But, it may be that philosophy will remain a minority interest but I do think that the issue is to what extent will it survive at all. I think that it partly depends if it can be a bit less abstract and obscure in some ways. — Jack Cummins

Certainly in the foreseeable future it will survive, other posters have pointed to the role it plays alongside and in edifying scientific progress... but even more concrete and urgent is the ethical, value, and socio-political questions that will arise in the wake of developments in artificial intelligence and bio-technology.

In a way philosophy has never been this concrete and 'timely' as now because of technological advancement. As an example I'd point to the thread of guest philosopher David Pearce, if gene-editing becomes a thing (which is an ethical question in itself), then philosophy seems very relevant in trying to formulate answers to the question of what directions we should take. Another very concrete example is the question of moral and legal responsibility and AI etc...

Well in the case of BlackRock it's kind of interesting. The CEO is a lifelong Democrat, and so already buys into this stakeholder theory version of capitalism. But besides that, when it comes to asset managers, where the mentality isn't so short-term, it does well to consider things like climate change -- it's sensible, just as it is with insurance companies. Therefore, shifting investments to ESG funds (which no doubt have their issues) and promoting more transparency and accountability for climate-related strategies seems like a self-interested move. These aren't stupid people.

When it comes to industries most culpable for climate change, like Big Oil and Big Agro, while they are beginning to acknowledge climate change is real and will try to convince everyone that everything they do is "green" are always going to be the ones most resistant to change, as it directly effects their livelihoods. For asset managers, who make their money off of how much they make for their investors (along with fees), there's a different set of priorities. If they see the energy sector as unprofitable in the long term (meaning fossil fuels), it stands to reason they will divest -- if they have any sense at all and, again, this is assuming they're not idiots.

Too little too late, perhaps. — Xtrix

Yes that seems like a plausible explanation. Though I'd guess that a general shift in public opinion and demand for 'green assets' also plays a role here... by which I mean they presumably also see some direct short term profit in shifting these policies. I remember I asked specifically for investment in green funds the last time I discussed my investment strategy with my bank... I'm probably not the only one.

What do we make of this? More window-dressing? A much-needed transitional step away from Friedman/neoliberal economics? — Xtrix

Window-dressing most probably, in that they probably wouldn't do anything that doesn't benefit them in the first place and I'd assume care very little about anything else.... but that doesn't mean that some of the time what benefits them, cannot also benefit the population at large.

Noblesse oblige... Ideally we'd have no one group dominating others, but if we cannot manage that, maybe it's better to have a group identified as such, than to have nameless and invisible groups working in the background. At least they have a window to dress.... Maybe that's part of what's going on here, they are starting to feel the heat of being pushed into the light?

He tries to psychologize everything , but how can we trust his conclusions if they're not based on empirical evidence, data and hard facts. Just dreamt up from his own head . His genealogy of morals , explaining ideas in terms of their historical development to explain morality is probably flawed. — Ross Campbell

Maybe, I would like to see his ideas being really tested empirically... but do keep in mind he didn't see himself as the arbiter of truth, but rather as a 'tempter', he tried something, later to be picked up by future philosophers.... And ultimately what matters to him most was not necessarily that it was true, though I do think he was aiming for that too, but whether it was life-affirming.

sometimes I wonder why Nietzsche is so popular, so influential , is it because he's so provocative, radical, and easily misinterpreted. He seems to be unique among philosophers in that he attacks every tradition and thinker in the history of western thought. — Ross Campbell

First he writes good, and I mean really good, to the point that he spoils the taste. And yes his provocative style appeals to a certain demographic, which is maybe a bit unfortunate... because I think, 'technically' he is a really good philosopher too. Because of his style this maybe goes a bit unnoticed.

Most importantly, I think it's because he talks about something that really concerns people... namely how to live your life. People no doubt will disagree, but that's what I think philosophy is about, since the beginning, since Socrates, i.e. "what is the good life".

There doesn't seem to be any coherent social, ethical or political set of values or structures in his thinking . I think his philosophy is only of relevance to the life of an individual, it couldn't be applied to society. A Nietszean worldview would be anarchy, devoid of ethics, and of science, religion or political systems. — Ross Campbell

Yeah true, "a book for all and none"... he didn't intent to speak to everybody, or society at large, but to the individual. But that is essentially the philosophers way isn't it? What do you do when you find yourself as a thinking individual in this maelstrom of seemingly blind societal forces of tradition. Re-evaluation of values...

