Oh I see. I misconstrued your post. I’ll look up the link.

Edit: philosophically what would make us not harm? For instance if the answer to the question was the existence of a Higher Power then we would live according to the expectation of that Power. What would be the cause doing no harm?

What would be the cause doing no harm? — Brett

I can't make sense of this.

No you wouldn’t, I left out a word.

What would be the cause of us doing no harm?

What would compel us?

What would be the cause of us doing no harm? — Brett

Intellectual habit (i.e. reasoning).

To wit: By deriving my philosophical question from the 'ancient maxim' above, and then non-fallaciously, coherently and consistently applying the answer to that 'ancient maxim' in practice.

What would compel us?

Moral habit (i.e. judging).

What would compel us?
Moral habit (i.e. judging). — 180 Proof

So then I think the question and answer that would lead to your choice would be “Is there objective morality?”.

If that was the case then morality would compel us to do no harm. Even though you place reasoning before morality.

lot of things don't make sense to us, but maybe when you consider the bigger picture things change a bit. — BitconnectCarlos

If I was to chose a Higher Power it would be because that power was perfect; it could not be anything but perfect.

I can’t think of any reason such a Power would find suffering to have any purpose. And if it did I could not accept a world like from such a Power.

If I’m to chose a question that leads to a better future then there has to be less or no suffering at all in it. So I’m back to rejecting my choice of a higher power.

No. If you follow the link provided, it's suggested that 'intellectual & moral habits' are complementary like a parallax. The question "Is morality objective?" is derivative, or uselessly meta, and trivial compared to "What is - do I/we find - hateful?" Harm (as pointed out via the link in my first post to this thread) is objective, and, as Popper says, 'inherently appeals' for help (to alleviate it); in this way, harm's 'solicitude' is moral. Besides, we avoid harm just as we avoid e.g. hunger — any dysfunction, or defect, constitutive of our species — in order to regain-maintain homeostasis; and thus we learn, or become eu-socialized, to anticipate-avoid and respond to others', like our own, calls ... cries ... appeals for help.

:point: What you find harmful, do not do to anyone.

“No” refers to what?

To the point(s) made in your previous post.

I can’t think of any reason such a Power would find suffering to have any purpose. And if it did I could not accept a world like from such a Power. — Brett

IMO suffering often does have a purpose and it can teach us important lessons. That's one of the reasons children are so naive; a lot of them haven't really struggled with making ends meet or experienced tragedy either. Often growth comes from suffering or struggle.

Tragedy is a part of life, no way around it. Your parents are probably (hopefully) going to die before you and that's gonna suck. If you want an existence with absolutely no suffering you're talking about non-existence, and you're in the same boat with one of our users named schopenhauer who always argues it would be better if humans never existed but continues to exist himself.

@Brett I tend to agree with Mr. Carlos, that suffering and tragedy are simply part of life, and that having to endure them can be beneficial; but it seems liberal democracy has no taste for this, as there are always public awareness campaigns being waged in them against one or another of the societal ills that exist and will always exist despite our most strenuous efforts to eliminate them, for example, “the war against poverty”, or against homelessness, or hunger or racism, the call for world peace, etc, etc, each of which hopes to put an absolute end to the evil it strives against, rather than simply diminish it.

In one of his letters to Lucilius, a friend who aspired to philosophy, Seneca exhorts him to neglect all his affairs for her sake, to which he responded that he first needed to put his affairs in order so that he not end up a pauper; to which the philosopher replied, “and how do you know that poverty is not more beneficial to the philosopher than wealth?” and he goes on to list several such benefits.

Consider Socrates: everyone knows he had well-placed powerful young aristocratic friends whom he might have enlisted to usher him secretly into exile, but he chose to die at the hands of Athens’ court instead. Why? Because he was old; because adherence to the laws of his political community were part of his moral (not intellectual) teaching, but, most importantly, because it might just prove beneficial to philosophy herself for her to have a champion martyr in her legacy...which hope, thanks to the writings and remembrances of men like Plato and Xenophon, held true for many hundreds of years after his “timely” death.

It appears to me that a necessary quality of the truth you seek, Brett, is that it be beneficial to the future of mankind, but that may be rather the essential question: is truth beneficial to mankind? It is undeniably beneficial to the philosopher, who, more than anything else, wishes to understand how the world works, and is sometimes willing to endure hardship or even death to achieve it; but some of the healthiest and happiest communities have prospered by believing in the most outrageous myths.

It seems to me a student of the human condition, far from assuming that it be an axiom that suffering be eliminated, would take suffering as a postulate, and reason therefrom: what does it mean that human beings must suffer? should be the question he asks.

