One problem I see with your argument is the false dichotomy of Romanticism and your version of systems theory. If there was a benefit of the influence of Existentialism, it is the idea that people do not have to play the role social institutions have already preordained as proper. No one has to play a role for survival's sake, for their country's sake, or for an institution's sake. One is as free as one can be within the bounds of one's encultred environmental context. In other words, one has the free will to choose an avenue of action and belief but must deal with the consequences of those choices within the framework of one's socialized and cultural setting. You can say that it is not "wise" to lash out against certain roles due to a likelihood of negative consequences, but nevertheless, there is no obligation to follow preordained social roles. One is free to fulfill a role if they so choose or not to if they so choose. There is no obligation to keep the institutions going, the system going, or nature going (whatever that means).

Now, what you do, is a clever sleight of hand. Instead of focusing on the individual human's choice, you focus on the inevitability (or at least your theory of inevitability) that life will always persist. This is not the question- whether nature will eventually form complex organisms again or in parallel to us before the universe dies in the Heat Death. Rather, the question is what we, the individual experiencing human with choices, are going to choose to do in the face of the situation we are in. Do we keep the project that was bequeathed going? The Maintenance and Continuance of the Human Project is the largest contract- the political social contracts are a major sub-category, and the civil society of daily life are the numerous sub-sub-contracts. You can question the need to continue each of these categories- whether they are here as a result of human's need for survival using linguistic-cultural reasoning or not. It does not matter that institutions, the human project, the sub contracts are here due to survival- we all know that is the origin. It is the decision to continue them that the question demands. Why are we choosing to be part of the maintenance crew?

The essence of our difference is that my immanent naturalism opposes your transcendent Romanticism in believing in the unity of opposites. So any dichotomy reflects nature's irreducible and necessary complexity. A holist is defined by accepting this principle as true. A reductionist is defined by an insistence that instead worlds can actually be broken apart and still make sense.

So - to use the dichotomy that seems most relevant to the pessimist's position - the complaint is that the world contains the bad. And yet the world ought to be good. Therefore the world is fundamentally imperfect and bad. Goodness now counts for nothing in the reductionist calculus that the pessimistic thinker constructs as his cocoon of thought.

But for me - just phenomenologically - that stance is ridiculous. I experience pleasure and pain as inextricably intwinned. I exercise hard because that produces the most exquisite mix of these two things. Likewise, I would live life hard for the same reason. Effort is intrinsically a pain and yet intrinsically a delight.

Reductionist thinking can make a paradox of this basic psychological fact. But holism instead demands its truth. It is natural that the coin of existence has its two complementary faces and the value of each is maximised when we are most truly alive.

So this is what you and DC signally fail to understand - the logic of nature.

You instead have become enslaved to the logic of machines. You think about existence in terms of monadic reduction. Life has to be either all the one or the other. So therefore any bad counts as a blemish on the perfect good, making the whole thing irredeemably bad as the only remaining option.

Yet this is simply to ignore the evidence of your own experience. It is to misunderstand your own nature by imposing on yourself the notion that you are a machine - a notion you then want to violently, romantically, transcendently, reject ... leaving you then with no rational position at all.

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

Of course pain can become overwhelming in life. Shit happens. Likewise you can "suffer" from an excess of ease and satisfaction. So imbalance is perfectly possible - indeed it is a given if balance is a goal that relies on the constraint of the accidental.

The standard ethics of the enlightenment should be coming into sight now - as the enlightenment was about humanity waking up to existence of nature (with the sharp understanding of the mechanical being the ironical handmaiden to this larger psychological awakening).

That is, humanistic ethics is focused on creating the opportunity to thrive. Society needs to be organised to remove the accidental sources of the good and the bad in the life of the individual. That way, the individual has the greatest opportunity to be the source of their own exquisite mix of joy and sorrow - to be actually fully alive and not one of DC's monotone zombies or your mechanical maintenance crew.

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

It all makes sense once you have a proper theory of life and nature. You can see what is hollow and pointless about taking drugs - they are accidental sources of pleasure. Although people often take drugs as a crutch to aid socialisation. And so it gets complicated. Socialisation is a natural and purposeful thing - the context that our efforts at individuation require. Social interaction - done right, done hard - hits that exquisite balance of pain and pleasure.

Thus there is a crisp choice when it comes to the metaphysics underlying ethics and aesthetics.

You can go reductionist and view existence in brutely mechanical terms. Which itself must engender the dualistic reaction of the inarticulate howl of Romanticism's transcendental protest. Something has clearly been left out. But now there are no resources with which to think about it.

