I don't know why I have nipples, nor do I know why I have fingers or toes. — Metaphysician Undercover

You don't know why you have fingers and toes? You never use them?

Looking at the way I use some parts of my body doesn't necessarily tell me why I have those parts.

Looking at the way I use some parts of my body doesn't necessarily tell me why I have those parts. — Metaphysician Undercover

Seriously? You are telling me you have no idea why you have fingers and toes?

You are an expert in the branch of philosophy that deals with the first principles of things, including abstract concepts such as being and knowing and you don't know what fingers and toes are for?

Wow......

As I said, that I use fingers and toes for certain purposes doesn't mean that this is the reason why I have them. You are confusing the purpose of the user with the purpose of the designer. I did not design my body, so how I use the parts of it does not reflect why those parts are there.

As I said, that I use fingers and toes for certain purposes doesn't mean that this is the reason why I have them. — Metaphysician Undercover

No that is true. You do not have fingers and toes for the reason you use them. :rofl:
You use them in unreasonable ways. :lol:
It is really quite unreasonable you have fingers and toes. :cry:
It is really quite unreasonable that you use them for certain purposes. :sweat:
There is absolutely no reason you have fingers and toes at all. :chin:
That you use fingers and toes is not a reason for you to have them. :groan:

Now here I can agree with you!

Nietzsche, the expert on nihilism, would say that we must give our fingers, toes and nipples a goal. But we seem to have excessively goaled ourselves into utilitarian hell. "I don't have enough money or security to be good" is the common sentiment, most are travailing merely to stay solvent or avoid the very real possibility that their occupational interests will collapse, and too busy covering their vulnerable toosh for reflection and innovative problem-solving. Not that everyone ever would be substantially rational even in ideal conditions, but we can do a lot better than leading lives that generally revolve around all-consuming work, intimidation, self-defense, countermeasures to destroyed reputation, shallow publicity and the coercion of citizens isolated by financial mechanisms.

I never comment on Nietzsche, I regard him as a damaged person.

I’m intending to study Horkheimer and Adorno, The Dialectics of Enlightenment, instead.

Adorno's moral philosophy is similarly concerned with the effects of 'enlightenment' upon both the prospects of individuals leading a 'morally good life' and philosophers' ability to identify what such a life may consist of. Adorno argues that the instrumentalization of reason has fundamentally undermined both. He argues that social life in modern societies no longer coheres around a set of widely espoused moral truths and that modern societies lack a moral basis. What has replaced morality as the integrating 'cement' of social life are instrumental reasoning and the exposure of everyone to the capitalist market. According to Adorno, modern, capitalist societies are fundamentally nihilistic, in character; opportunities for leading a morally good life and even philosophically identifying and defending the requisite conditions of a morally good life have been abandoned to instrumental reasoning and capitalism. Within a nihilistic world, moral beliefs and moral reasoning are held to have no ultimately rational authority: moral claims are conceived of as, at best, inherently subjective statements, expressing not an objective property of the world, but the individual's own prejudices. Morality is presented as thereby lacking any objective, public basis.* The espousal of specific moral beliefs is thus understood as an instrument for the assertion of one's own, partial interests: morality has been subsumed by instrumental reasoning. Adorno attempts to critically analyse this condition. He is not a nihilist, but a critic of nihilism.

https://www.iep.utm.edu/adorno/#H4

* You see that attitude expressed here in almost every thread.

You did say “for example” but 60% is WAY too high. Only 25% of individuals make more than the mean individual income of about $50k/yr, while about 50% make less than half of that, under $25k/yr. Just keeping a roof over your head is a constant struggle for most people, and the vast majority have no financial safety net at all. I’m just barely in that top 25% myself and I live in the shittiest trailer park in town, still renting the land it’s parked on.

Nietzsche, the expert on nihilism — Enrique

I would consider myself also to be an expert on nihilism and I am financially quite comfortable.
I am however looking to ..

give my fingers, toes and nipples a goal — Enrique

Not so much my nipples.
But
would know what to do with them. He has got man breasts.

I am of the opinion, if people didn't have something to struggle for we would lose the will to live. We have to have aspirations. I think one of the greatest challenges facing mankind would be boredom and loneliness and general nihilism.

