That’s true about personal needs, but are personal needs important enough for the general health of the community and future wellbeing?

You mean if everyone was to just follow their personal needs would that be enough for a health community and ensure well being? Is that what you're asking? I'd say not necessarily. I feel like what we're missing here is culture. There's always a culture involved, and that culture can be helpful or harmful to ensuring those things you mention.

The state as you define it might belong in the background creating and enforcing laws but that idea of the state is a political tool, or mechanism, for the managing of the real state, which is the population at large.

You're saying the "real" state is the population?

The Australian Aboriginal culture is regarded as the oldest culture in the world and yet I don’t imagine they survived all that time through the concept of individuality. But it serves our modern culture to believe in the idea of individuality, it drives the economy.

My question is still, if we can, which should we choose?

Yes, in ancient times you couldn't just go off into the woods and form your own empire or even really survive. Of course community is needed - we all exist in communities for the most part unless someone wants to self-isolate, but I don't think that's really what's meant by "individualism." When I think "individualism" I more think freedom within a society - especially societies which strongly encourage its members to conform to a certain mold (think religious societies or maybe military societies or others).

Your question - which should we choose - is a good one, and it's debated. I see the two choices as on a spectrum and I think we likely need to find some middle ground. I think culture should exist it's fine if its pushes some messages, but ultimately the individual should be free to make his/her own choices (within reason) and be free to break from or challenge the culture if they wish. The individual should almost always be able to challenge the collective. The sole exception I can think of to this would be military societies where it's not acceptable for, say, a Private to challenge a General.

I would have thought selfishness was the defining neo-liberal notion. Not that selfishness was not present in classical liberalism, but that in neo-liberalism it is elevated to the core virtue.

We might need to define our terms here . Plenty of capitalists (myself included) will agree that humans are by and large self-interested, but this is different from "selfish." "Selfish" has a more moral flavor to it in that it implies that someone is overly self-interested or greedy to the point where money or power is all they want. If we go with this definition then I don't agree that capitalism views selfishness as a virtue or a facet of human nature.

Capitalism really just lays down the rules; it doesn't seem a fundamental transformation of the human condition like communism does. I view capitalism as largely amoral.

Like @fdrake I'm probably some sort of shoddy Marxist. Societies are always trying to shape ""human nature", and to some extent they are successful, for better and for worse, of which there are many examples.

This seems reasonable - sure, societies and cultures often try to shape people, fair enough. Personally, and you might disagree, but I wouldn't say that capitalism itself is trying to transform human nature.

By the way, shaping and trying to transform human nature may very well be a good thing. I'm not treating it as if it's necessarily a negative yet here. I am however starkly opposed to the vision that Marxism has in mind for human nature.

I've found that a reasonably tolerant, reasonably stable, reasonably affluent society produces reasonably good results, for me, at least. An intolerant, unstable, and poor society is likely to produce more of the same. Virtuous cycles and vicious cycles beget more virtuous and vicious cycles.

Seems reasonable insofar as we don't completely abandon some level of personal responsibility if we're evaluating the people within these cultures.

Marxists will also quarrel with the notion that there is such a thing as "human nature". Clearly, and irrefutably, we are a species which manifests various characteristics -- just like Canadian geese, grey wolves, and porpoises do. In that way there is certainly "human nature". We use very complex language, for instance, and we use it a lot. We have a central nervous system with certain characteristics -- emotional, cognitive, and sensory capabilities. More "human nature".

I understand that there is a wide variety of people and cultures out there. One thing that I have noticed and that I asked fdrake was about this notion of family and personal attachment: Namely, across cultures and societies parents seem to grow a special attachment to their children and children to their parents. Maybe after that comes loyalty to the community, and then the state, then the country, etc. etc. This is a barrier to Marxism, which is an internationalist doctrine which seeks to unity humanity as a collective.

Personally, I do believe in a human nature. I believe men are not angels, and despite however advanced we get as a culture we'll just have to deal with that fact that people will think and do bad things. I'm not saying that "humanity is evil" or "fallen" or whatever. I'd also group family attachments in that human nature category, and I think the costs for breaking this one whether it's through raising children collectively or dissolving the trust between families in an attempt to strengthen loyalty to the collective are really quite severe.