The alternative is the immanent holism of natural philosophy. Now we see that existence has irreducible complexity. It is meant to be dichotomous and thus about arriving at fruitful balances. And living hard sums that up as that means we are living the life that is the least accidental, the most individuated or personally meaningful. Life is meant to be a deliberate mix of pleasure and pain - the exquisite contrast which we ride so hard that any accidents that do occur are going to be ... spectacular.

Of course a further point in all this is that naturalism is also about nested hierarchies, so "living hard" becomes an imperative now to be balanced across all its many scales. This is where what is best for the individual may exceed what is best for a family, a village, a region, a nation, a planet.

Naturalism - as opposed to romantic/mechanical reductionism - grants mindfulness or semiotic meaning to all these levels of being too. So that larger balancing act, that larger definition of flourishing, has to be worked into the ethical and aethetic story too.

What did I say about irreducible complexity? Heh, heh.

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

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

LOL. Appealing to subjectivity is metaphysics. You can't have "a position" that doesn't make a claim on some species of counterfactual definiteness.

Appealing to subjectivity is metaphysics. — apokrisis

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

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

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

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

Is that clear from your careful rebuttal or something? Must be something up with my iPad. That post doesn't seem to have appeared my end yet.

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

Why are we choosing to be part of the maintenance crew? — schopenhauer1

Because people are going to procreate whether you like or not. It's all well and good to point out the contingency of civilization and our existence, but it's also objectively pointless. I agree with you, but the agreement changes nothing, for there isn't a live option between continuing and not continuing as a species that this thread is going to settle. The best we can do is make peace with this fact and try to live accordingly.

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

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

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

I'm not saying we should launch the nukes. — darthbarracuda

And neither would I. This is the side the pessimist should be on.

But certainly we can still approach an Armageddon with open arms. — darthbarracuda

It depends on what kind and how it occurs.

Technology has shown its ability to change something that seemed to be metaphysically un-changeable. — darthbarracuda

I don't think it has done any such thing.

Because people are going to procreate whether you like or not. It's all well and good to point out the contingency of civilization and our existence, but it's also objectively pointless. I agree with you, but the agreement changes nothing, for there isn't a live option between continuing and not continuing as a species that this thread is going to settle. The best we can do is make peace with this fact and try to live accordingly. — Thorongil

Yes but it's the questioning that is important. Getting people to at least see beyond what we tend to do, and question why we do it. It is to see it as the striving-but-for-nothing that it is. In other words, to get to the bottom of all pursuits. Again, the efficacy is not the issue I care about as much. As you point out, procreation will continue whether one likes it or not.

Yes but it's the questioning that is important. — schopenhauer1

Why is the questioning important if your answer is that nothing matters?

As usual, pessimism makes no sense. You complain about the pain and futility of existence and then complain about people not appreciating that "fact" as if it could then matter.

If existence is meaningless, then who cares if the majority are delusional? What beneficial meaning is being withheld from them?

And how does it add up that you would seek to make the delusionally comfortable discomforted? If pessimism is so bothered by life's discomforts, why would it have a goal of adding to them?

As usual, nothing has really been thought through.

Why is the questioning important if your answer is that nothing matters? — apokrisis

Right, I'm just the meany pessmist over here while the sweet innocents are procreating and living without any concern. I'm the serpent tempting them to doubt their very reason for doing anything >:) :-} . They were living in an ideal state of pure bliss, until this dark notion came along.

I don't see it as adding discomfort. Rather it is pointing out our existential situation. Perhaps, initially to those who have not given it much thought, but what comes out is the consolation that the harms of life are not necessary. It is an act of rebellion. We have seen through the facade of the institutions given to us.. That being to be, is all that is going on here, nothing more.. All else is an edifice of obfuscation pointing to anything but this fact. It is the core of the problem- the limit of it as far as our own existential striving is concerned. Why shouldn't people see this for what it is? Are you advocating for Plato's Noble Lie?

Why shouldn't people see this for what it is? Are you advocating for Plato's Noble Lie? — schopenhauer1

Nope. I'm asking what is consistent about claiming existence is essentially meaningless and then getting so het up about people who don't appear to believe your truth. How could it matter if you are being true to your own professed belief here?

It is to see it as the striving-but-for-nothing that it is. — schopenhauer1

I'm not so sure about this. It seems this way, but that doesn't mean it is. Schopenhauer, for example, is ambiguous on this point. Perhaps you have shifted to a more full blooded nihilism, though.