I tend to agree with Mr. Carlos, that suffering and tragedy are simply part of life, and that having to endure them can be beneficial; but it seems liberal democracy has no taste for this, as there are always public awareness campaigns being waged in them against one or another of the societal ills that exist and will always exist despite our most strenuous efforts to eliminate them, for example, “the war against poverty”, or against homelessness, or hunger or racism, the call for world peace, etc, etc, each of which hopes to put an absolute end to the evil it strives against, rather than simply diminish it. — Todd Martin

I think there might be a slight misunderstanding in terms of what I was saying here. I am not against fighting poverty or homeless and I don't view these as inevitable parts of society. When I wrote that life is suffering I wasn't saying that certain social conditions are inevitable; I was saying that even if we managed to eliminate these social problems suffering is still intrinsic to the human experience.

No matter what your background is you're going to have to go through the deaths of your grandparents as well as parents, unless you die first. You're going to outlive your pets. We all have peers: What, are we going to be better than our peers in everything imaginable? That would probably be its own form of suffering. We're all deeply connected with the welfare of your families and communities, so any misfortune there has ripple effects. Freak accidents happen and they always will happen. Nobody - and I don't care what the society is - is coming out of life without a scratch.

:fire:

[quote="180 Proof;

The question "Is morality objective?" — 180 Proof

That wasn’t my question.

This was the question I would ask of all possible questions in relation to the exercise I talked about in my post.

is there a higher power and is there an objective morality? — Brett

That’s different from “Is morality objective?”

If there’s an objective morality then it would make sense to live by it because it would mean the universe is moral and so are we by nature. In fact we could not be anything but moral.

In relation to the OP the question is addressed to which, if asked and answered in the affirmative, would lead to a better future. Ideally a perfect future, if not to a better future.

484024"]If, as an experiment, we were able to choose one question from a philosophical point of view [ ... ] and then having asked the right question, secured the answer, the truth, and made the decision to live by that choice [ ... ] what should the question be?
— Brett
Answer: Harm.

Question: What is - do I/we find - "hateful"?

and then strive to live by the ancient maxim:

What you find hateful, do not do to anyone.[/quote]

Question: What is - do I/we find - "hateful"?

and then strive to live by the ancient maxim:

What you find hateful, do not do to anyone.[/quote]

It seems to me that asking “What is hateful?”, which causes harm, doesn’t offer a result in terms of making a better future. To strive to live by the ancient maxim is not an answer because it begs the question what is needed for us to strive to do no harm?

So what would that be: a Higher Power, an objective morality, wisdom or something you think would convince us not to harm?

IMO suffering often does have a purpose and it can teach us important lessons. — BitconnectCarlos

If you want an existence with absolutely no suffering you're talking about non-existence, — BitconnectCarlos

I was saying that even if we managed to eliminate these social problems suffering is still intrinsic to the human experience. — BitconnectCarlos

If I was to chose a Higher Power it would be because that power was perfect; it could not be anything but perfect.

I can’t think of any reason such a Power would find suffering to have any purpose. And if it did I could not accept a world like from such a Power.

If I’m to chose a question that leads to a better future then there has to be less or no suffering at all in it. So I’m back to rejecting my choice of a higher power. — Brett

First of all, if one believes there is a Higher Power that is perfect then I see no reason why the world created by that power should not be perfect. Therefore there is no need for suffering, for what is there to be learned through suffering?

Now if the question was “Is there an objective morality?” and the answer is yes then, as I said to 180 Proof, the universe must be moral and so must we. In that case there would still be suffering that might not be avoidable. But if we were living the objective moral life there would certainly be less suffering caused by one human to another. Not a perfect future, but a better one.

@BitconnectCarlos I don’t see any difference in our views about suffering. When I criticized the various wars against societal ills that are constantly waged in liberal democracies, that criticism was not directed at them for their effort— I too believe the world is a better place with less poverty or homelessness or hunger, etc—but for their goal: they seek to completely eradicate these evils, remove them permanently and forever from the world, rather than adopt the more reasonable and realizable goal of simply diminishing their presence.

@Brett what is to be learned from suffering? Endurance. If suffering is a necessary element of life, then what better than that morality offer us a virtue to combat it? Someone who has never suffered adversity, once he at last encounters it—and he will—is like a pugilist who has never had his teeth knocked out. When at last he does, he will stumble tearfully out of the arena, holding his bloody mouth, and concede victory to his opponent.

On the other hand, the fighter who has lost many teeth through many battles, having learned that there is no great evil in that, when he gets knocked down to the canvass shakes it off and jumps right back up and swings his fist to deliver the very next blow.

As for your notion that a perfect god would insure a perfect morality, let me offer an analogy: the perfect falling body would have an acceleration, according to Newton’s formula, of 32 ft/sec squared. Now, this holds true, of course, only under certain “perfect” conditions, namely, either if it occurs in a vacuum, or if the body is a mathematical point—neither of which ordinarily occurs in the “real” world—for the effect on the body of the medium (ordinarily, air) through which it falls corrupts the formula. This is not to say that the mathematical equation describing the perfect situation is therefore useless; all to the contrary: it is only by means of contemplating the “perfect” falling bodies that we have come to understand the nature of the imperfect “real” ones.

