The moral facts of (1) useless suffering and (2) fear of suffering are both (A) experienced by every human being and (B) known about every human being by every human being.

How can we show that it is a sound basis, rather than merely a preference, unlike the position of someone who acts without regard for the suffering their actions cause?
Such a person is merely inconsistent, hypocritical irrational or sociopathic – neither logical or mathematical rigor eliminates misapplication of rules or bad habits or trumps ignorance. — 180 Proof

:up: :up:

Here's my secular/naturalistic, negative consequentialist shorthand:
• Good indicates that which prevents, reduces or eliminates harm (i.e. suffering or injustice).
• Bad indicates that which fails to prevent, reduce or eliminate harm ...
• Evil indicates that which prevents, reduces or eliminates any or all potential(s) for doing or experiencing Good. — 180 Proof

I would struggle to see how we could improve on this. No doubt, we could introduce a lot of speculative, abstruse theoretical material into discussions of ethics, but given that morality is firmly rooted in the experiences of conscious creatures, this seems to me a solid foundation.

I am interested in the ethical commitment to preventing suffering. What justifies this as a foundational principle of morality? How can we show that it is a sound basis, rather than merely a preference, unlike the position of someone who acts without regard for the suffering their actions cause? What makes the reduction of harm morally compelling rather than optional?

My own thought experiment is of thinking about how life would have been if I had not existed. It involves eliminating oneself from every aspect and incident in which one has ever partaken in. I wonder about how different life would have been without me for my family, friends and in all respects..How would life have been different for others without my existence in causal chains? — Jack Cummins

I have gently pondered this question since I was a child. Answer: it would have been different, but not significantly so. If I hadn’t been here, someone else would likely have fulfilled most of the roles I’ve held: perhaps better than me, perhaps worse, but who knows? One of my pet hates is the mawkish It’s a Wonderful Life school of personal significance, which fits neatly with our culture’s romantic obsession with individualism and the putative power of the lone actor to shape and improve the world for those around them. In truth, most of us are woven into larger patterns that would carry on without us, differently perhaps, but no worse. Most of us are not irreplaceable, and most of us make little real difference to the world which, for me, is a sobering idea and perhaps even a liberating one.

Democracy hasn't been voting for dictators. It has been voting for influencers.

Liberalism could still be the social structure that works best in the real world. But democracy has become detached from the real world and absorbed into its own reality show version of life. — apokrisis

This is an interesting take.

This realism about what the actual facts are – what people really want and the scale of the surplus that exists to be shared – is basic to liberal democracy working as a coherent system. And it is the realism that has fallen apart in a big way. Voters are now entrained to the various brands of cultural make-believe. — apokrisis

Do you see this as a phase or the beginning of catastrophe?

fortunately wrong reading is unavoidable, so that life and creativity is possible. — Angelo Cannata

I think you and I might agree that there are degrees of misreading. If you came away from Das Kapital seeing it as a guide for trusting corporations and stock markets to solve all social problems, then we have likely crossed a line into uselessness.

My perception is that superficiality is not just in uneducated people, but also in 99.99% of philosophers and intellectuals, which includes me of course. I think that what we need is some art of listening, which modern and contemporary philosophy doesn’t teach us so much, because it is made of enormous efforts to define, understand, express, instead of listening. — Angelo Cannata

I'm quite content to be superficial, to be honest.

But I wonder if this inability to listen well has a contrapuntal echo in people’s inability to read well. I notice that when people read, they often recreate the writing in the light of their own values and interpretive frameworks. To some extent this is unavoidable, but perhaps there is a line where the reading and recreating becomes self-serving, distorting and blind to new ideas.

Your solution here would appear to avoid infinite regress. As a general rule do you find infinite regress problematic?

Or something like that. I think it's maybe easier if you know some famous scientists to differentiate between the brilliant, and those who were also brilliant and seem wise. But it's hard to put one's finger on the difference easily. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, it is difficult. And, as we both know, sometimes the quality of wisdom means different things to different people. It's a bit like the elusive quality of being 'cool'. On the subject of scientists, I once had it pointed out to me that Richard Dawkins is wise, while Francis Collins is foolish - which obviously reflected a bias that secularism was a wiser choice than theism.