People have better experiences, behave better, behave more peacefully, in a society which meets basic human requirements and affords available rich cultural experiences (like food, clothing, shelter, care, and the opportunity and means for self expression).

So maybe one should support a universal basic income as opposed to trying to go full Marxist and kill the goose that laid the golden egg.

I don't know your actual positions so this point isn't aimed specifically at you, but we can address these issues in ways besides breaking down the fundamentals our society and making radical, coercive changes.

For me (and I'm probably some shoddy flavour of Marxist), human nature is stuff like: we have knees, we have language, we can solve problems, we use tools, we live in communities, we have social rituals associated with sex.

How about the general human tendency to value one's family and community above the rest of humanity? Marxist or socialist societies - whatever you'd want to call it have aimed at deconstructing the family unit in order to move humanity towards a more global, universal outside stripped from family or old cultural ties.

Do Marxists hold that human nature should be molded?

Yes. We are to control our own evolution by molding the systems that shape it. Capitalism is relic of history and should be thrown in the dustbin ASAP according to Marxists. Any honest Marxist will believe in trying to shape human nature away from what it has been.

I think much of liberal philosophy is predicated on an unchanging human nature that includes selfishness or at least self interest and the belief is that we ought to build our systems around that rather than the Marxist view that the system itself molds human nature.

Ideally, the individual because the individual is best informed about their own personal needs, i.e. they are their best personal advocate. The state generally belongs in the background creating and enforcing laws that allow individuals to peacefully go about their daily lives and keep public services running. The caveat to this is when there is a crisis that threatens the population and the state needs to come forth and fight it so things can return back to normal.

Jesus Christ, this recent interview with Charlamagne the God:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOIFs_SryHI

If you don't support me "then you ain't black." He also refers to the interviewer as "man" 3 times and ends the interview with "see ya later pal." Do you think he'd be addressing a white crowd like this? Particularly a wealthy white crowd? It's just strange to me.

I didn't ask you to. My post was all about your waffling on animal and human moral value.

What waffling did I do? We're on a forum, you can quote me on it. I thought that I've always been clear that my suspicion here - what I'm inclined to - is the view that humans do have a more elevated moral worth than animals. Show me where I'm contradicting myself.

Pick a position please and then please actually try to make your case. First you use an example to show that they are not of the same worth, then you admit that your example cannot really prove anything about their moral value, and then you go back to saying they're not of the same worth as though you've made a case for that somehow, which you haven't... I mean... what exactly is your point? Or do you even know anymore?

I don't need to pick a position in regard to meat eating vs. vegetarianism. I didn't create this thread with the idea that people were going to come along and try to defeat my argument. I didn't even make much of an argument in the OP; I just speculated that any ethical justification of meat eating presupposes speciesism (i.e. the idea the humans have an elevated moral worth over that of animals) and this speciesism makes sense to me. That's it. We could accept speciesism and still argue that meat eating is wrong.

One of the issues with natural rights is that they're more or less only extant or operant if a given group of humans endorses and enforces them (where force as moral maintenance tends to be less necessary the more universally agreeable the status quo is).

I feel like there are two issues here that are separate and need to be disentangled.

A) Whether natural rights exist as a matter of actual truth.
B) Whether we can enforce these natural rights or whatever we perceive them to be.

We could have A and not B but we could also have B without A if we're just enforcing made up rights. "A" is a matter of philosophy while B is a matter of enforcement.

If natural rights exist then we have is a rule: Do not do X. Like any other rule, it could be enforced or not. Normally we don't say a rule which isn't enforced in a certain instance "isn't a rule."

Throughout this discussion I've been making the point that animals don't have as much moral worth as humans. I don't see how I'm being contradictory.

Again, the extreme scenario doesn't help you determine moral value AT ALL under normal circumstances. It tells you nothing about how cows or humans should be treated in non-life-or-death scenarios.

I know, I was only seeking to address the question of moral worth. I stated in my OP that I believe meat eaters need to acknowledge their own speciesism. I believe speciesism is a presupposition to meat eating, but as far as I can tell I don't think it's a bad one.

