So you wish to perpetrate the myth that everyone suffers some form of oppression, and when called on that obvious fallacy you fall back on the pretence that all we need to do is play nice. — Banno

I'm saying that the vast majority - maybe all, I don't know - have at least one attribute which qualifies as "unprivileged." I'm not falling back on anything; I fully own this premise and I'll stand by it.

Systematic discrimination against people with a disability takes the form of stairs. Removing that discrimination requires that you remove the stairs.

Come on, you can do better. We're mostly talking about employment discrimination here - basically, employers not hiring disabled or ugly people because they see them as too big a burden or unfit for the position due to their disability. Of course the stairs are an obstacle and accommodations need to be made, but when we're tlaking about discrimination we're talking about discrimination mostly in the workplace involving employment and promotions, but also fair general treatment.

Let's do neither, sound good?



That wasn't my point, but in any case do you think the disabled don't suffer systemic discrimination? Honestly, I think ugly people suffer a great deal of discrimination - is it systemic? Who knows, but it surely happens.

Just something I find a little funny:

"Researchers Gurven and Kaplan have estimated that around 57% of hunter-gatherers reach the age of 15. Of those that reach 15 years of age, 64% continue to live to or past the age of 45. This places the life expectancy between 21 and 37 years."

So OP is probably around 18, so it's basically a coin toss as to whether he'd actually be alive in a hunter-gatherer society and be able to physically express his support of this type of society. I don't mean to start an argument with OP but this is just a point I found kind of funny.

As for the cis white male part, these are the people who have been "the powers that be" for a long time in American history, — GTTRPNK

Sure, and we can keep adding qualifiers here: Were these cis white men disabled? Were they trauma victims? Were they ugly? Did they come from single parent households?

There's bound to be at least one thing about everyone that qualifies as "oppressed" the question is whether you take that oppression and make it a part of your identity.

Am I wrong? Can anyone provide an example of a moral precept held by any community past or present who did not come to that position on the belief that it served human flourishing? — Thomas Quine

I think an interesting question to ask ourselves here is whether this flourishing is more aimed towards the community (or mankind as a whole) or with the individual?

If we're concerned chiefly with the flourishing of mankind in general we need to ask ourselves what's stopping us from picking up random, socially isolated homeless people off the streets and whisking them away in trucks to perform medical experiments on them, which if successful could save countless lives.

If we're more concerned with individual flourishing then I think we should largely be leaving individuals to decide that for themselves. It's still a tricky concept though: Someone with a personality disorder could perceive themselves as flourishing yet be insufferable to others around them. It's a good question whether "flourishing" should be defined in a more objective or subjective sense.

I think we were thinking about cooperation in different senses. Neither of us is wrong here - the word can be used in a few different ways. Usually when I think about cooperation it's, for instance, a group of people working towards a common end, mutually beneficial, through their own free volition. It's not about following rules that you never explicitly agreed to or being forced to do something. We see this all the time in a free market where people's interests and skills can line up in ways that benefit both parties.

I understand where you're coming from though. People will often say "I expect your cooperation" when they really mean "Please do as I say." There can even be a real threat behind it if you don't yield. In this sense of the word, it can certainly be stifling and I agree with you 100%. I like to distinguish between cooperation and coercion.

But how much is this a modern cultural mythology - the image of the striving hero battling against fickle fate? You don't have to go far to see counter-stories where the tragedy is to be cast out of the collective bosom.

Just to clarify, for "tragedy" I meant it more in the literary sense. I don't consider this modern - you have Shakespearian tragedies and there's a long literary tradition of good, well meaning characters who get brought down through something unfortunate.

I think if I were to accept this notion - that the best always prevails - I'd probably find myself believing in some sort of version of Social Darwinism like the one you mentioned earlier in Victorian England.

I don't mean to ignore the first part of your response - it's just we're mostly in agreement.