Over the past decade, I've observed a notable shift in global sentiment—especially from my vantage point in the East. Not long ago—perhaps 10 to 15 years back—there was a widespread admiration for the West in my country. The U.S. dollar was seen as unshakable. Western democracy was often cited as the highest political ideal. Western consumer goods were considered objectively superior. And the broader cultural narrative—academic, technological, even moral—was clearly West-centric. — Astorre

Interesting. I’ve noticed a self-criticism within the West that has become more rancid over time. It used to be just a leftist posture but now seems to be broad-based. Liberalism has always celebrated pluralism and voices of criticism and dissent. They now seem to be the loudest voices. My perception is that this has been the case for about 20 years, with the signs already prominent 40 years ago.

I think powerful interest groups benefit from the idea that politics is a sham and that all institutions are corrupt or dysfunctional. This means they can be dismantled with little resistance. Possibly the best way to dispatch democracy is not to take it on directly but to undermine its relevance and prestige.

Nicely put. What do you make of the notion that morality is prelinguistic?

Out of interest, if you had to provide some 17 year-old students with a brief definition of wisdom (and not one quoted from elsewhere), what might you say, in just a few sentences?

Ethics is about, foundationally, value-in-being, and value lies outside of language, notwithstanding that I am speaking just this. — Constance

I wonder if it might be more precise to describe values as having a pre-linguistic dimension (in experience, emotion, embodied life), but that they only become social, reflective, and enduring through language. Morality then is social relations with language. Our entire discourse would vanish without language.

Whatever prelinguistic or 'transcendent' origin ethics might have, we cannot demonstrate it, nor can we access it. And, as you say, we are limited to using language. I wonder if it is safe to leave it behind, as it is difficult to see what use this frame has beyond engaging in abstract speculation or intellectual exercises. Unless you add God (which you seek to avoid) which might provide us with a putative foundation or grounding for it all and this also comes with a 'to do' list. (Not that this frame is convincing to me either.)

My question to you is this: how do we talk about ethics as a society? Setting aside the abstruse, speculative material of academia or in a forum like this, what can we say (as per the OP) that is accessible and useful at a societal level about right and wrong?

. If ethics is essentially discoverable, then this implies something outside of thought , addressed by thought to determine how to understand it. — Constance

I’ve heard no good reason to accept this idea but if you want to provide some evidence please do.

is there something timeless and absolute in the presuppositions of an ethical problem? — Constance

I don't know of anything timeless and absolute, do you? Are you thinking morality is like maths or the logical absolutes? I'm not certain they are timeless or absolute and there are philosophers who argue this.

But if ethics is entirely made in the matrix of language dealing with the world, "made up" if you will, then this is end of there being a true independent ground for ethics, and a radical relativism is all that is left. — Constance

I would imagine that suffering and happiness were experienced before language, so there’s that.

I would think also that morality comes from our interactions with the world and other creatures, not just language. But given you wrote of relativism “is all that is left” it sounds like you’re not comfortable with it. I think we’ve had this conversation before.

I don’t see these as moral issues. I see them as policy issues. — T Clark

I find that difficult to understand.

Do the laws and regulations that address these issues protect and serve the members of society in an appropriate way? — T Clark

Do laws which allow for the provision of abortion not themselves present a moral position? Are they not, in effect, sanctioning what some would regard as murder?

Questions about abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, or welfare aren't merely about administrative effectiveness; they rest on moral judgments about the value of life, autonomy, and justice. Even framing them as ‘policy’ decisions already reflects a moral stance.

I guess there seems to be two things. Whether it is called such or not, there seems to be a sort of social level morality being invoked, right (i.e., what societies ought or ought not do)? However, at the same time, societies are made up of individuals, and if they do not value this social morality and it has no claim on them then how does it apply? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, I think this is a significant point. How I behave is of less significance than how a society behaves. The law seems to exist because individual morality doesn't help us keep the community safe or protected.

Morality, as I understand it, applies to my judgments of my own behavior. How do I decide how to behave? — T Clark

Do you have a way of deciding whether a government is behaving with appropriate judgment or within an appropriate ethical frame? How does your 'individualist' approach impact upon issues like abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, welfare for poor people, etc.

Yes. I guess I wasn't being meta enough.

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." - William Shakespeare, Act 2, Scene 2, "Hamlet".

Anyhow, I believe the correct response here is: "There are more things in heaven and earth... than are dreamt of in your philosophy" - William Shakespeare, Act 1, Scene 5, "Hamlet". :smile: — Count Timothy von Icarus

The problem with these frequently cited quotes is that they are often treated as a kind of blank check, used to justify all sorts of reckless or extreme views.