Everyone certainly needs challenges and stimulation, but as far as social engineering, I think its a big misconception that struggle somehow facilitates cognitive growth or any evolutionary process in general. Its favorable conditions that foster the persistence of new mutations and diversification of niches. Resistance and harsh environments ossify evolving forms into a few rigid, unalterable types, if survival is possible at all. Think of how many more species live in the Amazon rainforest compared to the Arctic. Life, including the human mind, can create, differentiate and select itself in such a huge, complex variety of ways that forcibly imposing a particular scheme of concepts and value judgements is completely inadequate to theorize let alone successfully plan human evolution. Prolonged obligation to contend with a non-negotiable set of ideas produces neurotic fixations and degrades rationality. We've probably made a miniscule fraction of the advancement civilization was truly capable of.

I think it would be great if we could make human culture the Amazon rainforest of altruism, but so many huge psychological and institutional barriers. That's not to say moderate stress can't shock the human system out of ennui, but the duress itself is not conducive to enhancement of thought and behavior. Antagonism is an inhibitor, its the possibility of real security between the inevitable periods of what needs to be temporary, non-threatening, relationally non-destructive conflict that produces personal and social progress. But self-defense as preemptive, conspiratorial sabotage might always be a popular choice. The perception of possible advantage certainly feels like success.

He has got man breasts.

Since you all undoubtedly want my opinions, I assert that man breasts are neither pragmatic nor ideal.

...moral claims are conceived of as, at best, inherently subjective statements, expressing not an objective property of the world, but the individual's own prejudices. Morality is presented as thereby lacking any objective, public basis.

Values are such a grey area, everyone knows what's morally good, but if it causes you pain or disadvantage, it begins to seem so inadequate, almost like a means to sucker populations into unequal standing. As Enlightenment Kant said, to the extent that our moral judgements are rational, this is "practical reason", a veneer of universal pragmatisms, not even close to satisfying human nature's vast assortment of personal preferences. That's why Kant describes the fundamentals of civic morality as a matter of duty, not pleasure.

As Enlightenment Kant said, to the extent that our moral judgements are rational, this is "practical reason", a veneer of universal pragmatisms, not even close to satisfying human nature's vast assortment of personal preferences. That's why Kant describes the fundamentals of civic morality as a matter of duty, not pleasure. — Enrique

Can you unpack this a little more, for me? Specifically, I’m wondering where the notion of veneer of universal pragmatisms comes from.

Not to mention 'nature's vast assortment of personal preferences......'

I’m wondering where the notion of veneer of universal pragmatisms comes from. — Mww

If it were up to us we would just shit in the street, but a veneer of universal pragmatism prevents us from doing that. That then becomes the

fundamentals of civic morality as a matter of duty, not pleasure. — Enrique

I'm referring to the categorical imperative, if we can will an act with import for the well-being of the community to be a universal law, then it is moral and we have a duty to abide by it, and are actually worthy of more respect the harder it is for us to abide by it. "Everyone must like koalas", not significant enough to be of moral relevance. "Everyone must work at least forty hours a week", not realistic, necessary or logistically sensible. "Thou shalt not kill" wouldn't please every human all the time, and this is attributable to a huge range of causes, natural temperament, situational pressures, but if we all conformed to the directive, no war, no military spending, no risk or fear of violence, it would make the world a universally better place. Its not a natural law, but it would work so well that we can regard it as a fundamental moral precept to be upheld however possible, a valid human ideal at the very least. According to Kant, the "conditions of the possibility of experience" in the context of human values transcend pure reason's scope, not intrinsically formative to all human knowing like the experience of spatial structure for instance, but reasoning can arrive at some universalizable principles by considering practical consequences.

According to Kant, the "conditions of the possibility of experience" in the context of human values — Enrique

First, I don’t know where the context of human values relates to the conditions of experience. If you’d said the “conditions of moral worthiness in the context of human values”, I wouldn’t take so much exception. But the conditions of human experience are space and time alone, which have nothing whatsoever to do with the pure practical reason of moral determinations.

Second, granting the general obscurity of Kantian prose allows us to somewhat freely interpret what he is saying. From that, it can be found that the will doesn’t act. Rather, the will chooses its principles, called maxims, from which the “commands of reason, re: imperatives, are derived, and such imperatives reflect pure practical reason, insofar as the imperative of categorical nature is treated as a law. The moral quality of a person is given by his respect for that law and the recognition of his duty in obligation to it, without regard to the object of his subjective inclinations.