Nope. I'm asking what is consistent about claiming existence is essentially meaningless and then getting so het up about people who don't appear to believe your truth. How could it matter if you are being true to your own professed belief here? — apokrisis

I really don't have to give a shit about whether people see it or not.. It is a catharsis more than anything. It is staring it face down.

Schopenhauer, for example, is ambiguous on this point. — Thorongil

Using Schopenhauer's metaphysics, the Will's nature is to strive for nothing- no telos. Although, I think your interpretation is that the phenomena is Will's teleology of trying to satisfy itself, but of course, never succeeding, and we are but one aspect of the collateral damage. Thus, ascetic denial of Will, somehow breaks the cycle for the will-less hero.. Even if his metaphysics was true.. do you believe someone has the ability to deny their will to such a degree? Would you say a yogi in India or the truly enlightened Buddha? What does that even look like? Is this Ego-Death? Is it truly not caring about anything or anyone? That is the most ambiguous.

Well I put a year into writing on social contract theory. What you will find is that modern culture has very little tolerance for ideas such as natural law, and social contracts don't work without them.

Modern culture is only interested in optimizing power, in the simplistic objectivist way advocated by Rand. As a consequence the mere notion of a theistic contract is considered revolting. This is rather unfortunate, as the social contract in the USA is theistic, whether they like it or not. Hence values such as

'life'
'liberty'
'pursuit of happiness'

are repeatedly espoused on a daily basis by those leading the USA, without any integrity, and with total hypocrisy, frequently backed with naive notions of altruism, denial of learning as a source of authority, and militaristic revenge that only disguise a fear of death in the Godless and unconscious world they have made for themselves.

I really don't have to give a shit about whether people see it or not. — schopenhauer1

But your angry language shows you do in fact care. As does your endless reposting of the one argument. Your actions give the game away. In your own words, you are a paid up member of another of those social institiutions performing some meaningless sub-contract.

There...is...no...escape. Heh, heh. It is all quite natural.

A belief or cultural institution that doesn't get out and sell itself is going to shrivel up and die. The church of nihilism is stuck in the same old game of claiming its essential truth.

The only question then is what pragmatic goods does it deliver to its cult followers? It has to be beneficial to their lives in some practical sense.

It is a catharsis more than anything. It is staring it face down. — schopenhauer1

Oh I see. Sounds rather manly and romantic. So the benefit is to one's self-esteem?

The lack of there being any underpinning to a floating morass of specious values explains how those with the talent to think are so often reduced to communicating their hostile spite, rather than to seek mutual understanding.

But your angry language shows you do in fact care. As does your endless reposting of the one argument. Your actions give the game away. In your own words, you are a paid up member of another of those social institiutions performing some meaningless sub-contract.

There...is...no...escape. Heh, heh. It is all quite natural. — apokrisis

So you think I have trapped myself in a self-refuting argument.. The pessimist argument, if you want to cast it as an institution (which is contestable in itself), has the goal of broadening people to the idea that they are forced by other institutions for the sake of nothing. That in itself is nefarious. Pessimism simply shows it for what it is.. cast into institutions that self-perpetuate for its own survival cause.

The only question then is what pragmatic goods does it deliver to its cult followers? It has to be beneficial to their lives in some practical sense. — apokrisis

I mean c'mon apokrisis- are you picking up a playbook from the politician's book of strawmen and red herrings? How many can you commit in a post?

You frame the argument as if "pragmatic goods" are already the default goal! Anyways, if there is a "pragmatic goal" it is what I stated earlier.. catharsis.. Not just for me but for anyone who is caught in the harms of this or that situation of life. The challenges and "pragmatic solutions" are necessary because we were put in the situation in the first place. But we see that the harms of life, the striving-after-nothing underlying it, the survival for survival's sake, damned be the individuals who maintain the Project.. is not NECESSARY.. It is bringing to the fore what the existential situation is.. It need not pragmatically do anything. It is simply what the case of the matter is. Now, by talking about once you SEE what is going, by living your day out with this in mind, you can CONSOLE with others and have more understanding about the harms that befall us all.. The institutions which are necessary for survival, but which also harm us all, the self-inflicted pains, the other inflicted pains, the biological, social, and all the rest that befall individuals. It consoles us of the fact that we are presented with challenges which we MUST overcome in the first place.. It is not a given, it was FORCED on us.. and has no reason of its own other than we have gotten in the habit of continuing the project.