I do believe we should treat animals well in their day to day life. I do believe humans have ethical duties to animals, but I don't think an animal can have a moral duty.

We don't determine ethical value based on extreme scenarios though.

We could make it 1 to 1 instead of 100 to 100, it's the same thing.

That's like me saying, who would you save, your son or your daughter, and whoever you don't save has no ethical value and under all circumstances, not just these fringe ones, should be slaughtered and eaten.

Son or daughter is asking about specific people and I don't have a son or daughter so I couldn't answer. We could ask "would you rather save a man or a woman" or "would you rather save a white person or a black person?" in both cases my answer is indifference.

With this question I'm only talking about the question of whether the two have equal moral value or ought to be valued equally. It doesn't follow from this that the one who doesn't get saved has no ethical value nor am I seeking to validate the morality of meat eating here.

We do owe ethical duties to animals. I just think that treating cows or frogs as having the exact same value as humans is insane. In theory it might sound great, but what it would practically translate into is that if we had to make a choice between saving 100 humans or 100 frogs we'd remain totally indifferent.

Once you accept that it's now just a matter of finding some way to justify it, if there is one.

Potential to do what exactly? Are you really going to base a system of ethics on any given individual's ability to "potentially" create a Mona Lisa or an Etude in C Minor? Or is your bar a little lower than that?

Potential to make the world a better place, to form positive connections/relationships, potential to create something beautiful, etc.

The reason I ask is because I do not see a bar of potentiality that would be able to encompass all of the humans we'd want to protect, including all mentally and physically disabled persons, that would not simultaneously encompass cows.

Maybe we run into problems with this standard when it comes to the very severely disabled - maybe. Even if someone has a disability that doesn't make them useless. Sure a mentally disabled person isn't going to be the next Einstein but focus on the things s/he can do. Even if someone's in a coma maybe they have the potential to become better.

I don't think such organizations enforce legal rights.

NGOs do and can enforce legal and/or natural rights. A recent example of this was there was a spate of attacks against Jews in New York earlier this year and in response the Guardian Angels stepped up their presence in Jewish neighborhoods around New York. That's enforcement, and the stepping up of their presence in those areas is a clear attempt to protect the population. Increased presence is certainly one means of enforcement, and in this case we'd call this enforcing a right that is both legal and natural.

There are also NGOs which protect the rights of vulnerable populations when there isn't a legal protection. In other words, the right they are protecting here is natural. For example French resistance fighters in WWII.

This is why you don't base your practical ethics on some possibility which may arise in 10 million years which wouldn't involve any of the participants of the ethical scenario.

Isn't there also the potential that the cows turn into an extremely intelligent, powerful species and wage war on the humans? Shouldn't we get a head start on that and eliminate them then?

When we make moral decisions in the real world we're dealing with actual, flesh and blood beings in the here and now. In the current reality that we face humans have that potential that we don't see in cows.

I'm not really talking about the species I'm talking about the individual.

If one tries to find out why we balk at hurting our own kind we reach the conclusion that it all has to do with the ability to feel pain and suffer.

I think it's more than that. Especially in the case of killing, you're ending that being's potential. Humans have potential, cows don't. It's not just about ability to feel pain. Closely related to potential is cognitive and creative abilities.

When we refer to natural rights that are not recognized by the law, I think the only thing we're saying, for any practical purposes, is that they should be legal rights.

A few things to consider:

1) A law may exist but it may not be enforced. On the flip side, an action may be legal but there could still be dire consequences for performing it in a given society, e.g. how blacks in the American south had to conduct themselves towards white women during the Jim Crowe era.
2) Other organizations outside of the government often do enforce - and enforce strongly - e.g. the mafia, the KKK, hell's angels, etc. In some societies the police were either weak, ineffectual, or corrupt and turning to the mafia was your best bet at recourse.
3) The grievance could just be aimed towards an autocracy, and what we're really aiming towards here is regime change not a legal change. An autocrat may ignore the laws or change them at whim.

Enforcement is a human affair, it's not just a direct implementation of the law.

I don't accept that nature somehow manifests rights to which all are entitled.

I honestly don't know whether natural rights exist but the sake of the discussion I'm just running with it.

