"You have to have men who are moral... and at the same time who are able to utilize their primordial instincts to kill without feeling..." — Tom Storm
I ought to of shot that dog myself, George. I shouldn't ought to of let no stranger shoot my dog.
For instance, for a Heidegger the ‘self’ is defined as an interaction with a world. — Joshs
I wonder what Garrett's position is on compassion. — Tom Storm
it's a false dichotomy to have only one, or only the other. The two are compatible. I am an independent rational mind capable of choosing my own courses of actions, and I am also suspended within a vast network of people all influencing eachother. T — Garrett Travers
Values, on the other hand, emerge out of societies through time and are dissemnitated onto individuals, by which their particular ethical inclinations will be informed. — Garrett Travers
This formulation is strikingly different from Rand's epistemology. She celebrates a selfishness of ranking what is worthwhile for oneself above other kinds of 'moral' evaluation. Her novels are fawning adorations of such qualities. Charity and compassion are depicted as subtractions from virtue, not simply elective values to be affirmed or not. — Paine
But is there any good we do when nobody is looking other than to make ourselves feel good? — TiredThinker
The benefits to the Ethical Self are intrinsic (re: thriving) in contrast to those of the Instrumental Self which are extrinsic (re: surviving); the latter is necessary, of course, but force-multiplied, so to speak, by the former is sufficient for "The Good Life" – yet the craven likes of Randian sophistry (e.g. rationalizing "cowgirl" neoliberalism) are predicated on an inversion of these priorities and/or Instrumental conduct at the expense of Ethical conduct (e.g. "rugged individualism" über alles).Instrumental conduct seeks to satisfy the self's appetites and as expediently – at the lowest "cost" – as possible (~ "doing well").
Ethical conduct, on the other hand, cultivates the self's 'habits of (nonzero-sum) cohabitating with other selves in a (shared / conflicted) commons, always already against the background of a historical society nested in – entangled with – natural ecology, by adaptively exercising such habits (~ "doing good").
Depressed people are less good? Not sure if I understand your argument. — TiredThinker
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