But is that a result of experiencing the US system which leans too far in that direction? Or a reflection of how neoliberalism as a philosophy has tried to take the whole globalised financial system in that direction? — apokrisis

I don't think my ambivalence towards competition comes from either of these. For the record, I'm fine with local sports leagues and chess tournaments... sure emotions can fly but all in all these are relatively low stakes competitions.

Competition pervades society though - and this isn't just about American capitalism. Soviet school children still sought to achieve the highest marks and go to the best universities. Native Americans in pre-agrarian societies still sought to become chief and attain a healthy social status (often through war.) Whether it's social status or business/wealth or romance competition is pervasive in human affairs and the losers suffer real, serious consequences. Life is often a high stakes competition.

The losers don't necessarily deserve it, either. There's an element of randomness to it. I understand the systemic benefits and the fact that competition can make men stronger and more skillful in areas, but I can't ignore the costs either. I think there's an element of tragedy to it that cooperation doesn't quite have.

So the mistake is to try to build a theory around just one side of the dichotomy. The goal would be to design a system which maximises the expression of both - both the cooperation and the competition. — apokrisis

This is an interesting way of putting it. I think I agree. I think cooperation often comes down to rational self-interest, and actors within a free market can make use of this very nicely. If you can produce something well and I can move and sell that product well then we can cooperate. Cooperation is just generally a good thing, I just wonder if the notion of cooperation is inherently limited to an in-group.

Even as someone who considers himself a free market capitalism, I still regard competition with a little hesitation. Competition can get out of hand quickly, and it's often just an unfortunate reality thrown upon humanity by nature (for instance, with dating/marriage/social status) or over scarce resources, especially in the past where there often wasn't enough to go around. In business competition can turn bloody or leave some business owners broke, but it's ultimately better for the consumer to have options and not be at the mercy of one supply chain. I wouldn't call it a "necessary evil" but it is something to be careful of.

Bankruptcy laws and procedures are a result of a long historical learning, just as is limited liability.

In Antiquity there wasn't limited liability, hence if you couldn't pay up to your financiers, they literally owned you. Hence the risk of possible slavery didn't incite people to invest. This of course was a problem in a time when shipping was a hazardous enterprise, so it's no wonder that the commenda, a passive partner, who's risk was limited emerged in 11th century Italy. — ssu

I'd be interested in learning more about bankruptcy laws.

With Benkei, I was more responding to his idea that the employee ought to have more of share in the profit of their business. I was just saying this is all fine and good until the company finds itself in the red and instead of profit to be shared it's debt to be carried.

When you get fired your compensation stops. Sure, that sucks but you're not actually in the hole for anything. An example of employees having a direct stake in the company would be stock options: When times are good portfolios grow, but when times are bad that portfolio doesn't just pause - it hemorrhages money.

And if the company posts losses should the workers forfeit their pay?

As a child, pain is objectively bad. — Outlander

When I was a kid I remember falling on my bike a few times - probably from going too fast - and scraping my knee. Pain can help someone learn their limitations, and not just for children. By and large though these things - suffering, starvation, abuse - definitely seem bad. But there are cases where due to someone going through these things they came out a better, more mature person.

The philosopher is interested in being right, while the entrepreneur is interested in what works. The philosopher doesn't really face consequences for being wrong, while the entrepreneur could be financially ruined by a misstep or a poor investment. Philosophers theorize and system-build - historically speaking, often from the top down while the entrepreneur needs to be firmly routed in the concrete realities of the economy/market first and foremost. The philosopher has endless time to contemplate while the entrepreneur must make decisions and take risks otherwise there could be great costs.

By "morality" do you mean just any code of morals or... a good code of morals? Regardless, we definitely have physiological drives that inform moral behavior whether it's through an innate disgust of something or a warm feeling inside.

There's a multitude of philosophical beliefs about morality. Morality is just the topic. The existence of objective morality is a philosophical position that would be in opposition to moral nihilism.