And maybe this is also the way to redeem his philosophy from this apparent lack of application to the political and the societal. What he was doing was at the same time more humble and more general. Maybe it's simply not feasible, and a bit of a conceit, to make widesweeping and general statements about society and politics that transcend the particular context of an author. In that case, helping posterior individuals think straight, would also be the best way to (indirectly) influence later societies and politics.

Perhaps Nietzsche's ferocious attack on Christianity was his reaction against the puritanical Victorian Church of his time which was anti semitic, misogynistic, anti gays, authoritarian and conservative. This is as Kierkegaard said a warped hypocritical version of Christianity, not the true message of Christ. I personally think Nietzsche had an agenda or a chip on his shoulder, he was hostile to democracy and modern science also which he claimed strangely were products of a Christian culture which seems absurd. — Ross Campbell

Christian culture had truth as on of it's core values...

Anyway the thing I think you need to understand about his philosophy is that he evaluated things on the axis of life-affirmation - life-denial.... that was his method. It's right there from the start, in his first book, the Apollonian VS the Dionysian. Science too is Apollonian because it tempts to measure the world and make it predictable... ultimately to reduce suffering. It's essentially the same optimism of Socrates whereby one hopes to make the world better by learning/wisdom/conceptualising the world. What keeps one going is the hope for a better world, an ideal or dreamed-up world.

The Dionysian by contrast doesn't hope for a better world, but seeks to affirm this world by valuing it in aesthetic terms, the tragic.

It is not clear what Jesus meant by "Kingdom of God is at hand". Some take it to mean a geopolitical change, but others interpreted it as a change in the person. Paul, on the other hand, is quite clear. The world was at any moment going to undergo a fundamental change with only the saved remaining as "spirit bodies" (I think he gets this from Plato's Phaedo). It, of course, did not happen.

Paul taught that we are born in sin and must be saved. The physical body is a slave to sin. Hence the saved will be "spirit bodies". The Earth will be transformed to Heaven on Earth. — Fooloso4

The kingdom of God is psychological state according to Nietzsche... a state beyond suffering, completely peaceful... by denying the world. In the symbology he often uses, it's at end of the apollonian spectrum, the dream... hence dionysus VS the crucified. The Antichrist is where he gets into this I think.

What are they? Or, more precisely, what were they before the recent response to immigration? The reason I ask is, I want some of that, and yet my fellow Americans scream "Socialism" at the top of their lungs whenever anyone mentions the tax rates and benefits in the rest of the developed world. — James Riley

Well what we have is not the accomplishment of current socialist parties, but something socialist, Christian-democrats and liberals worked out after WWII. What they are now is hard to tell actually, they have been part of the establishment so long now that that's probably what defines them the most... another faction trying to keep themselves in power.

But yeah, I get that you are sceptical of the 'socialism scare' that has been promoted in the US since the cold war. I'm not coming from that point of view.

Personally, I'm confused about all the slings and arrows toward socialism. — James Riley

I'm not against socialism, even said so explicitly, just trying to be honest about its role historically.

I'm European, most governments in Europe aren't really socialist at this point. But that's a bit besides the point. Socialist movement were fiercely anti-clerical, they sure did have a big hand in secularisation... and failed to provide a alternative story that inspired forming communities around. Now a lot of their traditional voting public have shifted to voting for extreme right parties that do try to provide some kind of story, however BS it is. Anyway that's the long story short, and probably a bit unnuanced, but I don't really have the time right now.

Edit: Or here is another angle to maybe help you understand it, socialism is somewhat of an intellectual or "dialectical" movement that is typically at odds with tradition (even aside from religion). The "people" like their traditions, it's something they can identify with and build communities around.

Dialectics is a dissolvent for traditions... Socrates VS Homer/the gods.

Then your notion of "socialism" is strange indeed, and scope of history limited. — Xtrix

No much of an argument to respond to here. I think it's pretty uncontroversial that socialism was instrumental in tearing down existing societal structures... like say religious institutions.

I'm really not sure what you're talking about here. There's risk in anything -- whether we join together or not. There is far greater risk, in my view, of clinging to this dogma of rugged individualism, and so keeping ourselves isolated and trying to "go it alone" on everything. There is far greater power in numbers, working as a team, collaboration, networking, solidarity, education, etc. This is the only point. It has been systematically beaten out of people's heads for decades.

You appear to be overthinking it. — Xtrix

The point you are making (one which I agree with to be clear) has implication, not mere eventualities or risks... and I'm not sure people realise this and/or are willing to accept those implications.

Maybe I'm overthinking it, or maybe most don't think things through far enough... It's easy to point at this or that in isolation, it's another thing to figure out how things hang together and what the ramifications are of changing one variable in the equation. I'm saying individualism is a package deal of sorts with other things we might or might not value. I agree with you point, and I was looking to take it bit further... but it's fine, we can leave it at this.