What you think are natural rights may be legal rights, or they may not. What you think are legal rights may be natural rights, or they may not. That's because they're different.

Yes, something could be a natural right but not recognized by law and therefore not enforced by any sort of governing body. It could still be enforced in other ways though and I think we'd both agree that there can very easily be consequences for something even if it isn't illegal. Police aren't the only ones who can mete out repercussions.

I feel like we've gotten sidetracked a little, here was what I was originally responding to:

I voted "no" because I don't think it appropriate to speak of "rights" that are unenforceable. or the violation of which is without recorse. There are legal rights, but there are no rights that should be legal rights, which, I think, is all that "natural rights" are (unless they're legal rights).

Enforceability is extremely important and when I hear about a natural right - say, right to life - being unenforceable it should cause one to immediately ask "how do we enforce this?" not "I'm not going to recognize these rights because presently we're not capable of enforcing them."

Inalienable/natural rights such as life and liberty are first - atleast in the Anglo-American tradition - recognized as such and then enshrined into law. I can't think of any natural rights that aren't recognized by law. Even if there were no laws whether something is enforceable or not is just a question of the social reality or practical politics at the time, i.e. whether you can garner support or arms etc.

Whether the right was recognized or enforced, or recourse granted, would depend on whether others choose to recognize them, or enforce them, or see that recourse is granted. They may, or may not. There isn't anything that requires them to make any particular choice.

Eh, a policeman is duty-bound to "serve and protect" and takes an oath swearing to uphold these norms. People in society don't just exist as free floating, independent entities that have complete freedom of choice in any given interaction. In healthy societies the police owe the public at least some level of protection or at least recourse.

Law provides a mechanism which identifies a right and provides for its protection or enforcement regardless of what others are inclined to do or not do, with the power of the state available to be imposed if necessary.

Right, but the actual enforcement part comes from an institution which has its own culture and set of norms. There's an initiation process for anyone who wants to enter that lifestyle and a deep history there and standards to uphold.

Even if we aren't entitled to anyone's enforcement or protection, we could still have a discussion about how to acquire that. I feel like we're missing the point with this talk about entitlement though; people could - and have - banded together as a common cause to rectify infringements on natural rights.

My question was with your original statement that it's not appropriate to speak of rights that were unenforceable which confused me a little. Enforcement is a human endeavor, and when I think of natural rights the first things that come to mind are right to life and right to not be maimed for no reason. Our entire police system exists to either prevent or - if not prevent, then at least provide recourse for theses crimes. Even if there was no police force you still have families and maybe tribes.

I don't understand this. Many natural rights just are legal rights across the globe and many natural rights are enforced by governments. Even if there was no government there could still be consequences for violating someone's natural rights whether they're in a legal, written document or not.

If we take the definition of "natural law" as "a body of unchanging moral principles regarded as a basis for all human conduct," then I would see natural law as referencing an absolute standard necessary for all human beings.

What would your thoughts be if we broadened this standard a little and took the emphasis away from "unchanging moral principles" to more like "the source of morality or goodness as located in nature, i.e. something natural." I know you may very well have the same thoughts - that we need a creator, and that's a perfectly reasonable position. Maybe the creator could be Gaia or some "mind of nature" or something weaker.

While we can pretend that these moral laws are "self evident," clearly they're not because there's nothing specifically we point to to show what that evidence is.

I think there is an element of self-evidency even if it's not completely universal. Imagine if you lived in a close knit village and there was a terrible murder involving a home invader going into a neighbor's home and killing the family. Everybody would be horrified, with perhaps a few exceptions but I'd argue these people are missing something (analogous to how someone just might not recognize good music, perhaps.) In the case of the murder, the investigator and the policeman enter the home as the first responders and they see and grasp the wrongness first hand (you may take issue with this, but it seems at least like a reasonable start to me.)

It's only after this has happened that the philosopher comes in and reasons that the act was wrong because, e.g. it "failed to maximize happiness" or the murderer treated his victim "merely as a means" or something else that seems kind of ridiculous.