I suggest that the study of morality is much like that of falling bodies: one may investigate the various virtues using reason, attempting to purify them and gain an understanding of them, as did Plato’s Socrates, in their perfection, and therefore best understand the ones we actually encounter; but their perfection, though it exist in theory, will never be found in the “real” world.

The reason I have often included the words “perfect” and “real” in quotation marks is because they are ambiguous: though it never be found in nature, the perfect (or, better yet, “ideal”) falling body is, nevertheless, somehow more real, in that it is the best, or really only, representative of its various manifestations, while the “real” ones are subject to its law and are imperfect, being therefore somehow less real.

@BitconnectCarlos As a final note concerning the elimination of societal ills I ask, who would deny that homelessness and war rank among them?

Yet the hobo was a persistent feature of early American culture in the last century, and I’m sure many of them would have never traded their box-cars and tents or guitars for a comfortable apartment...

As for war, though it cause much death and suffering, it also offers the soldier, ordinarily an obscure or even dishonorable citizen, a chance to gain glory and honor.

what is to be learned from suffering? Endurance. If suffering is a necessary element of life, then what better than that morality offer us a virtue to combat it? — Todd Martin

Just to be clear, my idea of a Higher Power is completely hypothetical. The difficulty is that I’m asking people to apply logic to a something we don’t know exists or not: a Higher Power, objective morality, wisdom or why we are here. It’s a game, so we can make leaps of the imagination.

So when you talk about a perfect god you still include the existing structure of the world, I.e. your analogy about the falling body. Now maybe we could not live under any other conditions except that which now exists. But my question is, if we asked the right question (and it’s subjective because everyone has their own idea of what would make a better future), the perfect question, which does not have to be ambiguous, then you would receive the answer. If I asked is there an objective reality and the answer I received was yes, then that morality would be made clear and truthful. There would be nothing else to live by, the morality would be indisputable and we would live by it and that morality would contribute to a better future because everyone would live according to that morality. If you don’t think an objective reality would contribute to a better future I’m open to hearing about it.

An objective morality would certainly reduce the suffering in the world that is man-made. So the idea of an objective morality is limited in its success to creating a better future. The so called acts of god would continue. Though on the other hand an objective morality would mean that governments look after the communities better and so respond better to natural disasters.

The suffering of the world could only be addressed fully by a Higher Power, one, because a Higher Power is perfect and two, the universe was created by the Higher Power. Our perception of a Higher Power as we see it, through religious dogma, is limited in understanding. A true Higher Power would have no reason to create a world that included suffering. What would be the purpose of that, to teach us endurance? For what purpose would you need endurance in a world created by a perfect High Power?

Edit: I noticed the words “objective reality” appearing. That should always read “objective morality”.

The suffering of the world could only be addressed fully by a Higher Power, one, because a Higher Power is perfect and two, the universe was created by the Higher Power. Our perception of a Higher Power as we see it, through religious dogma, is limited in understanding. A true Higher Power would have no reason to create a world that included suffering. What would be the purpose of that, to teach us endurance? For what purpose would you need endurance in a world created by a perfect High Power? — Brett

Who’s to say this ‘High Power’ is done creating perfection? There is an assumption here that the creative process is already complete, and that what we refer to as ‘suffering’ is to be endured by ‘created beings’, rather than as a consequence of conscious or willing participation in the creative process.

Who’s to say this ‘High Power’ is done creating perfection? — Possibility

We haven’t decided the Higher Power even exists. But if so, and even being perfect, it doesn’t negate the possibility that the creative process would still be happening.

On the other hand I don’t see why a Higher Power would need to work on creating the perfect world. A perfect world would be created instantly as a single Higher Power thought. A process suggests time and trial and error, a plan. A single thought, how much is needed for that to happen? It comes to us fully formed.

I was tempted to agree with you but from my perspective it’s not convincing enough. So my position on the perfect question to ask with the affirmative answer is still “Is there a Higher Power?”

I get that this is hypothetical - for me, the question ‘is there a Higher Power?’ is simply one iteration of the contradiction at the core of existence. As Trinity says: ‘It is the question that drives us’, but ‘what is the Matrix?’ is not the question - it’s just an attempt to consolidate the question, for which existence is the answer.

This brings us right back to where we struggle to reach a mutual understanding. I disagree that thoughts come to us fully formed - they are constructed from interrelating potentiality. There is nothing to suggest that a perfect world does not exist as a Higher Power idea that we’re struggling to consolidate into a thought.

Just out of interest what would your question be? It has to be one that is answered by a simple yes.