I don't know if we're just talking (metaphorically) different languages here, but this juxtaposition makes no sense to me. What people hope and wish for is usually a central part of what communities are "actually" build around. — Echarmion

Here's how to make sense of it. There were no marxist communities, but political parties that in most countries didn't get to rule the community. When a community is 'actually' build around an ideology you have institutions that represent and embody those ideas... like say the church in Western Christian communities of old.

That's basically the exact opposite of how I see things. The whole reason Marxism was so powerful and ended up so terrible was because it had, as it's goal, a powerful utopian vision - the classless society. A Rousseauean paradise. And because it was such a grand goal, people were willing to do grand things for it - including grand destruction. — Echarmion

Maybe what I said makes more sense in light of my answer above. Marxism was aiming to tear down existing structures and institutions that embodies ideologies that where counter to marxist ideology. You cannot have marxism if those institutions are still operating.

Marxism didn't "build" the communities, or "Marxist" states... it usually had to devolve into some kind a authoritarian person-cult to created some kind of shared ideology (i.e. Stalin, Mao, Castro etc...)
— ChatteringMonkey

This view isn't compatible with the evidence. There were significant Marxist movements around the world, united by a shared vision. They were occasionally close to coming to power in Germany and France. Nor can either the USSR or the PRC be reduced to "Stalinist personality cult". In the beginning, genuine hope and Identification with the ideals of Marxism existed. And there was genuine societal transformation that is visible until today, for example in the area of women's rights. — Echarmion

I'm not denying that some people genuinely hoped that they could built a Marxist state. But i'm not talking about what people hoped or wished for, I'm looking at what existing communities actually were built around. Marxist movements where political movements looking to overthrow the existing structure, looking to tear down... in the first place. Whatever came after was something else. Maybe we can quibble about the details of what it exactly was, but I think my original point still stands, ideologies of the left don't really offer us something substantial to build communities around.

And I mean this shouldn't be surprising really, if you look at what the common values of the left are, they are critical or reactionary for the most part... they don't stand on their own. It's freedom from something else, non-discrimination in reaction to some discriminatory traditional practice, equality as a reaction to inequalities created by existing societal structures, etc...

Marxism is literally the most powerful political movement in recent history. The only movements of comparable scope and influence are the major world religions (and perhaps capitalism, though there is an interesting discussion about that to be had). Given the tremendous influence on world history exercised by this ideology, it seems weird to claim that it hasn't "build" anything. — Echarmion

Marxism didn't "build" the communities, or "Marxist" states... it usually had to devolve into some kind a authoritarian person-cult to created some kind of shared ideology (i.e. Stalin, Mao, Castro etc...)

So beware what you wish for. "Valuing what we do together", building communities usually implies values and stories build around common goods and goals, and those usually end up not being very sensitive to particular individuals. Or do we really think we can have our cake and eat it too?
— ChatteringMonkey
No, I think this is backwards anyway. Once the original sense of community is lost, it cannot be rebuild. It's like an arm that was cut off and then sewn back on: it's never quite the same and doesn't have the same functionality. — baker

I dunno if that is true. It's seems to me that given the chance people will look for ways to build communities, i'm thinking of fans of sports-club for instance, or even the recent rise of far-right/nationalism/populism can be seen under that light. It won't be the same (and maybe that's a good thing), but new forms of community will be built it seems to me.

Just read this, by Anand Giridharadas, which also sums up nicely what I was driving at before:


The only solutions to our biggest shared challenges are solutions that have the following four characteristics: they're public, institutional, democratic, and universal. In other words, they solve the problem at the root, for everyone.

Anybody trying to sell you the notion that they have some quick-win, low-hanging-fruit, fill-the-gap thing that happens to be funded by the people causing the problem is trying to sell you a bill of goods.

What we have to do is reclaim the story that what we do together is more interesting, more compelling, more powerful, more valuable, than what we do alone.

The religion of the neoliberal era, the spiritual tradition of the neoliberal era, has been the notion that what we do alone is better and more beautiful than what we do together.

That was a massive propaganda push. It's incredibly counterintuitive. It goes in defiance of most traditions in the world, so it took a lot of work, but they did it. They pulled it off.

Margaret Thatcher literally saying, "There's no such thing as society” — which of your ancestors in any community around the world would have understood the notion that there's no such thing as society, only individual men and women?

That is a profoundly modern idea, a bullshit idea, a ridiculous idea, that none of our ancestors would have recognized, because all of our ancestors, wherever they came from, understood that they live in societies and would have felt dead to not live in societies of people with whom they had interdependence.