We can talk about morality in different ways - one of which is as a philosophical concept. There's a ton of different ways to approach the topic.

No, psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by lack of empathy and remorse as well as strong egoism. I certainly don't call people who disagree with normal philosophical stances psychopaths.

No, if people were purely going by the inner logic then there would not be the same observable outcomes. People in real life often just aren't logical. The fundamental logic, not just of Christianity but of Judaism and I think Islam is that no matter where you are or in what kind of situation you're in... you're ultimately accountable for your actions. You will have to answer for them.

When it comes to nihilism there's not much of a fundamental logic because the nihilist rejects truth and value. However, he contradicts this because life demands that he invent his own. The intellectually honest nihilist is constantly in tension because he still values things and often has strong attachments while at the same time he rejects the idea of objective value.

In regard to the OP, I would want to hear the context of the statement. Wasn't he talking in regard to the US's approach to international affairs (i.e. in regard to how we deal with other countries?) International affairs is weird - it's about priorities rather than absolute principles. It's like with Russia: Do we want them to protect their LGBT community? Of course - but is it prudent to use complaint as the guiding principle of our foreign policy or do we have bigger fish to fry? How effective would we even be in addressing this issue directly or are there other more covert ways to approach it? I feel what Pompeo is signaling here is a more constricted, limited approach to US foreign policy. I wouldn't take Pompeo's statements on this matter to representative of a comprehensive personal political philosophy.

I've heard that there are now unidentified federal officers in unmarked cars arresting protestors. — Michael

They're arresting the black mask crew.

And that's the thing about the black masks causing millions of dollars in property damage and embracing violence as a legitimate means to political ends: When the government starts using fascistic, violent tactics back against you is the public even going to care?

But if we only observe human behavior in this life, the sentences you have written above don't necessarily translate to better predictions of what action any given individual will take. — Adam's Off Ox

I know. I've said twice now that a nihilist may very well be a good person. We may live in a universe where nihilists are even, on average, better behaving than Christians. I don't care. I'm solely concerned here with the rational conclusions of one's beliefs. In other words, if we take the nihilist's beliefs to its logical conclusions.... I'm not interested either in digging into every possible iteration of Christianity. I'm not even a Christian. I'm solely concerned here with the rational conclusions drawn from nihilism vs. a belief in a God regarding moral behavior.

I don't see how the label of nihilist informs any discussion on good or evil, from an ethical or philosophical perspective. — Adam's Off Ox

If we're talking about rationality it should. The theist is always accountable for his behaviors according to a set, permanent standard while the nihilist does not acknowledge any standard and is basically free to pick whatever path he likes. Again, I'm not concerned with defending evil iterations of Christianity or how Christianity or Judaism or Islam may look "in practice." I'm concerned with ideas here.

At the end of the day the theistic moral realist has a God to answer to and believes he will be judged by actual, objective standards. He has skin in the game. Bad actions have consequences in the next life.

A moral nihilist may be a good person. Plenty of people just have naturally good dispositions or are responsive to positive social pressures, but others don't.

I agree with everything you wrote here. A nihilist could be a perfectly moral person. I just think that an intellectually honest nihilist should have very little if any resistance to engaging in depravity if social conditions were to make it advantageous or if the moral nihilist were just curious for any reason and he knew he could get away with it.

By the way, what reason does a nihilist have for complying to certain morals? If they are meaningless statements, then why care about ethics? — JacobPhilosophy

The nihilist has basically no real reasons for complying with morality in general since doesn't exist/have any real grounding. The nihilist might comply with conventional morality for social appearances or because it personally makes him feel good but outside of that there's no real backing to it.

You'll never hear this question being asked by a soldier on the front lines or a man struggling to feed his impoverished village. You won't hear this question being asked by a mother struggling to take care of her newborn child. This type of question arises out of a certain state of being so if you're looking for an answer maybe just look to the state that you're in.