Could anything be possible?

Whether you refer to it as a Higher Power, objective truth/morality, unconditional love, the Absolute, pure possibility or existence itself, you manifest both the question and the answer in every relation. To state the question is to limit it to concepts in a grammatical structure which, according to Rovelli, “developed from our limited experience, before we became aware of its imprecision when it came to grasping the rich structure of the world.”

You may notice that posters here have offered questions that appear more open-ended, but are really more confining: how do we gain wisdom? What is hateful? To which any answer consolidates further into particular value systems.

To state the question is to limit it to concepts in a grammatical structure — Possibility

Then so be it. That’s the ground the OP works on. So what would your question be?

Edit: sorry was that your question: could anything be possible?

Edit: sorry was that your question: could anything be possible? — Brett

Yes.

To clarify, this is not the same as ‘is anything possible?’ or ‘is there anything at all?’. There is a deliberate ambiguity to my question that gives freedom to the faculties of imagination, understanding and judgement.

It seems to me that asking “What is hateful?”, which causes harm, doesn’t offer a result in terms of making a better future. — Brett

"Hateful" being synonymous with harmful (as I reflect), the latter was neither stated nor implied to be an effect of the former.

And as my first post makes clear from edits in quoting your OP, Brett, my concern with positing and then answering a 'philosophical question' is for living presently rather than, according to your premise, "making a better future" (which, to my thinking is a category mistake: philosophy is not comparable to politics, or vice versa).

Apparently you're misreading me.

To strive to live by the ancient maxim is not an answer ...

Quite, surely not the one I gave. My answer is harm.

... because it begs the question what is needed for us to strive to do no harm?

Not at all. Taking direction from the OP, "my experiment" consists in examining that ancient maxim only for clarity's sake, focussing on the key word "hateful", which when examined closer, translates as synonymous with harmful (if substituted for "hateful" in the maxim), or more concretely, with harm; and, only then, the ancient maxim can be more reliably applicable to everyday living. No question is begged because the answer I proferred is not to your question but to my own.

So what would that be: a Higher Power, an objective morality, wisdom or something you think would convince us not to harm?

You're moving the goalposts. The OP makes no mention of having or trying to "convince" anyone of anything or to accept anything they do not already accept. I've already accepted this ancient maxim: my "philosophical question" only concerns uncovering the extent of its meaning(s). 'Why', one might ask, 'have I accepted the maxim'? Well, that's a biographical matter and not a philosophical one ... so not relevant to the OP.

Anyway, apparently, we practice philosophy quite differently, Brett. For instance, I understand 'philosophical questions' to be reflective inquiries in search of conceptual ways to (creatively, adaptively) reformulate pseudo-problems in order to either dissolve them, or, at most, make them tractable (i.e. nonphilosophical, or solvable problems); thus, *existential-conceptual clarity (i.e. disambiguation and determinancy), not "The Truth", is, as I see it, (the) philosophical task.

*lucidity (Camus, et al)

"Hateful" being synonymous with harmful (as I reflect), the latter was neither stated nor implied to be an effect of the former. — 180 Proof

Harm (I posited that answer to my question). — 180 Proof

Answer: Harm.

Question: What is - do I/we find - "hateful"? — 180 Proof

You say here that harm is your answer to the question but deny it in your recent post.

And as my first post makes clear from edits in quoting your OP, Bretr, my concern with positing and then answering a 'philosophical question' is for living presently rather than, according to your premise, "making a better future" (which, to my thinking is a category mistake: philosophy is not comparable to politics, or vice versa). — 180 Proof

Why should you put the question in the category of politics? Just so you can rebuke it the OP? And how do you feel so confident in determining what and what is not a philosophical question?

“So what would that be: a Higher Power, an objective morality, wisdom or something you think would convince us not to harm?”

You're moving the goalposts. The OP makes no mention of having or trying to "convince" anyone of anything or to accept anything they do not already accept. — 180 Proof

I’m not moving the goalposts. The question you put forward, in relation to the OP, is

my experiment" consists in examining that ancient maxim only for clarity's sake, focussing on the key word "hateful", which when examined closer, translates as synonymous with harmful (if substituted for "hateful" in the maxim), or more concretely, with harm; and, only then, the ancient maxim can be more reliably applicable to everyday living. — 180 Proof

By you or by all those around you? How is it to be applied? By force, by the moral question, by examining the maxim for clarity? That is the convincing I’m referring to.


Edit: if philosophy is not an attempt to make living in the world more understandable to more people and to consequently create a better future then what is its purpose?

There is a deliberate ambiguity to my question that gives freedom to the faculties of imagination, understanding and judgement. — Possibility

Which is no help at all.

Maybe we could turn the whole idea around and find the perfect answer, then work out what question must have been asked in order to elicit this answer, sort of like the quiz show Jeopardy.