Over the last 40 years, we got sold this fraudulent religion, which only benefits those at the top, that what we do alone is great — and what we do together is corrupt, is tyrannical, is evil. It's false. It has hurt untold numbers of people. It's come crashing and burning down with Covid, which is the ultimate expression of a phenomenon where being left alone is literally death.

It's time to reclaim the story and venerate the tradition of valuing what we do together.
— Giridharadas

I agree wholeheartedly. — Xtrix

It's not just neo-liberal ideology that is to blame though, that's only part of the story I'd say and a bit short-sighted. Socialism historically has been instrumental in breaking down any societal story that connects communities, be it religion, nationalism, ethnic traditions etc... . Granted a lot of those stories are suspect in that they also serve to justify certain power structures and all inequalities and injustices that come with that. But still, what have ideologies on the left been other than 'critical', i.e. aimed at tearing down something rather than building up a community around shared ideas.

Recent woke/identity politics are only the next iteration and further splintering of shared categories that may bind a communities together into something more than a collection of individuals. The focus is for the most part on how any cultural tradition/practice discriminates or impinges on individuals freely expressing their particular individuality. The idea that an individual might in some cases have to give up some of their individuality for a common good is almost blasphemous...

Anyway, my intention is not to bash the left here, just to say that neo-liberalism is far from the only cause, and that if there is to be a solution (i.e. "valuing what we do together") we probably should take all causes into account.

So beware what you wish for. "Valuing what we do together", building communities usually implies values and stories build around common goods and goals, and those usually end up not being very sensitive to particular individuals. Or do we really think we can have our cake and eat it too?

I'm having a hard time pointing out what apathy may be about; anyone care to elucidate? — Shawn

Yeah, i've been thinking about for a bit and read the wiki baker referred to, which was rather un-illuminating apart from maybe the following sentence:

"Another sign is a lack of caring, of being unfeeling about things, whether that be your appearance, hygiene, your relationships, your community's welfare, the world's welfare etc.; all of this, Norris relates, is connected to the hopelessness and vague unease that arises from having too many choices, lacking true commitment, of being "a slave from within".

It think the bolded part is a step in the right direction. I think it's not just laziness as an 'uncaused temperamental disposition', but seems to me to be caused by being overwhelmed by a seemingly insurmountable amount of things that need to be done to get where you ideally want to be... to the point that you come to view everything as pointless as you realize your ideal can't be met. So I'd say it's a sort of frustrated or burned-out idealism.

Willy has the agency not to create the world or rather not to force others into the world in the first place, no? — schopenhauer1

There's no real world equivalent for Willy. Like who does the forcing or creating? Not a single person, by a single action... how do you assign agency to something that happens over time compounding actions by many people?

What happens if Willy can imagine other worlds that are better, but the best he can do is create the one described in the OP? — schopenhauer1

Then it cannot be something to be blamed for morally. Moral evaluations require some agency typically, the ability to do otherwise...

In any case, I take it you meant the thought experiment to shed some light on the real world. I don't think it does, because we indeed don't have the ability to create any world we want... and there is no one Willy that created this world to begin with.

If Willy can create any world he wants, then no, creating this one doesn't seem particularly moral.

What if nothing eventually can win against entropy? Does it then make everything meaningless? — niki wonoto

No, meaning isn't solely defined by ultimate outcomes... what we do in between also matters.

Entropy has a beneficent effect allowing us to make change in determined systems. — ghostlycutter

I don't think entropy "effects" anything, it's a description. What allowed us to happen is the fact that the universe was low entropy at the start, moving to progressively higher entropy.

To use Sean Carroll's, referenced by Manuel, analogy of coffee and cream, in between the original perfect division of cream and coffee (low entropy) and the ultimate perfect mixture (high entropy) is where interesting things can happen.

To understand entropy, you can best view it as a statistical law or law a chance I think. Low entropy is a state of a system that is relatively rare among all possible states of that system. High entropy then are states that are common/numerous. All things being equal, it's more likely that over time the more numerous states will occur rather that rare states.

And as things naturally will tend to higher entropy because of chance, maintaining low entropy in a subsystem requires energy from the outside... we, life in general, require energy to maintain homeostasis to fight off overall increase in entropy.

Therefor you could say that the meaning of life is literally taking in energy to fend off increase in entropy.