I've noticed that women can really get into the nitty gritty of it, but around my friends (late 20s-early 30s) we don't really talk about it. Come to think about it, it's been years since I've talked about it with male friends. Especially since a lot of them are married now, it's just not a great conversation topic. When we were in our early 20s it was much more prevalent but nobody cares now that you're having sex with someone or dating someone and it can be a faux pas in some situations. It sometimes seems weird to me when straight men turn the conversation sexual when the crowd is only other men.

tl;dr: it;s not the sex is inappropriate or offensive, it's that the actual social context of carrying on a discussion about sex can be kind of weird.

Very hard to believe that he meant that. He's been expressing frustration and disillusionment with the forum lately, so to me, it sounds like another fuck-this-place-ban-me kind of thing.

He was disillusioned with the forum because we weren't all praising his work and calling him the second coming of Russell or Wittgenstein, which he believed himself to be. Not the first time someone's used their intellect to (sort of) mask an inner rottenness. Honestly, I've been engaging with him for 6 months and while I've had deep philosophical disagreements with other members Pfhorrest was just in his own category of unbearableness.

I'm honestly thrilled about this one and I stopped engaging Pfhorrest ages ago because he is not at all a reasonable person. I could have seen from a mile away that @I like sushi providing him a reasonable, well thought out critique would have set him off like this. You do not criticize his baby. I just love how beforehand he was like 'hey why are we all here?' 'why is nobody providing responses to my work?' 'does anyone here actually like philosophy or is it only me?' Anyway, thank you moderators.

I'd honestly scrap the word 'confidence.' It's not about confidence. You're looking for a justification, and I'm no mathematician, but I'd look towards math if first and foremost if you're looking to ground your beliefs in something. There is such a thing as a mathematical equilibrium, and personally I make use of this when it comes to decision making in games.

If we frame the idea of 'absolute truth' or whatever in the context of something - say, a game - I think it becomes a little easier. The problem with this discussions is that we don't really particularize them and as a result everyone gets confused and it turns into a mess. If you were to actually particularize it and ask about, say, absolute truth or objectivity in the context of game strategy the discussion becomes a little more honed and insightful.

Fans of that old game enjoyed having some new game content to play, and some of those fans enjoyed creating such content themselves, and both of those subgroups of that fandom checked out and gave feedback on my project, and eventually a lot of us ended up collaborating and creating something far greater than I could have all by myself in a vacuum.

Yeah, that's a game. I wouldn't think it's a problem to find game testers or people who'd want to try out some mod, but reading and providing feedback on relatively dense philosophical papers is just a different ballgame. You know as well as I that good philosophy requires serious concentration, and with your work I know that I'd have to go through other parts of your system if I wanted to either critique or gain a better understanding of one part. People enjoy playing games; good philosophy is serious work.

But I still get the impression that most people here aren't interested in the same kind of big-picture philosophy-as-a-whole thing that my interest is all about.
— Pfhorrest
Your implication may be correct that this forum is not frequented primarily by academically-trained philosophers, but mostly by amateur & self-taught thinkers like me. Your interests, and I assume your training, are directed toward very abstruse & abstract topics. But many posters here use the forum to share gossip about politicians and viral pandemics, instead of pondering Liberty/Ethics/Justice, or the Viral Memes of Sophistry.

I think topics pertaining to ethics and liberty and justice do actually gain a lot of traction. The thing is - and this isn't targeted towards you - but philosophers aren't laying out entire systems anymore that aim to cover basically all topics. Philosophy - at least academic philosophy - is very concentrated. I think if you really want someone serious to go through your manifesto you're probably need to pay an expert philosopher for it. Even people with degrees in philosophy aren't going to take time out of their own day to read through pages of technical material and write up critiques.

There's a few posters here who I like hearing from. There's also a few posters who are likely/possibly educated philosophers who hold PhDs or an MA in the field and I like hearing their input. There's definitely some very intelligent people on this forum regardless of whether they hold advanced degrees or not. I also like that there's sometimes drama. When 90 day fiancee starts to slow I can always come here.

A lot of our "disagreement" comes down to how you describe actions or individuals. It's like we both see a beautiful garden and I say "think of the billions of insects which have died in here and the flowers which were forced to grow by the laws of nature."
— BitconnectCarlos

Yes, there is that too. Accepting it or not.