Again, even granting some interpretive freedom, the following seems to deny that freedom:

“...There is therefore but one categorical imperative, namely, this: Act only on that maxim whereby thou canst at the same time will that it should become a universal law....”

“It” is the maxim, not the act. The will does not determine the act, it determines the principle that becomes a maxim. The imperative doesn’t determine the act either; it just tells us the “ought” of our moral constitution. Pure practical reason determines the act.

Most imperatives are “hypotheticals” and do indeed do not prohibit us from succumbing to the influence of desires and wants. Only the categorical carries the power of law, and thus the possibility of moral worthiness, and for no other reason than to give ourselves an irreducible ground, a rational base for qualifying our sense of personal morality.

Anyway......just sayin’. Your writing is close enough for hereabouts, so you can leave mine behind as just another interpretation, if you wish. Thanks for your clarifications.

Yeah, I understand those as subjective inclinations, wants, desires and such. Dunno how pragmatism got into moral judgements though, which does its best to thwart all those inclinations. And it isn’t practical reason for moral judgements, its pure reason, but with practical, objective, predicates. And civic morality has external legislation, but moral judgements have internal legislation, the former is juridical duty of right, the latter is ethical duty of virtue.

Just seemed all mixed up to me, even if the gist was pretty close.

Ok. Thanks.

Pragmatic Idealism is fine, for an individual.

Personally, I don't see this "us", I'm by myself here. My feelings, my thoughts, my interpretations, my resources, my knowledge, my circumstances, my desires, my friends, my philosophies, beliefs and ideals. I can as an intellectual exercise consider what might be best for some "us", the humans who are here and the humans that will come and for specific people, like you or perhaps the needy.

However, there are things I have barely any control over and things I have complete control over. I don't trust most people and I actively distrust those with power. People with good intentions think they should be trusted, the only obstacle to trust is unfamiliarity, not true. They can trusted if you go along with their good intentions, otherwise, then you are I don't know... "lacking free will and rationality"?

That's the truth about power, there are things people will put up with when they don't have it, rational debate is just the most effective tool. Idealism quickly becomes tyrannical but it needs power.

I've got "self-control, free will and rationality" but I'm me and you're you and that's not a bridge that can be gapped. There's no unconditional "us".

Not as idealistic as Kant, didn't "write it on the tablet of my heart", as the Bible says. lol But we can discuss it, I'll come back to you guys with somethin'. Anyone else who's got some moral ideations, go ahead!

I seem to recall Kant not claiming that morality is essentially rooted in the rational premises he called maxims, but rather is as metaphysically indeterminate as noumena. Maybe I was reading this into what he wrote, though I got the impression that the moral sensibility not only transcends reason in his view but also the total individual, and the pure reason you mentioned, causal structure inherent in particular phenomena, becomes practical reason as the universal moral sensibility guides human behavior, with humans accessing this universality with a sort of personal leap of faith. Commitment to individuality inherently produces a rational cogency. This is not what we technically refer to as the pragmatist movement, but it has the spirit of pragmatism by providing for citizens to naturally intuit that it will simply work, as an aspect of what it means to be human, and the presumably minor deviations attributable to temperament and circumstance are corralled by a practical duty that cannot be reasonably denied.



Without Kant's emphasis on the respectability of duty, what we could call integrity, his alleged universal laws aren't actually universalizable, and as you say, commonly subject to degeneration depending on social context. I think he may have the nature of core moral ideals honed to conceptual perfection, a firm foundation of basics that rationalizes the modern outcome of cultural history in a broadly accessible way if you can stand direct contact with his frustrating prose, probably preferable to assimilate by brief summary unless you want a chore. Infusing the categorical imperative into real world situations is a lot more complicated than being true to your human self, but its a viable place to start.


If you guys disagree somehow, bring it on!

You did say “for example” but 60% is WAY too high. Only 25% of individuals make more than the mean individual income of about $50k/yr, while about 50% make less than half of that, under $25k/yr. Just keeping a roof over your head is a constant struggle for most people, and the vast majority have no financial safety net at all. I’m just barely in that top 25% myself and I live in the shittiest trailer park in town, still renting the land it’s parked on. — Pfhorrest

If a person makes 25k where cost of living is low, and they don't have kids, they can live a pretty comfortable life (rent, food, plus money for internet/cable depending on priorities). That was my only point when I said that life could be struggle free for 60% of the population.