However, I see you as in fact the callous one. Here you are.. prophet of the SYSTEM.. professing to know what it wants.. it wants perpetuation by strengthening through challenges presented to the individual and individual's collectively coming together to strengthen society to create more individuals etc.. Whether the individual experiences harm in all this challenge strengthening does not matter to you.. Who is the cult leader here?

lol, you do like Schopenhauer, dont you? Well like all great thinkers, he has his place. But his place is not in social contract theory really is it?

I guess I should explain. It does not really matter what the motive is. Natural law is based on the idea of certain inalienable truths arising from the human condition. A post-Socratic social contract is based on those truths. It does not matter what the actual motivation of the participants is, even if different social contracts result from different assumptions about the purpose of life, the process is not actually dependent on that to form a social contract.

So you think I have trapped myself in a self-refuting argument.. — schopenhauer1

You sound upset at being accused of vicious circularity. And yet only a few posts back....

The pessimist argument, if you want to cast it as an institution (which is contestable in itself), has the goal of broadening people to the idea that they are forced by other institutions for the sake of nothing. — schopenhauer1

...right. So now we are on the same page in agreeing that hierarchies escape circularity. There is the more general view.

Yet now you need to deal with the naturalness of hierarchies - the way they must emerge in nature as chaos or contingency already speaks to order or regulation. Only the notion of the meaningful can produce counterfactually the notion of the meaningless. And this is the bind for your position.

Nihilism is reductionist about physical existence. God is dead. Humans are meat machines. The Cosmos is without a point. The second law seems to confirm it all. Ahead lies only the nullity of a Heat Death, the curtain brought down on a meaningless fluttering of complex existence.

So as you climb to your higher level view of reality, it all counts for nothing. That is reality's big secret. And only a select few are brave enough to confront it face on. (Wait, is that the institutional figure of the solipsistic romantic already sneaking into the room?)

But again, half the story is only half the story. Reductionism says nothing on its lonely ownsome. And dividing the story into two - mechanical physics and romantic spirit - is only dualism. A doubling down on the reductionism. So you need a story that binds everything into an organic whole - one that can show how material/efficient cause and formal/final cause are systematically ... that is, hierarchically ... related.

Now the meaningful and the meaningless can be related in formal, even measureable, terms.

You frame the argument as if "pragmatic goods" are already the default goal! — schopenhauer1

Or rather, the inevitable outcome. Existence is whatever works. I mean you haven't even tried to argue against the evolutionary points I've made. You already accept the basic logic of pragmatism. Your claim is instead that you can transcend reality in romantic fashion to scoff at its illusions of doing anything worthwhile.

But that in itself is contradictory as I have pointed out - the anti-naturalistic fallacy.

It is as bad to judge reality wrong as right just for simply being what it is. I don't think you have got the force of that yet.

Not just for me but for anyone who is caught in the harms of this or that situation of life. — schopenhauer1

Ah, now back to harms again. We speak of the negative values that themselves demand the counterfactuality that which would have been the good. We are doubling down on the self-contradiction so that first existence is meaningless, now it is structurally black. Yet if we are weighing harms in the balance, we have already admitted the issue is about balance. And for normies or zombies, the phenomenological truth is that pain and pleasure are intwinned in the way I describe as the desire to "live hard".

Your failure to argue back I took as acceptance you had no useful counter. And now we are back to just repeating assertions about existence being obviously meaningless and obviously bad.

Now, by talking about once you SEE what is going, by living your day out with this in mind, you can CONSOLE with others and have more understanding about the harms that befall us all.. — schopenhauer1

Well you understand why I object to this pragmatic interest in consolation - lets all get in a dark room and have a wee cry together. It smacks too much of wanting a socially acceptable excuse for not engaging in the gift of life that has been given to you.

I'm not heartless. I agree that the modern world is fairly shit in some key aspects of its organisation. It can be a struggle to find a place in a consumer society that demands a higher level of individualisation and self-actualisation than is naturally comfortable for many people. Yes, we can certainly see how a fancier wristwatch or faster car is in the end quite a pointless measure of anything so far as human nature is concerned.

But you can't diagnose or correct imbalance unless you have a workable theory about a life in balance.

So while pessimism likes to frame matters in terms of absolutes, pragmatism says the way things are must work in some sense - otherwise it couldn't exist. And yet also - taking the hierarchical view that gets us out of vicious circularity - we can see that what works in the short run might count as failure in the long run. And in seeing the precise nature of the imbalance, we already can see how it might be corrected.

