Do you think it boils down to ethics again? How so? — Shawn
I remember having some counselling when I was an adolescent by a pastoral counsellor, who used to keep stressing that, 'You have to lose yourself to find yourself'. But, when he went on further, I found this counsellor's philosophy was about the importance of losing one's own individuality in order to conform. I came to the view that finding one's own pathway, even though it often involves getting lost, or facing obstacles, can be extremely important, as both a psychological and philosophy quest. — Jack Cummins
Why should morals be a matter of metaphysics? — Wayfarer
I think the short answer is that it involves the requirement to ground morality in something other than one’s personal or cultural beliefs. It involves questions of whether there is a real good, independently of one’s opinions about it, or cultural beliefs about it. And it’s a surprisingly hard question to answer without falling back on ‘I believe that…’ — Wayfarer
In such dialogues, the examination of one’s assumptions, what you will accept to be true, is the basic task of philosophy. It can be presumed not to do that, is to live heedlessly, carelessly, unknowingly. But the key point is, in Platonic terms, this is grounded in an acceptance of a real good, understood as the idea of the good, in harmony with which the philosopher seeks to live. — Wayfarer
In such dialogues, the examination of one’s assumptions, what you will accept to be true, is the basic task of philosophy. It can be presumed not to do that, is to live heedlessly, carelessly, unknowingly. But the key point is, in Platonic terms, this is grounded in an acceptance of a real good, understood as the idea of the good, in harmony with which the philosopher seeks to live. — Wayfarer
How would an animal or domesticated pig examine their unlived life? — Janus
:up: :up:But the question is, why does the subject exist? Why should morals be a matter of metaphysics?
I think the short answer is that it involves the requirement to ground morality in something other than one’s personal or cultural beliefs. It involves questions of whether there is a real good, independently of one’s opinions about it, or cultural beliefs about it. And it’s a surprisingly hard question to answer without falling back on ‘I believe that…’ — Wayfarer
This isn't as simple as an acceptance of the good as through observation but was cultivated through the academia and supremely by the noetic faculties of one's mind — Shawn
It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental. We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act. Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. ...In the strict sense, it is not 'whiteness' that is in our mind, but 'the act of thinking of whiteness'. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea' ...also causes confusion here. In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental [and so, particular to one or another mind, 'only in the mind']. But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts. — Betrand Russell, The World of Universals
My interpretation of "an examined life" is 'unlearning misery as a way of life', as an endless, sisyphusean task (i.e. self-overcoming).If we to take what Socrates said as important to ourselves, then what does it mean to live an examined life, as surely it is to our benefit to do so? — Shawn
Yes, insofar as the function of ethics is reflective inquiry into (as well as empirical studies and artistic expressions of) practices which prevent increasing or reduce misery (harm, dehumanization) of others in order, more likely than not, to prevent increasing or reduce one's own misery. Thus, Hillel the Elder's "That which is hateful to you, do not do to anyone" (Confucius also expressed this centuries earlier) whereby "hateful" is synonymous with harmful.Do you think it boils down to ethics again? How so?
Paying attention to one's own biases and assumptions as a matter of course first and foremost. And also refrain from being an asshole on that account.When living the examined life what ought one be concerned about it? — Shawn
Cultivate solitude :death: and solidarity :flower: against misery / injustice in whatever forms as much as each day allows or requires; which is easier said then done, of course, although helped considerably by simply living now-here (traveling light, going slow, sleeping easy).One's place in the world or their intelligence or their wealth?
Domesticated pigs don't examine their lives. Does that make the pigs' life not worth living? The pig doesn't think so as it keeps on striving to live and avoid harm and stress instinctively.How would an animal or domesticated pig examine their unlived life? What could it even mean to say that an animal was not living its life? — Janus
Define "ethics". If ethics encompasses how you treat others besides just yourself wouldn't that mean that you'd need to examine everyone else's life to know if their life is worth living? And for those whose life that you determine aren't worth living, what do you do with the results of that examination?Do you think it boils down to ethics again? How so? — Shawn
Domesticated pigs don't examine their lives. Does that make the pigs' life not worth living? The pig doesn't think so as it keeps on striving to live and avoid harm and stress instinctively.
Examine one's life is only something humans do, but as shown by the pig, has no bearing on whether or not a life is worth living or not. — Harry Hindu
Do you think it boils down to ethics again? How so? — Shawn
They're silly questions. I interpret "unlived" to mean non-existent, as in to examine a life that doesn't exist. It doesn't make sense to say that one can not live one's life as you are always living your life, even when examining it.The question I was considering was whether the unlived life is worth examining. Of course animals live their lives; consider the question I asked earlier: What could it mean to say that an animal doesn't live its life? — Janus
The question assumes that a unexamined life isn't worth living. All you have to do it point to the billions of organisms that don't examine their lives and each continues to strive to live. From there, you should be asking to who, or what, is any particular life worth living. I don't see why any life's worth should be determined by some other life's examination, as if that was their life instead of the one that they have. Should you be determining whether some life, other than your own, is worth living or not, examined or not?Animals probably don't examine their lives, either, so that begs the question; are their lives worth living? That question seems irrelevant to the life of an animal, since to ask that question would be to examine their life, which we assume they cannot do. — Janus
I would have to ask, what qualifies as a proper examination?Now we seem to have arrived back at the first question: is an unexamined human life worth living?, What if the examination interferes with the living? Then the life is not even lived, much less worth living. What if a life is both lived and examined? That would seem to be the richest possibility. — Janus
I think its pretty straight forward, “unexamined” means thoughtless, unreflective…life isnt worth living unless it is given thought, contemplated, otherwise you might as well be an inanimate object. — DingoJones
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