I make more than that, but live in a high cost of living area so that I can either pay rent or my student loans. But I would still call my life "struggle free" because that is how I choose to live.

I was not making any sort of economic point...other than kids are expensive as sh*t.

And minimum wage in California is $12 an hour...so ANY (documented) full time worker here makes 25K a year.

I think 25k SHOULD be more than enough for a comfortable living. Our desires and aspirations mean we won't be satisfied without MORE...how much more? and what exactly do we want more of? Hard to say, but everyone wants more than they have now.

But if we are storming the bastille, just let me know...even if 25K is enough for me to live comfortably...it doesn't mean others should have billions (or even dozens of millions - I am with FDR, government takes 100% over $350,000)

In places where cost of living is low, sure, $25k/yr is enough to live comfortably, but most people don't live in places where cost of living is low, because places where lots of people live are in high demand and that raises cost of living substantially. If you live in California, you understand that. I lived on $25k/yr in California for a decade and couldn't even afford an apartment to myself. Now I make more than twice that and still live in the shittiest trailer park in town.

Anyway, like I said I get that it was just an example, I just wanted to be clear that 60% of people living a struggle-free life is very very far from true. Most people live in the places where lots of people live, which are consequentially expensive places, where the kind of incomes that most people make will barely let you scrape by with zero safety net, which is not at all "struggle-free".

The quickest way to get rich is by not spending your money.

The quickest way to be rich is by already having more money than you need and lending the rest at interest to those who don’t.

You are saying, the quickest way to be rich is to be rich.

already having more money than you need and lending the rest at interest to those who don’t.
5 — Pfhorrest

Most people have more than they need but less than they want.

Most people don’t own their own homes free and clear, leaving them perpetually having to bribe those with more homes than they need to live in for the right just to exist somewhere, even if they magically didn’t need to consume anything. If you don’t even own a place where you have the right to sit and starve to death in peace, you still need more money with which to buy that, to just get up to zero where you don’t owe anyone anything. Ergo, most people still need more money. Most people are born already a lifetime in debt.

Anyway, like I said I get that it was just an example, I just wanted to be clear that 60% of people living a struggle-free life is very very far from true. Most people live in the places where lots of people live, which are consequentially expensive places, where the kind of incomes that most people make will barely let you scrape by with zero safety net, which is not at all "struggle-free". — Pfhorrest

Yes, I was a bit dismissive in my response. But other than the tone, I stand by it...I will use a line from your previous paragraph as an example:

I lived on $25k/yr in California for a decade and couldn't even afford an apartment to myself. — Pfhorrest

Jees...what are you the queen of England? Needing a whole apartment to yourself? :razz:

I entirely get your point, and I would absolutely vote in line with your thinking. But surely sharing an apartment is not the epitome of struggle? Isn't your desire for your own dwelling creating your suffering?

And this is coming from someone who loves the idea of living alone. Still can't afford it (and I make a decent amount more than 25k, so point conceded on the requirements for a comfortable living), but I would not say my life is full of struggle.

where the kind of incomes that most people make will barely let you scrape by with zero safety net, which is not at all "struggle-free". — Pfhorrest

I was about to argue with this a little, but it is pointless. For all practical purposes, I am with you. In the only way that matters (voting), I am definitely with you. I just want to highlight that some people can choose to be happy in the midst of an awful situation...what allows them to do this? Can it be replicated by the rest of us, or is it just a personality trait?

I just want to highlight that some people can choose to be happy in the midst of an awful situation...what allows them to do this? Can it be replicated by the rest of us, or is it just a personality trait? — ZhouBoTong

Ever heard of Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl? It was a big seller in the 1960's, one of my mother's favourites. Frankl was a psychiatrist who had been interned in the Nazi death camps and noticed that some individuals adapted much better than others to these dreadful environments, which he attributed to their ability to find meaning. 'Frankl believed that people are primarily driven by a "striving to find meaning in one's life," and that it is this sense of meaning that enables people to overcome painful experiences.

After enduring the suffering in these camps, Frankl concluded that even in the most absurd, painful, and dehumanized situation, life has potential meaning and that, therefore, even suffering is meaningful. This conclusion served as a basis for his logotherapy and existential analysis, which Frankl had described before World War II. He said, "What is to give light must endure burning."

He formed a school of psychiatry called 'logotherapy' which developed on these themes.