I think the idea of the laws of nature is an interesting comparison here. Lets say I took the position that if X is subject the laws of nature then it's better off not existing. Just curious, would you personally agree with this? Lets say I argue that the laws of nature impede on the autonomy of the being and probably involve some inevitable degree of suffering. Why do you confine your position only to humans? I wouldn't be surprised if chimpanzees and other forms of primates have some rudimentary society/"public face" that they need to put on.

It's not angry or not angry. It's "is" this the state of affairs or not?

Our "disagreement" is with the attitude more than it is with the facts. You seemingly really, really don't like the system of production & consumption that exists within any society.... to the point where you seemingly want to stop people from being born. I don't know what to say to that.

First off, the goal is to align people with production and consumption.

I could challenge you on whether society actually has a goal. I fully accept that economics plays a large part in life, but to say that THE single goal of society is production and consumption is taking things a little far IMO. People have goals. Communities might have goals. A culture could certainly have a goal. A religion could have a goal - these goals are found in authoritative documents. As far as I know there are no authoratitive documents concerning western society, which is already extremely broad. Sure we have laws... but in terms of day-to-day life? Let me know here if I'm missing something.

they have been inculcated so as to be a laborer in it- keeping a third-party entity going and developing attitudes to best do this

Have you ever considered that someone finding a job they love could lead to the fulfillment of the human being? Why do you describe someone loving their work as just them being inculcated by society instead of fulfilling some form of self actualization? My brother for instance has his own small business. He's his own boss, and he makes objects out of clay on a pottery wheel. He likes what he does. Apparently by your description though he's just a mindless worker bee who's been inculcated by the system into liking his work. Clearly he doesn't have any agency.

A lot of our "disagreement" comes down to how you describe actions or individuals. It's like we both see a beautiful garden and I say "think of the billions of insects which have died in here and the flowers which were forced to grow by the laws of nature."

Ad hom and you haven't paid attention to my arguments.

I have paid attention to your arguments I just don't think our "disagreement" is over anything factual....it just seems to be over attitude which I wouldn't call a real disagreement. If I'm angry over some state of affairs and you're not are we really in a genuine, philosophical argument? It's not an ad hom either but I don't want to get sidetracked.

It cannot be avoided, and it certainly should give pause to know you will be creating a new individual to simply be used as such for labor and production and perpetuating consumption, production, repeat.

Oh, the terror....a child will probably have to get a job someday. He will be targeted with advertisements and treated like a mere consumers by society! Lets ensure that he never gets born.

Your doing crossword puzzles, reading that novel, taking that vacation, going to bars and restaurants, going to that concert, travelling the world are all just ways to distract and blow of steam (and are just elaborate forms of consumption)

Some people like their jobs and this is too broad in any case and doesn't account for every single human on Earth. You think someone who's financially independent and has retired needs to constantly blow off steam? How about the people who actually like their jobs? You portray humanity like everybody is a miserable worker bee. Plenty of people don't need to blow off steam.

We are here to produce, consume, blow off steam (which amounts to more production and consumption), and repeat.

Well, that's just like, your description, man. I say we are here to find love, have religious/transcendental experiences and find connection.

And then I would just say, what's the point of science and technology in and of itself? Because you like reading about it and discussing it on a forum?

Among others, because it can help with diseases and disabilities. I have a feeling if you had chronic pain or some other disability - not always one involving pain - lets say tourettes - you would find research on this front meaningful. A cure could revolutionize your life.

And I've answered this type of argument before too:

Are we really even having an argument? You basically just have a jaded attitude which you justify to yourself on a cognitive level with the idea that "well, everyone's done this stuff nothing is novel...." You act like you've already done everything a billion times. Have you ever even had an experience that you considered meaningful?

Even if you were convinced you were right on this one, why do you care enough to spread your ideas? Isn't it just repeating the cycle?

Procreating a new person is simply feeding more people to the round-and-round socio-political-economic system.

So that's all it's doing? We're just feeding more people to be ground up by the machine called society?
Because that's the whole of human experience, right?

Go on an international trip. Go explore some ancient ruins. Go take some mushrooms in the woods somewhere. Go to a rave. Go take a jog on a beautiful day in a beautiful park. Fall in love.