Part of what motivated the OP was discussion I had elsewhere, in which I articulated the thought that in an environment that overwhelmingly deadens human flourishing, a sense of joy can almost function as an ethical imperative. Joy as a militant practice. Inspired in part by Audrey Lorde: "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." So this is a kind of motivated joy, one diametrically opposite to happiness as contentment. A joy that specifically cuts against the given, rather than tries to settle amongst it (as with one that would turn a blind eye). I'm mostly trying to think about how to articulate or conceptualize these two notions of happiness and joy. — StreetlightX

Yes, I like this idea. I'm tempted to view it in terms of Spinoza's and Nietzsche conception of Joy as the feeling of increase in power. In face of an environment that deadens human flourishing, that is oppressive, you presumably can go a couple of ways. One in which you tell yourself that things aren't that bad, where the 'solution' to the problem is self-deception... to be able to keep going and at the same time avoid doing something about it that may be unpleasant. And the other would be to actually try and do something about the situation, to 'empower' yourself which would feel joyous no matter if you end up having to face unpleasant situations as a result.

So I would view this in terms of empowerment, agency vs narcotic, fatalistic... or what 180proof pointed to with dionysus vs the crucified. In Nietzschian philosophy what the crucified signified was a psychological state where one no longer wants to make any distinctions because of hypersensitivity and aversion to pain, to any sensation that upsets a harmonious blissful state. Dionysus then symbolizes the reverse where one is engaged with the world as is, that is not the dreamed up Apollonian world papered over with concepts, but the world given to us by the senses. Or in terms of aims and action the difference would be that the crucified wants to attain and maintain a psychological state by denying the world (inward focus), while Dionysus experiences joy by effecting the world (outward focus).

I'm kindof repeating what you and 180proof allready said here for the most part... but I feel like it's the first time I really get what he was getting at with this distinction.

So: I think what bothers me about 'happiness' is - as least, as it strikes me intuitively - is that it tends to function as a psychological category, which is to say it is individual and 'hedonic'. — StreetlightX

Joy, on the other hand, is not a state. Rather it is an event, or it has event-like characteristics. Joy is something one undergoes: it happens to us. — StreetlightX

I had a similar intuïtion... interestingly enough if you look at the etymological roots of the words it seems to have been the other way around historically.

Happiness comes from luck (happ), being fortunate, which points more to the material state of a person in relation to the world, rather than a psychological state... something that 'happ'ens to someone.

Joy then seems to have been associated throughout history with an inner feeling, a pleasurable sensation... which would be more in line with 'hedonic'.

Don't know if this necessarily has any bearing on how we use the terms now, maybe it has, but I thought it interesting at least, if only because of the shifts in meaning.

The political part of me wants to call it 'bourgeois happiness', a happiness that allows one to turn a blind eye to injustice and even active maliciousness. — StreetlightX

If one is happy in the historical meaning of the word (lucky, fortunate) one would probably be more inclined to turn a blind eye to the injustices of a system that has benefited you more than most.

If they serve a signalizing purpose than they themselves are not bad, but the circumstances that lead to agony and despair are
— ChatteringMonkey
But their signalling "purpose" is to help our genes leave more copies of themselves. Agony and despair are still terrible even when they fulfil the functional role of maximizing the inclusive fitness of our DNA. — David Pearce

I think this more or less brings us back the original point of our exchange.

One of biological life's defining features is making more copies of the genes it is build out of.

Biological life is the origin, and so far as we know, the only thing that evaluates in this universe.

How then can one come to a conclusion that more life is bad?

Without life in the universe nothing matters either way right?

I happen to be a negative utilitarian. NU is a relatively unusual ethic of limited influence. An immense range of ethical traditions besides NU can agree, in principle, that a world without suffering would be good. The devil is in the details... — David Pearce

The devil is in the details indeed, I don't think many traditions would agree that sterilization of our forward light-cone is the most moral course of action for instance...

Anyway, I enjoyed the discussion, thanks for that.

Agony and despair are inherently bad, whether they serve a signaling purpose (e.g. a noxious stimulus) or otherwise (e.g. neuropathic pain or lifelong depression). — David Pearce

I don't think anything is really 'inherent'. If they serve a signalizing purpose than they themselves are not bad, but the circumstances that lead to agony and despair are. I'll grant you that yes, in the case of chronic pain and depression, the agony and despair are bad themselves without any signaling or other purpose... But if you permit me using the same analogy I made in my previous post, this seems to be a case of malfunctioning smokedetectors. If they go off all the time without cause, then yes they needs fixing. But some malfunctioning smokedetectors are not a reason to get rid of all smokedetection, nor does it make getting rid of smokedetection an end in itself. So by all means yes, we should try to find a solution for chronic pain and depression... I just don't think those specific cases are necessarily representative or to be generalized to all pain and pleasure.

