The idea that people's standing depends on their goodness has been common across a lot of cultures throughout history. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I misunderstood. You wrote "To dismantle this pathetic fallacy, I've devised a thought experiment." You meant a pathetic fallacy, not the pathetic fallacy. — T Clark
That being said, I would characterize calling an argument pathetic as what you call "cheap rhetorical tactic." Pot criticizing kettle, philosophically speaking. — T Clark
My basic point is that an appeal to emotion in this particular case is appropriate. It's not a fallacy at all — T Clark
Human history would be too fatuous for anything were it not for the cleverness imported into it by the weak—take at once the most important instance. All the world's efforts against the "aristocrats," the "mighty," the "masters," the "holders of power," are negligible by comparison with what has been accomplished against those classes by the Jews—the Jews, that priestly nation which eventually realised that the one method of effecting satisfaction on its enemies and tyrants was by means of a radical transvaluation of values, which was at the same time an act of the cleverest revenge. Yet the method was only appropriate to a nation of priests, to a nation of the most jealously nursed priestly revengefulness. It was the Jews who, in opposition to the aristocratic equation (good = aristocratic = beautiful = happy = loved by the gods), dared with a terrifying logic to suggest the contrary equation, and indeed to maintain with the teeth of the most profound hatred (the hatred of weakness) this contrary equation, namely, "the wretched are alone the good; the poor, the weak, the lowly, are alone the good; the suffering, the needy, the sick, the loathsome, are the only ones who are pious, the only ones who are blessed, for them alone is salvation—but you, on the other hand, you aristocrats, you men of power, you are to all eternity the evil, the horrible, the covetous, the insatiate, the godless; eternally also shall you be the unblessed, the cursed, the damned!" — Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals § 7, First Essay
I suspect Nietzsche is taking certain biblical ideas, ignoring evidence to the contrary, and then overstating these ideas and then attributing them to a shadowy priestly class behind the text and then taking liberties in describing the social context of those shadowy priests, as if they were writing against a noble and proud aristocracy. — BitconnectCarlos
Whereas talking with you in this post is objectively pointless. Have a good day and bring a better attitude next time. — Philosophim
Do you realize the irony of what you did here? Isn't this statement an appeal to emotion, popularity, and begging the question? — Philosophim
Nope, at least not in a fallacious way. For it to be an appeal to emotion fallacy, it would have to manipulate emotions to persuade you're right. Where as the thought experiment present the dilemma between two moral rules. I'm not making an appeal to persuade of correctness. Im showing the moral dilemma which shows my correctness: the damned if you do, damned if you don't scenario, not persuading with a fallacious appeal. — DifferentiatingEgg
You confuse the question "So if I desire to murder a child is that good?" as proof of an objective morality. — Philosophim
Quite true - especially considering that Chomsky was born in 1928 - 30 years after these events. — EricH
I was connected to a considerable part of the Zionist movement which was opposed to a Jewish state. It’s not too well known, but until 1942 there was no official commitment of Zionist organizations to a Jewish state. And even that was in the middle of World War II. It was a decision made in the Hotel Biltmore in New York, where there was the first official call for a Jewish state. Before that in the whole Zionist movement, establishing a Jewish state was maybe implicit or in people’s minds or something, but it wasn’t an official call.
The group that I was interested in was bi-nationalist. And that was not so small. A substantial part of the Kibbutz movement, for example, Hashomer Hatzair, was at least officially anti-state, calling for bi-nationalism. And the groups I was connected with were hoping for a socialist Palestine based on Arab-Jewish, working-class cooperation in a bi-national community: no state, no Jewish state, just Palestine. — Chomsky
There were over 200 delegates at the First Zionist Conference and the program waw adopted unanamously. — EricH
In 1942, an "Extraordinary Zionist Conference" was held and announced a fundamental departure from traditional Zionist policy[21] with its demand "that Palestine be established as a Jewish Commonwealth."[22] It became the official Zionist stand on the ultimate aim of the movement. — Your source.
"Get real bruh."I don't know where you get this notion, but it has no relationship with reality. — EricH
Do you realize the irony of what you did here? Isn't this statement an appeal to emotion, popularity, and begging the question? — Philosophim
No, a five word sentence you invented for some imaginary objective moralist, which has no evidence for being objective, is collapsing because you designed it to. — Philosophim
So if I desire to murder a child is that good? — Philosophim
Don't make me wrong either. Especially in light of the fact that your theory contradicts blatant evidence, such as that previously offered. — javra
What can that even mean? Let me guess, it means that in Greek antiquity, if they'd so want, they'd stomp on their own babies heads for the fun of it without any moral compulsion. Thereby being "premoral". — javra
Because Buddhist, Hindus and all others, the Inuit included, don't experience any of these ... not being themselves of a Judeo-Christian morality.
