|
Pretty self explanatory but I was just wondering how other goons thought about the idea. Basically, I agree with this cus no matter how good or bad a person is, I don't think that should be reason to praise them as a special snowflake or kill them for what one thinks is the "greater good." There really is no "right" or "wrong" way to be a human being in the greater scheme of things.
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 01:30
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 09:27 |
|
|
Yep. Then again, ascribing a lack of "right" or "wrong" to the universe is also imposing a set of values onto it, don't you think?
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 01:36
|
|
|
On the contrary, existence is a false idea.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 01:37
|
|
|
sitchensis posted:Yep. Well I mean more like, the world itself is absurd because there are no real "rules" for life itself. There's no greater power that says that's it's ok to do this but not ok to do that. Most of what people say is right or wrong is based on something that is based off of the rules of the society they live in. Not to say it's always a bad or a good thing. Example: in most societies, it's illegal to kill people (duh), and I agree with that idea cus I don't see a reason to purposely kill someone, but there might be someone out there who thinks otherwise. They're most likely hosed in the head, but there's technically nothing stopping them from thinking that to begin with. Granted there's stuff like the law that would discourage someone from doing so, but there are no "laws" on life itself.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 01:45
|
|
|
Brainiac Five posted:On the contrary, existence is a false idea. Not to say "lol ur rong xddd" but how so? What's your belief/reasoning behind that? Just curious.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 01:55
|
|
|
You say you agree that existence precedes essence (it doesn't,) but the end of your thesis, "no right or wrong way to be a human being," is extremely anti-essentialist.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 01:56
|
|
|
PortalFreak posted:Not to say "lol ur rong xddd" but how so? What's your belief/reasoning behind that? Just curious. Well, I mean, the notion of "existence" implies permanence. There is something which exists. But permanence requires an uncaused phenomenon, which is not something that is observed or considered at all likely. So we must abandon the notion of permanence, and in turn the idea of "existence", because although things exist at any given moment they are also constantly changing and we don't experience ourselves as a collection of snapshots, but as a continuous stream of events without discrete boundaries. "Existence" is a tool we impose on our experiences for the purpose of introspection, but it's also a flawed one.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 02:01
|
|
|
While there is no outside judge or arbiter of your life's rightness or wrongness you are still just an organism which is programmed through some mixture of socialization and instinct to have certain values and you can't really escape or transcend those values until you die and cease to exist, at most you can change the way you think about them.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 02:52
|
|
|
Here's the thing, if existence precedes essence then theology has : 'a rediscovery of the word sin [...] as universal, tragic estrangement'. Assesrting that gives sin, grace, and salvation new meaning as ideas. When existence precedes essence is asserted, it can be responded to aplogetically by religion. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 03:09 on Dec 3, 2016 |
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 03:02
|
|
|
Helsing posted:While there is no outside judge or arbiter of your life's rightness or wrongness you are still just an organism which is programmed through some mixture of socialization and instinct to have certain values and you can't really escape or transcend those values until you die and cease to exist, at most you can change the way you think about them. I don't think this is incontrovertibly true.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 03:02
|
|
|
I think being a murderer is a wrong way to be a human being. That seems pretty obvious.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 03:12
|
|
|
Juffo-Wup posted:I think being a murderer is a wrong way to be a human being. That seems pretty obvious. Please respect the Troops.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 03:37
|
|
|
Bip Roberts posted:Please respect the Troops. But you see, it's only murder when it definitely shouldn't be done, according to my personal judgement. Problem solved.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 09:59
|
|
|
PortalFreak posted:no matter how good or bad a person is, I don't think that should be reason to praise them as a special snowflake When you say they are good, you are praising them. Are you in fact saying that there is zero difference between good and bad things?
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 10:48
|
|
|
Doc Hawkins posted:But you see, it's only murder when it definitely shouldn't be done, according to my personal judgement. Problem solved. Huh?
