I don't particularly care how you respond. You asked a question, I gave you an answer.

Sure it can be talked about, but not intellectualized? Where or how are you delineating between the two?

Anyone who doesn't care how i respond is a monster.

:lol:

Ever tried to intellectualize your way into scoring a goal in a game? Can we not talk about scoring goals? Ugh, if you can't do better I'm done here.

What's funny?

I'm doing as best I can. I just was wondering why you seem to be against discussing matters of what you call the only ethical question there is. If it can't be intellectualized, then what's left there to say about the issue, at least philosophically?

Apparently what's funny is that I'm challenging your attempt to shutdown discussion of whether or not viewing ethics as intellectual makes one a monster or not. So I'll keep the discussion going; what makes one a monster for thinking So? Elaborate. Discuss with me.

just was wondering why you seem to be against discussing matters of what you call the only ethical question there is. — Posty McPostface

I'm not. The fact that I need to explain this - yeah, I'm done.

So, you haven't addressed the second part of that post, which I hoped you would. But, it's alright, I won't make the false assumption that your an authority on the matter if that's alright with you.

I didn't address it because I told you point blank that's not what I said. But sure, if you think ethical issues are best dealt with at the level of thought - as if you just cogitated hard enough ethical problems would be properly addressed - then be my guest - think away while people starve and die.

I'm fine with you being done.

Another thread silenced by the great arbiter of truth, SLX.

I'll see if I can muster a reply you deserve. I think that ethics can be intellectualized due to the fact that we do it all the time. However, as per the OP and perhaps agreeing with StreetlightX, that such questions are indeed systematically incholate. Thus, ethics can be talked about but not in the normal philosophical manner as we think it could. Hope that made some sense.

Naah, it's fine. We can carry on just fine.

All I'm saying is, it takes a special kind of (philosophical) idiot to think: "'how should one live: now there's a question that is 'systematically incohate'"; and not 'wow, wtf am I doing so wrong that I think the very question of 'systematic coherency' is at all revelant to that question whatsoever'?; 'Why does my approach bear not a single bit similarity to how people go about dealing with questions of how they should live'?; 'Why am I such a complete failure at ethical phenomenology?'. These are the questions Frankfurt might want to ask himself.

What angered me about @StreetlightX's response which I tried to express in parody, which obviously doesn't work for most people in general (sorry SLX), is that, for instance, SLX is a very intellectual person him/herself. And yet, when I simply bring up the issue, I'm told off that anyone who intellectualizes ethics is a monster. Clearly an emotional nerve has been struck. Laughing emoji indeed. Shut my inquiries down all day; I'll just inquire harder.

Of course there's an intellectual aspect to ethics; ethics is a fucking branch of philosophy. But if we emotionalize ethical problems, that's when we try to shut down attempts at inquiry with emotional shame tactics, as @StreetlightX did by labeling anyone a monster who tries to intellectualize ethics. Labeling you, Posty, SLX, and myself all as peripheral monsters at best, for people who post on philosophy forums about ethics.

So, how should one live?

I doubt you - or most people - go about intellectualizing ethics in your day to day life. Only when you talk about it on philosophical forums. Only when discussing ethics do people seem to forget how even they thenselves approach ethics.

So, this seems to be indeed a case of whereof one cannot speak thereof one ought to remain silent as I surmise from your posts, @StreetlightX?

No. Ethics is among the most pedestrian of all things. We practice it with our every breath, and we talk about it with friends, colleagues, and lovers all the time. It takes a pathology particular to philosophy to make it some mystical unsayable.

You don't know me; I can't even try to tell you that I think about ethics all the time in daily life, and that I feel awkward all the time in normal interactions because I'm hypersensitive to how people treat one another, and that I shirk away from social interactions because I hate how much people fake ethical norms in order to get ahead for their own sakes, myself included at times. I can't even tell you that; and you wouldn't believe me because you don't know me. I wouldn't believe you if you told me that. But wait, isn't that part of the problem?

Emotional response aside, isn't there some abstract reflection to be done, once we make these intuitive, emotionally ethical responses? Once we reflect on how we feel, for instance, once I reflect on what I just said in the above paragraph, doesn't some intellectual strength bear us forward?

You don't give me much to reply towards.

Respectfully, Posty, I don't think it's a case of "whereof one cannot speak, thereof one ought to remain silent." I think we can speak about how ethics and the intellect interact; I think if we can't, then we can't talk about much. If ethics is purely unintellectual, then what is it? Emotional? Primal?

Btw, and more to your point here; so what that people don't intellectualize ethics on a day to day basis? What do people intellectualize on a normal day? Nothing. Red herring.

Same boat here, although due to differing reasons.

I agree that we intellectualize ethics every day. I mean how couldn't we? But, again as per the OP it's systematically incholate to do so in my opinion also.

So then what's left to say about these profound questions, since you edited your post now? Simply doing or action?

No idea Noble. But emotional or originating from a volition, passion, or desire or love sounds close.

:lol: [there's a joke there]

To systematize ethics is definitely problematic. Ethics is complex. No one can figure out ethics; it's a bitch. But the intellect still deals with ethics. Again, otherwise ethics is just a big emotional meltdown. The sort of thing I'm very familiar with. So it's odd to me that I have to be the one to emphasize that ethics is a rational, intellectual domain. The very notion that ethics and the intellect are separate creates the very meltdowns and pathologies in which an ethical (moral?) position becomes a fundamentalism, whether religious, political, atheistic, or whatever. Suddenly, any assault on the position is poison. The attack gets shut down at all costs.