Here’s how I see it - this is from Ziporyn’s translation of the Chuang Tzu (Zhuangzi).

What I call good is not humankindness and responsible conduct, but just being good at what is done by your own intrinsic virtuosities. Goodness, as I understand it, certainly does not mean humankindness and responsible conduct! It is just fully allowing the uncontrived condition of the inborn nature and allotment of life to play itself out. What I call sharp hearing is not hearkening to others, but rather hearkening to oneself, nothing more.

This is how Emerson put it in “Self-Reliance.”

No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition, as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he. — T Clark

I'm not sure I understand those quotes. If they're just saying that we make our choices based on our own conscience then we are bound to admit that that includes Pol Pot and doesn't get us very far in deciding what is right or wrong in society. That said, I also tend to act and not reflect on what is right. I simply follow my disposition and rarely need to think things through. But given that I am situated within a specific culture, society, time, and place, none of my positions are particularly original, intuitive, or brave.

Could there be a third way? I'm thinking that everyone has the capacity to be a kind of scientist of their own experince, they experiment and test as they go, using lived experince to affirm or modify choices. More of a practice based philosophical approach.

Why isn't veganism legally mandatory in all countries? — Truth Seeker

Because not enough people care about the welfare of animals, and eating meat is deeply embedded in our culture. The moral conversations of many cultures haven't taken this matter seriously as yet.

You’re understanding my point back to front. Across ethical systems, a common theme is the prevention of harm. This does not imply that every possible instance of harm is recognized or codified into the moral principles of a culture. Ethical systems are selective, shaped by historical, social, and practical considerations. Some harms may go unnoticed or be considered acceptable in certain contexts, while others are amplified as morally significant.

Yes, on the face of it, describing reality with a single system does seem to be far fetched, perhaps even absurd. But then, this would depend on one's understanding of reality - an ambiguous notion it would seem - as well as one's understanding of a system - which is exactly the question contemplated by this discussion - also, it would seem, an ambiguous notion. — Pieter R van Wyk

I was just describing something I’ve seen. I don’t think it’s a particularly important point. Whether someone is a monomaniac or not hardly matters. We can always ignore them. Who knows, one of them may eventually turn out to be Kant.

If anybody has any ethical questions, they can just ask me. — frank

Yep, that's an option too.

Well this is old one isn't it? Is morality objective or subjective or, in fact, intersubjective? We come to this on the forum every few weeks or months it seems to me.

How do we decide what should be legal and what should be illegal? — Truth Seeker

For my money, I don’t think we decide questions of legality by appealing to some eternal moral law written into the fabric of the universe. Instead, we put together compromises that let us get along with one another while pursuing our different projects. Hence the public conversation about morality which result in law reform and an evolution of what is right and wrong over time.

So it seems that the line between legal and illegal is not discovered, it’s negotiated. What matters isn’t whether a law corresponds to some deep moral truth, but whether it works well enough for the purposes of reducing cruelty, minimising conflict, and keeping social life manageable. So the foundation of most moral systems seems to be preventing harm and promoting wellbeing. We can certainly decide not to do this and see what happens.

Given humans are a social species and getting on with each other has been the source of our strength and success (such as they are) it’s clear to see how not killing, not stealing, not lying and not assaulting others works to all our advantages. But there are always situations where even these prohibitions may not be useful.

Many people are driven by prejudices. — Astorre

One person’s prejudice is another’s insight.

I agree with you. In this sense, philosophy is a dude who sits in your head and criticizes you. In psychology, this is called self-reflection (if I'm not mistaken). — Astorre

I think it’s often called critical reflection or in nursing, teaching and social work, reflective practice.

But what is often forgotten here is that critical practice also acknowledges strengths: what works, what is possible given limitations and what is successful. Rather than pointing out a need for change or highlighting omissions or flaws, it can actually embolden and be an affirmation of your choices and approaches.

Nice try, I like this and I can see your reasoning but I think it's an inadequate read of what I said.

