storm

If you have to ask, you're not part of it.

Only in the laboratory of life - but who will be the judge? There's the rub. — Wayfarer

This doesn't explain anything!

I’ve done plenty of explaining, that was a remark.

BTW just discovered a rather fascinating blog which I’m sure will be of interest to many here

https://voegelinview.com/

If you have to ask, you're not part of it. — baker

You must be if you have time for philosophy on this site.

Only in the laboratory of life - but who will be the judge? — Wayfarer

And how does the "laboratory of life" show an ethical system to be true or false? What is the criteria by which we measure the truth of an ethical system? It's not a question of who will be the judge but a question of how it is to be judged.

A claim such as "2 + 2 = 5" can be shown to be false by counting; a claim such as "a cat is on the mat" can be shown to be true by looking at the mat. But a claim such as "we ought not kill"? I don't even know what to do with that.

Is a world where "we ought not kill" is true empirically distinguishable from a world where "we ought not kill" is false? Does a world where "we ought not kill" is true have a different logic to a world where "we ought not kill" is false? If the answer is "no" to both then I don't understand the difference between "we ought not kill" being true and it being false, and so I don't understand what it means for it to be either true or false.

But something like "I ought not kill"? I don't know what it would mean for the claim to be true or false. — Michael

Then I trust you do not have a gun.

Not many folk are so willing to admit their sociopathy in a public forum - I supose you ought get some kudos for that.

And how does one verify or falsify an ethical system? Is there a way to show that utilitarianism is false or that the categorical imperative is true? — Michael

Isn't this also true for the scientific method? We know it's true because it works. It cannot be checked against anything other than its utility.

A claim such as "2 + 2 = 5" can be shown to be false by counting; a claim such as "a cat is on the mat" can be shown to be true by looking at the mat. But a claim such as "we ought not kill"? I don't even know what to do with that. — Michael

If the goal is to not be killed, then having the rule "we ought not to kill" makes sense. It follows from instrumental reason.

Is it true that the goal is not to be killed? That's an odd question. It's akin to asking "is it true that we want to understand and predict nature"?

If the goal is to not be killed, then having the rule "we ought not to kill" makes sense. It follows from instrumental reason. — Echarmion

Following a rule to not kill so as to ensure survival isn't the same as the proposition "we ought not kill" being true -- or is it? When we say that "we ought not kill" is true, are we just saying that we choose not to kill as it's in our best interests not to? I don't think that's what the moral realist means.

Isn't this also true for the scientific method? We know it's true because it works. It cannot be checked against anything other than its utility. — Echarmion

The scientific method isn't "true" in the sense that we're using the word "true". We're using it in the sense of the truth-aptness of a proposition. When I asked how to show that an ethical system is true or false I am asking how to verify or falsify the claims "we ought act only according to that maxim whereby we can will that it should become a universal law" or "we ought maximize happiness and well-being."

Then I trust you do not have a gun. — Banno

I don't have a gun, and I don't understand how your response addresses my comments.

Is it true that you ought not kill?

And how does the "laboratory of life" show an ethical system to be true or false? What is the criteria by which we measure the truth of an ethical system? It's not a question of who will be the judge but a question of how it is to be judged. — Michael

They’re good questions. In traditional moral systems, it was assumed that one was subject to judgement by God, or would endure the consequences of their karma in future lives. In the absence of those regulatory systems, the question has no clear answer, as is exemplified by the diversity of responses in this thread.

I don't understand the difference between "we ought not kill" being true and it being false, and so I don't understand what it means for it to be either true or false. — Michael

When push comes to shove, of course you do, but in a forum thread you can say pretty well whatever you like.