Almost no one disputes subjectively nasty states can play a signalling role in biological animals. What's controversial is whether they are computationally indispensable or whether they can be functionally replaced by a more civilised signalling system. — David Pearce

Maybe they can be replaced or maybe they cannot, that's a technical question. What's also controversial I'd say is whether we 'should' replace them by a more 'civilised' signaling system. What is deemed more civilized no doubt depends on the perspective you are evaluating it from.

I think, and we touched on this a few pages back, a lot of this discussion comes down to the basic assumption of negative utilitarianism, and whether you buy into it or not. If you don't, the rest of the story doesn't necessarily follow because it builds on that basic assumption.

Ergo, hedonism could be a case of conflating means and ends — TheMadFool

I think this is right. I think pain/pleasure are indicators for what is good or bad, not what is good or bad itself.

Consider the following analogy, smokedetectors serve the function of alerting us when there is a fire. The bad thing is not the smokedetector going of, it's the fire it signals that is bad.

Analogously pain signals us that something bad is happening, for example that your skin is getting burned when you have your hand on a hot stove.

Negative utilitarianism or hedonism is akin to saying that the solution to the problem is getting rid of smokedetection. It just doesn't make sense to me from the get-go.

Some of the soul-chilling things Nietzsche said make him sound as though he had an inverted pain-pleasure axis: https://www.nietzsche.com — David Pearce

Well I don't think the point of those quotes was to glorify pain in itself, but rather the function it plays in human biology, in attaining things he valued more. I think you're actually saying something similar when you talk about preserving information-sensitivity and nociception if we were to do away with pain. Of course at the time Nietzsche didn't have the option of separating the two with biotech.

I think the question to ask is why we nominally (dis)value many intentional objects that are seemingly unrelated to the pleasure-pain axis. "Winning” and demonstrating one is a dominant alpha male, who can stoically endure great pain and triumph in competitive sports, promises wider reproductive opportunities than being a milksop. And for evolutionary reasons, mating is typically highly rewarding. We see the same in the rest of the Nature too. Recall the extraordinary lengths some nonhuman animals will go to in order to breed. What’s more, if (contrary to what I’ve argued) there were multiple axes of (dis)value rather than a sovereign pain-pleasure axis, then there would need to be some kind of meta-axis of (dis)value as a metric to regulate trade-offs. — David Pearce

Yes, Nietzsche for instance chose 'health/life-affirmation' as his preferred meta-axis to re-evaluate values, you seem to favor pain/pleasure... People seem to disagree on what is more important. But maybe there's a way, informed among other things by contemporary science, to get to more of an objective measure, I don't know... which is why I asked.

You may or may not find this analysis persuasive; but critically, you don't need to be a psychological hedonist, nor indeed any kind of utilitarian, to appreciate it will be good if we can use biotech to end suffering. — David Pearce

This is certainly a fair point, but I'd add while it would be good to end (or at least reduce) suffering, It needn't be restricted to that. If we are going to use biotech to improve humanity, we might as well look to improve it on multiple axis... a multivalent approach.

IMO, asking why agony is disvaluable is like asking why phenomenal redness is colourful. Such properties are mind-dependent and thus (barring dualism) an objective, spatio-temporally located feature of the natural world:
https://www.hedweb.com/quora/2015.html#metaethics — David Pearce

I certainly won't deny the fact that pain is real for me and other people, and I wouldn't even deny that pain is inherently disvaluable, where I would want to push back is that it needs to be the only thing we are concerned with. It seems more complicated to me, but maybe this is more a consequence of my lack of knowledge on the subject, I don't know.

Here's an example you probably heard many times before, sports. We seem to deliberately seek out and endure pain to attain some other values, such as fitness, winning or looking good... I wouldn't say we value the pain we endure during sports, but it does seem to be the case that sometimes we value other things more than we disvalue pain. So how would you reconcile this kind of behavior with pain/pleasure being the inbuilt metric of (dis)value?

Do you make a difference between (physical) pain and suffering? To me there seems be something different going on with suffering, something different from the mere experience of pain. There also seems a mental component where we suffer because of anticipating bad things, because we project ourselves into the future... This would also be the reason why I would make a difference between humans and most other animals because they seems to lack the ability to project further into the future. To be clear by making this distinction, I don't want to imply that we shouldn't treat animals vastly better than we do now, just that I think there is a difference between 'experience of pain in the moment' and 'suffering' which possibly could have some ethical ramifications.