I wrote :-

probably better understood — Tom Storm

There’s nuance here. I’m not claiming to have fully solved fundamental questions of reality, nor have I developed a system. I haven’t claimed to have understood the nature of reality, either. In fact, I’m questioning whether 'reality' is even a useful term and provided soem reasons. What I have suggested is a provisional orientation, perhaps a soft form of postmodernism that remains open to revision. Which is why I also wrote:

...I don’t rule out possibilities, — Tom Storm

At any rate, the point we're discussing is comprehensive explanations and system-building where there's a claim made that the precise nature of reality has been described, not whether people can hold certain pragmatic presuppositions or tendencies in their everyday lives. What defines a 'crank' (in most instances like this) I would say is the obsession with elaborate system building to 'resolve' age old questions, not the simple act of having opinions or beliefs.

Are you saying:

that it is impossible to understand this thing we humans named reality?
that only cranks and monomaniacs can understand this thing we humans named reality? — Pieter R van Wyk

As you'll note I said :-

it's usually the hallmark — Tom Storm

This does not contain any absolutist pronouncements like the two dot points you’ve provided.

But if I treat these as follow-up questions, I would say that 'reality' is not something waiting to be uncovered but a word we use in shifting contexts to describe what we take to be fundamental. I am not inclined to affirm systems that present themselves as having secured the essence of what is, since what we call reality for me is probably better understood as a contingent product of language, culture, and historically situated practices rather than the disclosure of some underlying foundation.

In my experience, there is always someone on the periphery, doggedly trying to describe reality and reconcile all myths and principles into a single system. They invariably believe themselves misunderstood, refusing to accept that others regard them as cranks.

A fine literary satire of this familiar type was provided by a favourite English writer, George Eliot. In Middlemarch she created the elderly pedant Mr. Casaubon, forever labouring over his great tome, The Key to All Mythologies.

that only cranks and monomaniacs can understand this thing we humans named reality? — Pieter R van Wyk

Maybe that would be better restated as, "only cranks and monomaniacs believe they can undertand reality."

In any case, I don’t rule out possibilities, but I tend to see the idea of “uncovering reality” as an old-fashioned, romantic notion whose prospects are, at the very least, uncertain.

Nice quote and exactly what I was thinking of.

Well, one interesting thing is that back when the primary goal of philosophical education was existential transformation instead of intellectual specialization (i.e., for most of pre-modern though, and for much Eastern philosophy) it was also taught very differently. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I hadn't thought of it in terms of existential transformation but I guess that works. There does seem to be a kind of bifurcation between the problem solvers and the dreamers - for want of better terms. And no doubt there's overlap.

Emotion crises arise as indications that the patterns we relied on are brining to fail us, and we either have to construct our world to a small and smaller circle of what we can cope with, or begin the process of re-organizing our system of constructs. — Joshs

Yes. Good point.

Whenever someone claims that so and so’s thinking had a life-changing effect on them, I suspect that scratching beneath the surface will reveal such a readiness to be transformed. — Joshs

Yes, that likely to be accurate.

Thanks.

Wittgenstein said something similar: "Don't for heaven's sake, be afraid of talking nonsense! But you must pay attention to your nonsense." — Janus

:up: Nice.

"If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise" William Blake — Janus

Is this a paradoxical way of saying practice makes perfect?

I guess it's helpful for us to distinguish a fool from a 'simpleton'. In as much as a fool may learn and acquire knowledge by learning from mistakes, but a simpleton may have cognitive limitations. I think there's an innocence in foolishness.

It seems significantly less common in modern philosophy, although there are examples such as Pascal. It's a sort of "trope" in Eastern thought too, the life of the Buddha being a paradigmatic example. But, just because these are tropes and find their way into hagiography, doesn't mean they aren't real; we do have first hand biographical accounts as well. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Yes, I was thinking about this kind of thing earlier. I was also considering the difference between attaining ‘enlightenment’ (for want of a better term) and, in the case of Marxists or Muslims, being radicalised.

But I was thinking less ambitiously: more like an understanding about the nature of time, or a perspective offered by phenomenology, and how, even on a smaller scale, such realizations might completely recalibrate one’s way of relating to the world and its “problems.” Not enlightenment, radicalisation, or conversion to a faith, but rather (damn, I’ll have to use the phrase) a paradigm shift. Perhaps 'realization' is the better word.

I have a romantic notion of philosophy as potentially being able to provide this kind of psychological or experiential transformation, not just the lifeless pursuit of analysis and cold reasoning, but a new way of seeing that enlarges our experience in some way. Yet such a description feels rather tendentious, soft and poetic.