Reading back in the thread, it looks like you're starting college soon so you're probably on the younger side. If you're only 18 it's natural to feel this sort of confusion because you're in this transitional phase into adulthood. Just go enjoy college assuming it's still on: make some friends, drink some beer, and meet a partner. You'll be alright. Life won't seem as pointless when you start a family or fall in love or start caring for a bigger cause.

As a chess player, the first thing that comes to mind when I hear "patterns" is to think of patterns in chess which are really just geometric truths that one either grasps or doesn't. A pattern doesn't not exist simply because no one sees it. In this sense, I see patterns as being objective. If these types of patterns were subjective it would imply that the first player to grasp them brought them into existence which seems strange to me. It makes more sense to me to say that the pattern already inheres within reality and minds can either grasp or not grasp them.

It's entirely reasonable to be confused about this word. It confuses a lot of people; myself included. A lot of times in the context of injury or disability or tragedy a professional might ask someone whether he "accepts" the fact of his injury/disability/tragedy and it's not entirely clear what this entails. Obviously on one hand everyone recognizes the reality, but the term acceptance implies more than factual acknowledgment; it implies a certain outlook towards things which isn't entirely negative or nihilistic. What that outlook exactly is isn't entirely clear to me.

The topic is complicated.

But there isn't a disconnect, is there? The name is perfectly in keeping with the aims of the movement, given that the tolerance of murder of black people by racists is a testimony that black lives don't actually matter compared to whites. — Kenosha Kid

If someone actually cared about protecting black lives they'd take 2 seconds to look at the numbers and see that if we're talking about violence many, many times more black men are killed by other black men than are killed by whites - even racist whites.

Of course we can campaign against those racist, evil whites - it's fine! No one should support Derek Chauvin. My concern comes when out of this campaigning emerges a certain unbalanced worldview that implies that white people are the biggest threat to black men and that the way to solve this is more black nationalism.

Which just returns us to the idea that a campaign can not be specific and therefore effective: — Kenosha Kid

I never really faulted BLM for this. I believe if you look on their website or atleast somewhere floating around on the internet is a list of goals for BLM. I find the movement in its most basic form to be actually really good and easy to support.

This is why the change of subject is so racist: you lay the responsibility of black gang culture on a group of people legitimately campaigning against a very real threat from their own law enforcers on the basis of what? — Kenosha Kid

I never mentioned "who is to blame" for black gangs. I'm solely concerned here with what is actually killing black men if we're talking about violence. I'm just looking at the numbers; it's not hard to see.

I support the basic aims of BLM: Police reforms and ending unjust state violence (obviously towards everyone would be ideal, but if we just want to focus on black people that's fine too.) That could be the end of the discussion; there ya go, I support BLM.

If we start prodding a little further we're now in an environment where everyone can name many black victims of police violence and essentially no white victims of police violence. The movement describes its nature/outlook as "unapologetically black" so where do non-blacks even fit in in the movement? It just seems strange to me that some black victims get basically deified while others are simply ignored from an organization which is fundamentally about black unity & black communities. Additionally, on the BLM website if you look at the aims of the movement ("What we believe") section I do think there's Marxist undertones (the co-founder admits to Marxism.)

So it's like whatever. Does everyone support the basic premises? Yes, because they're obvious beyond obvious. It's only when you start digging a little deeper...

No, it's not. A part of the problem is just the name: Black Lives Matter. If you want to call it blacks against state violence that's fine, but there's a disconnect with the name BLM when you have many black victims being ignored and others deified.

Er, yeah, nvm about that, what I meant was that BLM is focusing on state-related offences, you made no mention of any "all lives matter" and idk what made me think you did. Crime is obviously a problem but it doesn't need to be the only problem that gets addressed... why frame it like we need to pick one or the other? — Judaka

BLM doesn't even address crime right now. It is focused only on certain forms of violence towards black folks - namely, state violence and vigilante groups. If you read the BLM "what we believe" statement there are 0 mentions of crime or gang violence which claim far more black lives than cops or George Zimmerman or the KKK.