It's not rocket science.

But again, talk of consolation is talk of learnt helplessness. It is getting comfortable with failure. And I can't see the point of that as a supposed ethical system. It is not the intelligent response.

However, I see you as in fact the callous one. Here you are.. prophet of the SYSTEM.. professing to know what it wants.. it wants perpetuation by strengthening through challenges presented to the individual and individual's collectively coming together to strengthen society to create more individuals etc.. Whether the individual experiences harm in all this challenge strengthening does not matter to you.. Who is the cult leader here? — schopenhauer1

I thought I said I in fact value pain as part of the deal. But I also made a careful distinction between accidental pain and pain that is indeed part of some valued deal.

These are the kind of subtleties of my position that you hurry past so as not to be disturbed from your dogmatic slumbers.

Thus, ascetic denial of Will, somehow breaks the cycle for the will-less hero.. Even if his metaphysics was true.. do you believe someone has the ability to deny their will to such a degree? Would you say a yogi in India or the truly enlightened Buddha? What does that even look like? Is this Ego-Death? Is it truly not caring about anything or anyone? That is the most ambiguous. — schopenhauer1

I think the ambiguity lies in what the denial of the will means. Does it mean the destruction or annihilation of the will? That can't be it, since the will as thing-in-itself cannot be destroyed, only its phenomenon, the body, can. To will to deny the will is also a contradictory impossibility. Does it mean the alleviation of suffering resultant from the quieting of desire? Possibly, and Robert Wicks in the secondary literature argues this, but this could never be permanent, and so hardly qualifies as salvation. So too does it conflict with Schopenhauer's frequent declarations as to its "permanent" and "annihilatory" nature. Schopenhauer is thus not only ambiguous but inconsistent. It seems to me that the denial of the will, or salvation, cannot be achieved in this life, despite Schopenhauer suggesting that it can through the use of examples from Hinduism and Buddhism.

Notwithstanding the probable heresy in my uttering the following remarks, I will say that it is for the reason just given that I have come to see Christianity as a possible solution to the problems in Schopenhauer's system. Only by placing one's faith and hope in salvation in the hereafter, while in the meantime directing one's will to God, the transcendent, can one find any modicum of peace or bear living in this sad little world. If the will cannot be destroyed, then it must affirm something when it is denied. It can't very well affirm itself, for that is just the phenomenal world. So what does it affirm? God is the only answer I can give. Schopenhauer, in his immanentizing, never goes this far, but it doesn't follow that because the principle of sufficient reason is the basis of all the teloi we know of, that there isn't one for the will itself. Not to worry, for I have as of yet done nothing, nor changed my beliefs, but I do feel a pull in the direction just now sketched.

Or rather, the inevitable outcome. Existence is whatever works. I mean you haven't even tried to argue against the evolutionary points I've made. You already accept the basic logic of pragmatism. Your claim is instead that you can transcend reality in romantic fashion to scoff at its illusions of doing anything worthwhile. — apokrisis

So you present a straw man? I never said that we can transcend reality- you characterized what I said that way to present your argument a certain way. I only said we can self-reflect on our situation and prevent future suffering. The knowing and discussing of our situation can be a catharsis. How does that translate to "transcending reality"? Is it because you need a straw man to set up and knock down; you clearly rehearsed the "Romantic vs. Organic" spiel, so you need to pigeon-hole my argument in your scheme so you can lazily fit it into your usual anti-Romantic routine and not have to look at it at face value. I never stated that we can transcend reality- simply cope with our situation and prevent future suffering. Coping does not mean flinching or sugar-coating though.

Ah, now back to harms again. We speak of the negative values that themselves demand the counterfactuality that which would have been the good. We are doubling down on the self-contradiction so that first existence is meaningless, now it is structurally black. Yet if we are weighing harms in the balance, we have already admitted the issue is about balance. And for normies or zombies, the phenomenological truth is that pain and pleasure are intwinned in the way I describe as the desire to "live hard".

Your failure to argue back I took as acceptance you had no useful counter. And now we are back to just repeating assertions about existence being obviously meaningless and obviously bad. — apokrisis

Again, the straw mans are flying out of your metaphorical mouth so profusely, it is exasperating to correct your errors. What do you mean by "structurally meaningless"? Instrumentality is the empty feeling after all pursuits... That is the underlying dissatisfaction and restlessness of animals with complex self-reflecting minds.. If that's what you mean ..ok. "Structurally black".. If you mean by that the contingent harms that we encounter, then obviously I don't think everything is agonizing pain at all moments nor can it be since there is always a counterfactual imagining to contrast our feelings. So, two straw mans there..