I've no short, simple, easy answer here. But fast-forward to a time later this century when approximate hedonic range, hedonic set-points and pain-sensitivity can be genetically selected – both for new babies and increasingly (via autosomal gene therapy) for existing humans and nonhuman animals. Anti-aging inteventions and intelligence-amplification will almost certainly be available too, but let's focus on hedonic tone and the pleasure-pain axis. What genetic dial-settings will prospective parents want for their children? What genetic dial settings and gene-expression profiles will they want for themselves? Sure, state authorities are going to take an interest too. Yet I think the usual sci-fi worries of, e.g. some power-crazed despot breeding of a caste of fearless super-warriors (etc), are misplaced. Like you, I have limited faith in the benevolence of the super-rich. But we shouldn't neglect the role of displays of competitive male altruism. Also, one of the blessings of information-based technologies such as gene-editing is that once the knowledge is acquired, their use won't be cost-limited for long. Anyhow, I'm starting to sing a happy tune, whereas there are myriad ways things could go wrong. I worry I’m sounding like a propagandist rather than an advocate. But I think the basic point stands. Phasing out hedonically sub-zero experience is going to become technically feasible and eventually technically trivial. Humans may often be morally apathetic, but we aren't normally malicious. If you had God-like powers, how much involuntary suffering would you conserve in the world? Tomorrow's policy makers will have to grapple with this kind of decision. — David Pearce

I actually agree with most of this. Ideally I wouldn't want these kind of powers because they seem way beyond the responsibilities a chattering monkey can handle. But if it can be done, it probably will be done... and given the state and prospects of science at this moment, it seems likely it will be done at some point in the future, whether we want it or not. And since we presumably will have that power, I suppose it's hard to deny the responsibility that comes with that. So philosophers might as well try and figure out how to best go about that when it does happen, I can certainly support that effort. What I would say is that I would want to understand a whole lot better how it all exactly operates before making definite claims about the direction of our species and the biosphere. But I'm not the one doing the research, so I can't really judge how good we understand it already.

Thank you. Evolution via natural selection has encephalised our emotions so we (dis)value many things beyond pain and pleasure under that description. If intentional objects were encephalised differently, then we would (dis)value them differently too. Indeed, our (dis)values could grotesquely be inverted – “grotesquely” by the lights of (our) common sense, at any rate.

What's resistant to inversion is the pain-pleasure axis itself. One simply can't value undergoing agony and despair, just as one can't disvalue experiencing sublime bliss. The pain-pleasure axis discloses the world's inbuilt metric of (dis)value. — David Pearce

Thank you for the response. I hope you don't mind a follow up question, because this last paragraph is something I don't quite fully get yet.

I understand that many of our emotions and values are a somewhat arbitrary result of evolution. And I don't really have a fundamental bioconservative objection to altering them, because indeed they could easily have been be otherwise. What puzzles me is how you think we can go beyond our own biology and re-evaluate it for the purpose of genetic re-engineering. Since values are not ingrained in the fabric of the universe (or maybe I should say the part of the universe that is not biological), i.e. it is something we bring to the table, from what perspective are we re-evaluating them then. You seem to be saying there is something fundamental about pain and pleasure, because it is lifes (or actually the worlds?) inbuilt metric of value... It just isn't entirely clear to me why.

To make this question somewhat concrete. wouldn't it to be expected, your and other philosophers efforts notwithstanding, that in practice genetic re-engineering will be used as a tool for realising the values we have now? And by 'we' I more often then not mean political and economic leaders who ultimately have the last say because they are the ones financing research. I don't want to sound alarmist, but can we really trust something with such far-reaching consequence as a toy in power and status games?

Hi David,

I have a (maybe) straightforward question regarding the value assumptions in negative utilitarianism, or even utilitarianism in general, and the possible consequences thereof.

My intuition against utilitarianism always has been that pain, or even pain 'and' pleasure, is not the only thing that matters to us, and so reducing everything to that runs the risk of glossing over other things we value.

Would you say that is just factually incorrect, i.e. scientific research tells us that in fact everything is reducible to pain (or more expanded to pain/pleasure)?

And if it's not the case that everything is reducible to pain/pleasure, wouldn't genetic alteration solely with the purpose of abolition of pain, run the risk of impoverishing us as human beings? Do we actually have an idea already of how pain and pleasure are interrelated (or not) with the rest of human emotions in the sense that it would be possible in principle to remove pain and keep all the rest intact?

Thank you for your time, It's been an interesting thread already.

Is there a theory of how even the losers and the underdogs can have some peace of mind and some sense that their life is worth living? — baker

You redefine what constitutes losers and winners so it fits you, and convince yourself and others of that redefinition. Jesus is actually a good example of that.

Is there a philosopher or other author who has written about this? — baker

Nietzsche has, though not as an advocate of it evidently. Anyway this is more the purview of religion, of priests, the philosopher is typically the antipode of that... so they are probably not the best source for this kind of thing.