I wouldn't think it's super bizarre. In fact, the Netherlands has (or had) a group solely focused on rape of men by women because it's totally unrepresented and not taken seriously. — Benkei

The reason here is important. The devil is in the details. If you were to come up to me and be like "hey, you want to take part in this protest against women raping men due to how underrepresented this is in society I would say sure.

Contrast this with me coming up to you and being like "Hey Benkei, I'd like you to join the Men's Bodies Matter movement! Don't you believe that men's bodies matter? You do? Great! So, when it comes to protecting men's bodies our struggle is concerned solely with the epidemic of women on man sexual violence! Trust me, we're huge advocates for men here and it's important that we succeed with our mission!"

And if you were to bring up the (entirely reasonable) objection "well what about male on male aggression which claims many more victims?" I would just tell you to go away because that's not our cause. It's all about how the issue is framed.

It's interesting and I'm still trying to clarify my thoughts on this issue, but I think we'd both agree that just because a problem exists does not mean we need to form a movement explicitly concerned with its resolution. For instance, while black on white homicide is a problem (because all homicide is a problem) a movement to address this problem really doesn't do a lot of good. It's like of all the problems... why choose that one? Is this really a fair representation of the bigger issue (and it's not because something like 85% of homicides towards whites are committed by other whites.)

I never used the "all lives matter" line of argumentation... maybe quote me where I said it before applying the position to me?

Let's take it as a given that crime and poverty are strongly correlated then black on black violence isn't an issue of race but a consequence of it, or at least I consider poverty of blacks a direct consequence of systemic racism and black on black violence a secondary consequence. — Benkei

Are you saying that black on black violence is a result of poverty? This doesn't entirely bear out because we don't see the same homicide rates in other parts of the country with similar poverty rates.

Second, how about white on white crime? People tend to kill people in their own communities. It's not a black pathology of increased violence amongst blacks. — Benkei

Yes, when whites murder they disproportionately choose to murder other whites. When homicide is done it's overwhelmingly within that same ethnic group. The reason I bring up black on black crime is because you would think an organization that is concerned with black lives should be a little more tuned into a phenomenon which is killing black men at a much greater rate than police violence.

There's also a rather important difference between being murdered by a criminal and being murdered by a cop; the latter isn't supposed to do it, has qualified immunity and for some weird reason is believed in court more readily than regular citizens. — Benkei

There are some instances where cops are perfectly within their rights to kill. If we look at instances where cops did kill in 2019 you'll see in the vast majority of those instances the subject was armed.

I acknowledge it's still a problem though, but if we had to devote our time and resources towards either eliminating black on black crime or police violence towards blacks I would honestly choose the former. Make no mistake about it, it is a discussion in the black community and it has been a discussion for decades. Why BLM pays seemingly no attention to it is beyond me.

There's more but it's just diversionary and distracting. If victimised men start a "no more rape by women" group, why demand they should protest against rape of women as well, because it's more prevalent? In fact, why do you feel the need to tell people what they should be worrying about? — Benkei

Alright, lets go with this example. Lets imagine a group called "Men's Bodies Matter" started a nationwide movement that solely concerned itself with women-on-male rape. I mean we're all against rape, right? But what about male on male rape, which happens more to men than women on male? Obviously women on male rape is wrong, but I think we'd both agree the explicit and sole focus only on female perpetrator/male victim would be super bizarre. I'd be tempted to call it an anti-woman movement and I'm not even much of a feminist.

Make no mistake about it, the explicit focus on some aggressors but not others is very political.

I know that the issues are different, but you'd think a movement dedicated to the welfare of black people would be concerned with a category of homicides which kill 4-5x more lives a year than police do. We're fundamentally talking about homicides here.