The mysterious concept of ‘temperament’ arises out of creating artificially separated categories out of learning , cognition and affectivity. — Joshs

Cool. So can we think of temperament as habitual patterns of sense making? I’m assuming you include in temperament people’s preferences for order, simplicity, chaos, or whatever…

We don’t need Nietzsche and Heidegger in order to do philosophy, since we are already formulating, testing and revising our own philosophical systems all the time. — Joshs

Of course, but in most cases it often seems to take the contributions of others to promote a significant shift in our thinking. Although I’m sure break through moments can also happen from life events. But what does it mean to read Wittgenstein or Heidegger and see the world radically anew? From what you say above, is it correct to think you might define philosophy as an act of sense making?

Wisdom always sounds like a good thing to have. But really, it is just some set of habits that have evolved within a society's own game of life. They only have to be pragmatically effective – optimised enough to keep the whole social game going. There is nothing transcendent about either cleverness or wisdom. — apokrisis

That has a sort of Rorty-like feel to it. The contingency of wisdom as part of an evolving vocabulary.

Note the reduction of wisdom to mere cleverness. Something has gone astray. — Banno

There’s something a bit cheap and glib about mere cleverness, which seems to locate wisdom closer to nous and virtue. Perhaps there’s moral cleverness?

If you have in mind people like us and people adjacent to us, then we are what, 5% of the population at very best? — Manuel

Never thought about it. I’m not sure if I should be concerned or amused by this figure,

Most people - even in optimal conditions - don't care enough about these issues. Heck even interest in science is low for what I would like it to be, but philosophy today? That's tough. — Manuel

I wonder if there are some good stats on this. I mentioned philosophy at work a couple of times and people made it clear they thought it was bullshit. Mind you this is a crowd interested in critical theory so go figure.

Another thing is being a follower of Derrida or Lacan, that exists, is relatively small, but probably not good for thinking, imo. — Manuel

Yes, all the smart young kids of my era were cheerfully fixated with deconstruction in the 1980’s. I never had the temperament to make it through the texts. They were so turgid and took time from women and booze.

I forget exactly where, I think it's in a few places, Plato describes being educated as primarily "desiring what is truly worthy/good and despising what is truly unworthy/bad." He says that a formally educated, wealthy person might be able to give more sophisticated answers as to why something is desirable or undesirable, but that this is ancillary to being truly "educated." If the more sophisticated person is nonetheless not properly oriented/cultivated such as to desire the good and abhor evil, then they are in an important sense uneducated (unformed); whereas the unsophisticated person is educated, although lacking in sophistication. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Which is a reasonable point.

But education wouldn't quite be the same thing as wisdom. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Intuitively that seems right too.

Certain understandings of wisdom, then, rest on the ability to know or intuit the Good, or on union with God, with the source of this wisdom rooted in a transcendent origin.

Not that it's impossible to have someone change the way you view things, it just looks to be very rare. — Manuel

Which is curious, if true.

I'm pretty sure people can be 'radicalised' by philosophy. I’ve certainly met those who 'converted' to idealism or became obsessed with Heidegger’s model of time, to the point where perpetually excited and they would talk about nothing else. And then there are those who abandoned their Islamic or Christian faith and became bores about secular philosophy instead.

You would think that if philosophy truly had the power to lift us beyond convention and common sense, it would amount to a profoundly mind-bending and transformative experience for many people.

That’s very true. :grin:

Isn’t it all just stories and myths, with some proving more useful than others depending on the circumstances? I don’t begin with the idea that we ever stumble onto some final truth, only that we keep finding frames or descriptions that serve us better for the purposes at hand. Or something like this.

:up:

I think life difficulties are much more defined or informed by one's temperament more than what some intelligent person said back in the day. — Manuel

Well said. A perspective people tend not to consider as they seem to attribute everything to learning and discernment.

You can gain perspective and even insight in philosophy, but I don't think it will change the way you face problems, not unlike thinking that studying psychology will let you read other people's minds (it won't). — Manuel

That's worth thinking about.

I briefly studied philosophy at university. My tutor once said something like, no one he had ever met was truly changed by philosophy; it only served to elaborate their preconceptions and biases.

I keep wondering if there are transformational understandings about time and self and being and truth and reality that would open up and utterly change one. Surely that's the promise of thinkers like Nietzsche and Heidegger...