Yea. No. I disagree. — javra
The moral wrong here is that someone set up the contraption.
— Banno
That’s where I would have gone with the experiment. — Fire Ologist
Moral principals.
And objective “good.”
Sound like things a thought experiment won’t be able to dispel, especially one that relies on some notion of good in order for it to make any sense. — Fire Ologist
Because it's only the psychopath that does not experience this, right? — javra
Aristotle draws an example of acting from the sphere of private life, in the relationship between the benefactor and his recipient. With that candid absence of moralizing that is the mark of Greek, though not of Roman, antiquity, he states first as a matter of fact that the benefactor always loves those he has helped more than he is loved by them. — Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition
Even the Titans do not yet know the incredible Semitic
and Christian inventions, bad conscience, fault and responsibility. — Deleuze, Nietzsche and Philosophy
The tale of Prometheus is an original possession of the entire Aryan family of races, and documentary evidence of their capacity for the profoundly tragic; indeed, it is not improbable that this myth has the same characteristic significance for the Aryan race that the myth of the fall of man has for the Semitic, and that there is a relationship between the two myths like that of brother and sister. The presupposition of the Promethean myth is the transcendent value which a naïve humanity attach to fire as the true palladium of every ascending culture: that man, however, should dispose at will of this fire, and should not receive it only as a gift from heaven, as the igniting lightning or the warming solar flame, appeared to the contemplative primordial men as crime and robbery of the divine nature. And thus the first philosophical problem at once causes a painful, irreconcilable antagonism between man and God, and puts as it were a mass of rock at the gate of every culture. The best and highest that men can acquire they obtain by a crime, and must now in their turn take upon themselves its consequences, namely the whole flood of sufferings and sorrows with which the offended celestials must visit the nobly aspiring race of man: a bitter reflection, which, by the dignity it confers on crime, contrasts strangely with the Semitic myth of the fall of man, in which curiosity, beguilement, seducibility, wantonness,—in short, a whole series of pre-eminently feminine passions,—were regarded as the origin of evil. What distinguishes the Aryan representation is the sublime view of active sin as the properly Promethean virtue, which suggests at the same time the ethical basis of pessimistic tragedy as the justification of human evil—of human guilt as well as of the suffering incurred thereby. The misery in the essence of things—which[Pg 79] the contemplative Aryan is not disposed to explain away—the antagonism in the heart of the world, manifests itself to him as a medley of different worlds, for instance, a Divine and a human world, each of which is in the right individually, but as a separate existence alongside of another has to suffer for its individuation. — Nietzsche, Birth of Tragedy
“The weak” are those who have a conscious and who via its quiet affirmations experience shame and guilt for wrongdoings.
“The strong”, in turn, must then be those devoid of a conscious and who thereby experience no shame or guilt for any wrongdoing whatsoever (maybe not even recognizing that the concept of wrongdoing can apply to them). — javra
It's been a while since my reading of him, granted, but this is not the Nietzsche I know of, limited as my knowledge of him is, who I’m guessing would have for example likely kicked Hitler in the groin where he to have been around – as painfully as possible, if not worse – and who can be quoted as admiring the Jewish community at large. — javra
You have committed one of the greatest stupidities — for yourself and for me! Your association with an anti-Semitic chief expresses a foreignness to my whole way of life which fills me again and again with ire or melancholy… It is a matter of honor with me to be absolutely clean and unequivocal in relation to Anti-Semitism, namely, opposed to it, as I am in my writings.