Also, the only positive claim you made "to live hard" has NO justification.

It smacks too much of wanting a socially acceptable excuse for not engaging in the gift of life that has been given to you. — apokrisis

And here we can see your bias poking through.. Life is a gift.. there we go. No justification.. just experience for experience sake.. Non-existence does not need gifts though- that does not even make sense. A gift is not something that is forced nor can it be said to be "good" for anyone, since that is a circularity; you would need to exist prior to existence for it to be good.. Non-existence was never "bad" for anyone to begin with.

But you can't diagnose or correct imbalance unless you have a workable theory about a life in balance. — apokrisis

I thought I said I in fact value pain as part of the deal. But I also made a careful distinction between accidental pain and pain that is indeed part of some valued deal.

These are the kind of subtleties of my position that you hurry past so as not to be disturbed from your dogmatic slumbers. — apokrisis

Why do you keep insisting on the naturalistic fallacy.. Your secular Taoism, though charming, has no justification. It is trying to say "the world needs us to do A and we need the world to do B." No one needs anything in terms of being the purveyors of being. We do not owe the world, nor does it owe us. We may be wrapped up in the course of events, but we do not need to be worshippers of the events because that happens to be what is. This seems like religious thinking.. magical thinking actually. Let's not tempt fate.. the universe can always be worse.. it happens to produce butterflies and books by Gregory Bateson.

what you are actually talking about is not the natural fallacy, it is what has been called, for some 900 years, 'promulgation.' This is commonly attributed to Aquinas in the West, although some Islamic scholars claim it has earlier origins in the work of Abu Mansur al-Maturidi in the 10th century.

Maturidi claimed that the human mind could know of the existence of God and the major forms of 'good' and 'evil' without the help of revelation. Al-Maturidi gives the example of stealing, which is known to be evil by reason alone due to man's working hard for his property. Killing, fornication, and drinking alcohol were all 'evils' the human mind could know of according to al-Maturidi.

Aquinas fit the idea into Western ideas of the time as follows: "Wherefore as the type of the Divine Wisdom, inasmuch as by It all things are created, has the character of art, exemplar or idea; so the type of Divine Wisdom, as moving all things to their due end, bears the character of law. Accordingly the eternal law is nothing else than the type of Divine Wisdom, as directing all actions and movements...so then no one can know the eternal law, as it is in itself, except the blessed who see God in His Essence. But every rational creature knows it in its reflection, greater or less. For every knowledge of truth is a kind of reflection and participation of the eternal law, which is the unchangeable truth. ( Summa Theologica, III.4,90-96, Venice, 1274).

To explain, this claims that rationality is a reflection of the divine law that is understood by us through reason independently, because, as the universe is ordered by divine law, we have the capacity of rationality to deduce the same principles of order without needing reference to divine law in order to create it. The point of this 13th century argument is to counter the belief that human beings are capable of reason without the pre-existence of the divine law of God. In fact, the argument goes, that is a delusion, and in fact, our concept of human law is a PROMULGATION from the divine. No naturalistic fallacy.

I never stated that we can transcend reality- simply cope with our situation and prevent future suffering. — schopenhauer1

If that was all you said - making that pragmatic point - then of course I agree. But I don't see where you have argued that society is a natural phenomenon, or that nature - and so the cosmos - might have a proper non-contingent purpose.

Your framework sets up existence as mechanistic and contingent. I argue instead that it is organic and telic - with the proviso that this does then explain how existence also does have accidental and machine-like aspects as part of the deal.

So what I have objected to is the reductionist simplicity of your ethical conclusions and I have opposed them with the irreducible complexity of a holistic or systems view of existence.

Also, the only positive claim you made "to live hard" has NO justification. — schopenhauer1

But I justified that in detail. You are simply asserting that I'm wrong without countering my actual argument.

And here we can see your bias poking through.. Life is a gift.. there we go. — schopenhauer1

My little joke. You exaggerate by calling life a burden. I say hey no, its a gift. But clearly - in saying that I am opposed to any transcendental framing of the human condition - I think the whole notion of life being "given" as either a burden or a gift is nonsensical in its invocation of some external telos.

Why do you keep insisting on the naturalistic fallacy. — schopenhauer1

So do you understand the fallacy? It applies just as much to taking the undesirable in terms of feelings to be "the bad".

I certainly take the naturalistic view. But that is something different.