Good point, is it even possible to disentangle ideology, personal experience, the culture wherein one is raised etc etc, to arrive at some pristine fact about human nature?

Maybe not, but still even those ideologies have to come from somewhere...

But in this point I still disagree that introvert o more “lonely” people don’t need to be selfish at all. — javi2541997

Yeah I think the problem here is not necessarily equating lonely with selfish, but introverted with 'more lonely'. Introverted just means that they don't need or want the same frequency of social interaction as extroverted people. They are not necessarily lonely, or want to be alone all the time...

But sure, people do differ, and maybe you could question the validity of making these general claims about all of humanity like Bakunin does, based on his personal experiences alone.

So why is Nationalism still tolerated and even lauded? Why is the British flag allowed to be be waved all over the place, but the Nazi flag not so much? (Feel free to substitute your own local good and bad flags here.) — unenlightened

You could generalize 'nationalism' further to any group identifier, including sports team, religious groups, hipster groups etc etc... I think we have a need to identify with groups, and will do it regardless. For all the negative that is associated with it, it also motivates and mobilizes to transcend the purely individualistic/selfish. Doing away with all of it also would imply also doing away with some of the positive aspects of it.

So why do we still tolerate Nationalism is a bit like asking why do we still tolerate the rain? Because it will rain regardless of us tolerating it.... and we probably wouldn't want to do away with it entirely anyway, because, aside from being unpleasant, the rain also makes the crops grow.

The question to me ends up being, what kind of groups should we aim for, and how can we get the most out of it, while minimizing/making amends for the negative?

As an aside, failing to realize this, is I think the single biggest mistake the left has made in the last couple of decades and the reason for the ascent of right wing populism.

I generally agree with the sentiment.

It's difficult to make an argument for or against it though, because ultimately i think it boils down to an empirical claim whether we are social creatures or not. I think we are, and I think if you want, you could come up with evidence for this, such as stats for loneliness being an indicator for shorter lifespans and unhappiness etc... Bakunin feels alone and unhappy because of it, it's hard to argue with that. It is what it is.

I guess the question for me now personally is not whether we need social relations and communities, I think we do, but whether any kind of social relations and communities is better than being alone. I think the forms of social relations and communities we have today are not especially conductive to happiness either, so this end up being a bit of a conundrum.

So, my question: Is there a dividing line between low probability events and the Supernatural? Is it just a matter of the degree of probability or should one apply other criteria to an event to qualify it as 'Supernatural’? — Jacob-B

Yes, I would say the supernatural relies on explanations that aren't and can't be verified with empirical data.

So to use your example, any number of explanations could possibly fit the data of a perceived miracle. If you use something like God as an explanation that would be a supernatural explanation of the phenomenon (because God is by definition outside of this universe and so unverifiable).

Note that I don't think it makes much sense to say an event is natural or supernatural by itself, it's something you say about the explanation or interpretation of the event I think.

You mis-understand. If something bothers you, it's 99.99% not the "something" that bothers you but something inside of you. If not Christianity, then something else. The thinking world is chock-full of things that bothers us. — synthesis

Don't know why you think Christianity bothers me, or what this has to do with what I said. I have no particular axe to grind with Christianity, my original comment was meant quite light-heartedly. And then I was just saying Christianity played an important role historically. Me being bothered about it or not, doesn't change anything about that.

It's not myth. Attempting to worry about what everybody else is doing is foolhardy. Change begins within, then if others like what they see, they may look more closely. — synthesis

"Within" is not causally disconnected from the rest of the world...

Think about the ramifications of that for a second, instead of trying to read things into my comments that aren't there.

But... they are not only guilty in this problem. My governors only put investment in tourism and that’s a big fail — javi2541997

Yes agreed.

The Euro was a very bad deal for the south.
— ChatteringMonkey

We don’t have any other solution. It is bad but it could be worse... — javi2541997

Now you maybe don't have any other solution, right. But at the moment of conception of the Euro, the southern countries never should have joined, because it removed the possibility of running their own monetary policy. Because of the Euro you had to follow a monetary policy that would never work for you, because you had another economy. It was an accident waiting to happen... and yeah hindsight doesn't really solve anything, but I think I wouldn't have been as bad as it is now.

I was only semi-serious... But Christianity has played an important role in how we got where we are now.
— ChatteringMonkey

If it wasn't Christianity, it would have been something else. — synthesis

I don't think this is true, Christianity was historically very peculiar in many ways.

In the end, you can only control your own actions. — synthesis

This seem like a part of the myth of individualism, which ironically had its roots in Christianity.