...The fact that the Jews, if they wanted (or if they were forced, as the anti-Semites seem to want), could already be dominant, or indeed could literally have control over present-day Europe — https://newramblerreview.com/book-reviews/philosophy/nietzsche-s-hatred-of-jew-hatred
The Jews, however, are beyond all doubt the strongest, toughest, and purest race at present living in Europe, they know how to succeed even under the worst conditions (in fact better than under favorable ones), by means of virtues of some sort, which one would like nowadays to label as vices — Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
This is the pathology that Nietzsche details to the Jew, before assigning to them a mission to revamp European communities. Which is what Zionism aimed to accomplish pre 1948. — DifferentiatingEgg
The language makes it clear that Egg is looking for a fight rather that a discussion. I'm not that interested, but I'll outline an approach that might help others. — Banno
The apparent suggestion is that there is no good or evil becasue one can set up a situation in which there is no good outcome. That's not an argument which supports that conclusion. — Banno
Kicking puppies for fun is about the character of the one doing the kicking. As is setting up intractable thought experiments. Anyone can kick a pup, and perhaps find it pleasing; cruelty is part of being human. Another part of being human is growing; of realising that one is part of a community, of developing the ability to consider the long-term consequences of one's actions, of moving from self-interest to nuanced considerations of fairness, reciprocity, and social responsibility. — Banno
PM me if you want further discusion. I don't think this thread worth further response. — Banno
Moral judgments, like preferring to prevent suffering, can be deeply felt and socially reinforced without appealing to objective moral truths. — Tom Storm
The relativist can still say that pushing the button is "good" within their framework of values, even if those values are not grounded in an absolute, external moral reality. Or something like that. — Tom Storm
Neither am I, Im here to trash the fallacy of using that as a defense towards objective morality that many seem to love employing here.I'm not here to discuss the merits of whether or not it is ever acceptable to kill babies. — T Clark
Here's what Wikipedia says about the pathetic fallacy. — T Clark
For instance, appealing to pity when asking for help. — T Clark
As I see it, it is a fundamental human value that we protect the vulnerable members of our community, especially our children and more especially babies. — T Clark
Any objective moralist — Fire Ologist
My question is, for all moral relativists, why do you bother? — Fire Ologist
If there is no moral objectivity whatsoever, how can you say pushing the button to prevent the baby from suffering is “actually doing some good”? — Fire Ologist
This attempt to make sense of all senseless and useless suffering can (as we already have seen) occur in two ways. Either guilt is attributed to “someone else,” or one looks for the blame in oneself.
It is one of the deepest and most certain principles of national psychology that the Jewish people are the first—and perhaps the only—nation that has only sought solely within themselves the blame for world events.
Jewish doctrine has, since ancient times, responded to the question “Why are we not loved?” with “Because we are guilty.” Many great Jewish thinkers have perceived the central core of Jewish teaching in this formula “Because we are guilty” and in the experience of Jewish communal attribution of guilt and communal responsibility.
It's important for the reader to realize that, as in the viddui, the key to the pathology of our national consciousness lies in this acknowledgment of guilt, emphasized in the mighty Judeo-Christian ethic.
There is only one emergency exit—to make sense of this suffering and make it bearable the Jew must believe that his fate has within it a particular purpose: “God disciplines those he loves.” Within this concept of suffering as punishment lies the beginning of understanding the concept of Jewish “self-hate.”
It is different among happy, victorious peoples. They have no reason for self-flagellating, self-tormenting analysis that endangers a healthy attitude toward life and naturalself-esteem. They answer “Why does misfortune happen to us?” with a forceful accusation against those who, in their opinion, caused the misfortune.
The Jewish situation is thereby doubly endangered. First, because the Jew repliesto the question “Why are we not loved?” with “Because we are guilty.” Second, because other nations answer the question “Why are the Jews not loved?” with “He says so himself—he is guilty." — Theodore Lessing, Jewish Self-Hate.
the Cartesian 'thinking thing' is still very much written into the way we think about mind-body relations, often without us being aware of it — Wayfarer
The object cannot directly perceive its content, the information — MoK
You're not here to learn a damn thing so shoo. Tis the last I speak with you (here). — DifferentiatingEgg
But Nietzsche levels lots of scorn at Plato, Aristotle, and Kant. — Count Timothy von Icarus
I find cruel irony in that though. First, that he who disparaged the crowd became the "philosopher of the masses," and second that he became the philosopher of the masses in this era — Count Timothy von Icarus
A light hath dawned upon me: I need companions—living ones; not dead companions and corpses, which I carry with me where I will.
But I need living companions, who will follow me because they want to follow themselves—and to the place where I will.
A light hath dawned upon me. Not to the people is Zarathustra to speak, but to companions! Zarathustra shall not be the herd’s herdsman and hound!
To allure many from the herd—for that purpose have I come. The people and the herd must be angry with me: a robber shall Zarathustra be called by the herdsmen.
— Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Prologue