one can ask, why make the world a more creatively anticipatable place? If there is no answer to this, then the mundane objection still holds: there is question begging in the assumption that "we should do X". Why? — Astrophel
But that's an argument, not phenomenology, right? It's also not an argument I find all that persuasive as it stands: I've always been struck by the Nazis trying to destroy evidence of the Holocaust as the red army advanced -- they were like children caught doing something they knew perfectly well was wrong.
But, yes, history and anthropology seem to teach us that different communities have different values. Some apparently have no problem with practicing slavery, say, or genital mutilation, and then we seem forced to conclude that there is something relative about our moral judgments. This is all still argument though, rather than a phenomenology of ethical experience. It's just that the argument suggests such a phenomenology is useless, because in every case we'll find people experiencing what seems to them ethical in the same way. (Orson Welles explained Touch of Evil by quoting Jean Renoir: "Everyone has their reasons.")
There are two ways to begin to answer the relativist (or perspectivist): one is to say that the claims of variation are overblown, that there is obvious and substantial overlap in the mores of different communities, and even some research to back that up; the other is to question the experience more closely. If those who practice genital mutilation have to overcome their recognition of a young girl's fear and trauma, have to suppress their sympathy for her, then that's not evidence that their conscience is constituted differently from ours, but that they choose not to listen to it, that they let some other consideration overrule it.
I think the jury is still out on whether phenomenology is doomed to failure here. — Srap Tasmaner
Terms like courage are dangerous, because they imply a hostility toward and condemnation of those who we judge as lacking in courage. — Joshs
Actually, it does not fail to answer that question. . — god must be atheist
And affect (happiness, sadness, misery, joy suffering pleasure, and so forth) is foundational for ethics. — Astrophel
And affect (happiness, sadness, misery, joy suffering pleasure, and so forth) is foundational for ethics. — Astrophel
I consider this to be wishful thinking and mysticism. You said earlier that I was making it more complicated than it need be and now here you are saying something serpentine like this. :razz:
Sounds like you want a transcendent or magical foundation point to this question and this may well be an emotional reaction. You won't be the first to reach this position.
Human flourishing does raise the question what does human flourishing look like when done well? We know that pretty much all people are attempting to achieve this. Even the Taliban - they, like all fundamentalists, think a particular interpretation of God's will leads to human flourishing - generally flourishing in the afterlife.
We can debate how best to accomplish human flourishing but there seems little doubt to me that pretty much all people have agreed in their own way that this is a starting point. I don't think we need any more than this. — Tom Storm
It's a pity you think that.
Sure, we have feelings. One's own feelings are all well and good, and you might do well to work towards feeling good rather than feeling miserable. But that's not the foundation of ethics.
Ethics concerns itself with how one is to relate to others. — Banno
Saying you have concern for others turns the table to you, because you are an other to others, and the most accessible possible examination would lie in an examination of yourself. — Astrophel
Ah, then we're not having the conversation I thought we were.
I have some attraction to a very old-fashioned "moral sentiments" view, such as you'd find in Adam Smith. — Srap Tasmaner
SO, what is it that evolution says we ought to do? — Banno
The "most accessible possible examination" is your interaction with others, which is there for all to see.
An attempt to base ethics on private self-reflection will lead to nonsense. And does.
Ethics isn't an armchair self-examination. It's about getting out in the world, being amongst others, interacting. — Banno
Take away the reality of emotive, consciousness endowed subjects that interact. What remains of ethics? Nothing. — javra
You haven't understood the point... — Banno
Let's say Banno is right. Let's say the evolutionary theory is not a valid theory to explain behavior. In that case the following must be true:Explaining behaviour in terms of evolution had a veneer of credibility within pop science, and is common on this forum - to the point of predictable tedium.
But there is little support amongst scientists. That's mostly because it is logically fraught. A little thought will show that any behaviour can be made to fit the model. In your own example, helping the blind and killing and eating them can both be explained as procuring survival. — Banno
Banno denies the existence of evolutionary theory. — god must be atheist
One might know oneself best by looking in at one's reflection on the eyes of another. — Banno
Introspection is fine, but it will not tell you how to treat the homeless, or what abortion laws should be in place, or how much to donate to charity.
Ethics is inherently concerned with action, not introspection. Indeed self-reflection is so often an excuse for not acting. — Banno
A claim stated, so it must be true. — god must be atheist
1. It has the structure of an all-and-some doctrine; for any behaviour there is some evolutionary advantage. Hence it provides and explanation for any behaviour, and it's negation. It is of no use.
2. It fails to answer the question of what we ought to do, so does not address ethics. — Banno
My own hunch is that in order to know how one ought to act one must first know - intuitively if not at a level of conscious understanding - the ideal one is in pursuit of by so acting. To me at least such can only be discovered via reflection regrading what the self (as in both oneself and others) is. — javra
Everyone has a plan 'till they get punched in the mouth. — Mike Tyson
for any behaviour there is some evolutionary advantage. — Banno
Example: Murder. In cannibalistic societies the available meat protein is scanty. You capture and kill members of OTHER tribes and eat their flesh. — god must be atheist
From my former studies — javra
In some societies, cannibalism is a cultural norm. Consumption of a person from within the same community is called endocannibalism; ritual cannibalism of the recently deceased can be part of the grieving process[19] or be seen as a way of guiding the souls of the dead into the bodies of living descendants.[20] Exocannibalism is the consumption of a person from outside the community, usually as a celebration of victory against a rival tribe.[20] Both types of cannibalism can also be fueled by the belief that eating a person's flesh or internal organs will endow the cannibal with some of the characteristics of the deceased.[21] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_cannibalism#Reasons
Introspection is fine, but it will not tell you how to treat the homeless, or what abortion laws should be in place, or how much to donate to charity. — Banno
Nothing mystical about a knife in your kidney. That matter is much more basic than you would have it. — Astrophel
But there is something in the occurrent event of misery, I mean while one is actually miserable, that needs attention. the habit we have, and this I take to be seriously understood, the habit that language imposes of the world both lifts it into understanding as well as silences and occludes. What I am saying is that the "magic" is magical to you because is unfamliar. Face it, Heidegger was right: the more science and technology dominates thinking regarding the place and status of what it is to be human, the more the powerful and profound are pushed out of existence, and by existence, read the manner of our thoughts and feelings. Cell phones are more real to modern sensibilities than existential matters. The fact that almost no one at all takes up such matters is exactly what makes them strange and magical.
That knife in the kidney. Answer me this: what would be a complete analysis of teh bare features of the one sitting there in misery? Spare me the medical contingencies, as well as what a biologist might say, or an evolutionist. Just observe what is there sitting before you.
Clue: there is in the event, at its final determination, something that defies explanation, but is the most salient feature. — Astrophel
The "most accessible possible examination" is your interaction with others, which is there for all to see.
An attempt to base ethics on private self-reflection will lead to nonsense. And does.
Ethics isn't an armchair self-examination. It's about getting out in the world, being amongst others, interacting. — Banno
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