It does seem a little strange to me how BLM focuses exclusively on violence committed towards black people by the state, but their statement neglects to mention black-on-black violence which accounts for many more victims. It's honestly not even close. In 2019 you had 336 unarmed black men killed by police - even if we include armed black men we're getting 1609 total. If we're talking about the black on black homicide rate I think we're getting around 8-9,000 yearly black homicide victims with the vast majority killed by other blacks.

Alright, I was just reading through this paper.

"[The BLM organization/movement] disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

Earlier they say this:

"We see ourselves as part of the global Black family..."

It seems to me that while they're not seeking to immediately eliminate the nuclear family, they are seeking to expand it - and arguably weaken it. This last part about "weakening" is controversial, it's gonna depend where you stand politically, but they themselves use the term "disrupt." Previously, socialist or communist regimes have sought to destroy the nuclear family through rhetoric involving its expansion (e.g. the village raises the kid.)

But isn't that a bit arbitrary? I mean, the Netherlands is tiny with a relatively homogenous culture compared to the USA. Most things are international for us because our neighbours are just a stone's throw away. Moreoever, the right of self determination often stems from a cultural or ethnic group inside national borders; so not very international. — Benkei

I feel like we might be talking past each other here. When I say I support self-determination I'm saying that, in general I support the right of "a people" to freely choose their own government (implying statehood) and to have that statehood be free from external interference. So, I would support the creation, of, say, a Kurdistan. It comes down to protecting ethnic minorities and the idea that we can't just rely on our neighbors to keep us safe.

I think both approaches should be reconciled with each other. I'm not going to deny individual autonomy but there's a point for me where collective pressure is such that I don't think punishing individuals makes sense unless they actually had power to influence events. So we sentenced Nazi leaders but not Nazi soldiers. It's not as if the BLM movement is actively encouraging riots; compare that to a President who was actively encouraging shooting US civilians. — Benkei

Punishment/judicial procedures and moral responsibility are two different things. There are plenty of shitty, terrible people who we would never put on trial or punish in any type of formal way. There are also decent people who commit crimes who we need to punish. I support reconciling the two approaches as well. Any reasonable approach should. We did punish German soldiers who committed actual war crimes (then again plenty of those who did commit war crimes got off scot-free) but in the post-war period the West had an interest in a strong West Germany and we weren't about the lynch the country for its past crimes and punish everyone with even a trace of connection to the Nazi party. Hell, even Israel established ties with West Germany in the mid 50s.

If BLM isn't encouraging violence/rioting then I'm fine with BLM if that's truly what they stand for. I haven't looked into the BLM movement that much... it seems like there are a ton of different perspectives on it and I'm just not interested in digging too much into the weeds here. If it's just about non-violent resistance/protests and police reforms then that's fine in my book. I definitely support some police reforms.

So how we deal with it also becomes a tactical issue. — Benkei

On a philosophy forum we should be able to call a spade a spade. I get that there's a tactical/rhetorical/political element to it.

Those that were betrayed and are discriminated against. Enough that in anger they might burn or loot buildings, or even in desperation? Apparently. — Benkei

I just don't buy this. On one hand many of the businesses they destroy are minority-owned businesses and businesses in poor areas. I think many of them are opportunists who see disorder/free stuff and think they can cash in. In any case even if you are legitimately angry you're still shooting your own community in the foot.

I think ontology is a branch of metaphysics. Join the metaphysics club.

Interesting. Do you mind explaining? — 83nt0n

In some religious traditions God is all knowing and all powerful, so you and I might see things one way but unless it matches God's view it can't be validated. I'm not saying I agree with this view I'm putting it out there as one way the existence of a God impacts truth.

So we don't have hope against defeating skepticism? — 83nt0n

I didn't say that, I just said that I personally don't believe the existence (or non existence) of a God can be derived purely through the use of reason. That's just my own view.

We won't know if we have the correct answers - this is philosophy, after all. I believe the nature of truth itself depends on whether we adopt a theistic/pantheistic/atheistic framework.