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 18:14
|
|
|
Bunch of bastards and losers posting in bad faith in this thread imo.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 18:22
|
|
|
Juffo-Wup posted:Huh? I made an uncharitable guess as to your response to Bip's objection. You should dispute it with them, and prove me an rear end in a top hat.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 18:24
|
|
|
Brainiac Five posted:I don't think this is incontrovertibly true. Few things are. But even if it's a false idea it still seems to be more accurate than the comparatively juvenile beliefs that you can either generate your own set of values independently or that you can receive your values from some kind of deity or higher power.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 18:27
|
|
|
Helsing posted:Few things are. But even if it's a false idea it still seems to be more accurate than the comparatively juvenile beliefs that you can either generate your own set of values independently or that you can receive your values from some kind of deity or higher power. I don't think confusing despairing inevitability with adulthood is good, nor telling people they are helpless and prostrate before artificial gods of socialization.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 18:35
|
|
|
Doc Hawkins posted:I made an uncharitable guess as to your response to Bip's objection. You should dispute it with them, and prove me an rear end in a top hat. More lazy than uncharitable, I think. There's like three better responses than that one off the top of my head. Here's one: Bip Roberts posted:Please respect the Troops. No court on earth thinks killing in war is murder???
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 18:54
|
|
|
Brainiac Five posted:I don't think confusing despairing inevitability with adulthood is good, nor telling people they are helpless and prostrate before artificial gods of socialization. I don't see why you have to despair over the fact that your values emerge from the interaction between your biological needs and the culture into which you are born. It's not as though this means your values are incapable of change, though it does mean that the extent of those changes is determined by factors beyond your control.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 19:16
|
|
|
Helsing posted:I don't see why you have to despair over the fact that your values emerge from the interaction between your biological needs and the culture into which you are born. It's not as though this means your values are incapable of change, though it does mean that the extent of those changes is determined by factors beyond your control. No, I mean that your beliefs are essentially ones born out of despair. They are built around passivity and inevitability- that your mind is set in stone, and can only be worked on from the outside by gods we call "culture" and "biology".
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 19:17
|
|
|
But anyway, Death Is Certain.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 19:28
|
|
I CANNOT EJACULATE WITHOUT SEEING NATIVE AMERICANS BRUTALISED!
|
Brainiac Five posted:No, I mean that your beliefs are essentially ones born out of despair. They are built around passivity and inevitability- that your mind is set in stone, and can only be worked on from the outside by gods we call "culture" and "biology". Acknowledging that we don't create our own values out of thin air isn't a passive or despairing stance, and I'm curious what perspective you'd propose adopting as an alternative.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 19:29
|
|
|
Helsing posted:Acknowledging that we don't create our own values out of thin air isn't a passive or despairing stance, and I'm curious what perspective you'd propose adopting as an alternative. Your position is that values are immutable and cannot be consciously altered, and that is what I am calling a passive stance, since it argues that, if you are racist you will always be racist until your biology or culture makes you suddenly not-racist. That is the very definition of passive- you cannot attempt to counteract your racism, because your racism is immutable unless altered externally by what are more-or-less divine forces in your metaphysics.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 19:31
|
|
|
Doc Hawkins posted:prove me an rear end in a top hat. Existentialism is a humanism posted:We can judge, nevertheless, for, as I have said, one chooses in view of others, and in view of others one chooses himself. One can judge, first – and perhaps this is not a judgment of value, but it is a logical judgment – that in certain cases choice is founded upon an error, and in others upon the truth. One can judge a man by saying that he deceives himself [...] One may object: “But why should he not choose to deceive himself?” I reply that it is not for me to judge him morally, but I define his self-deception as an error. Here one cannot avoid pronouncing a judgment of truth. The self-deception is evidently a falsehood, because it is a dissimulation of man’s complete liberty of commitment [...] Furthermore, I can pronounce a moral judgment. For I declare that freedom, in respect of concrete circumstances, can have no other end and aim but itself; and when once a man has seen that values depend upon himself, in that state of forsakenness he can will only one thing, and that is freedom as the foundation of all values. That does not mean that he wills it in the abstract: it simply means that the actions of men of good faith have, as their ultimate significance, the quest of freedom itself as such. A man who belongs to some communist or revolutionary society wills certain concrete ends [...] and in thus willing freedom, we discover that it depends entirely upon the freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon our own. Obviously, freedom as the definition of a man does not depend upon others, but as soon as there is a commitment, I am obliged to will the liberty of others at the same time as my own. I cannot make liberty my aim unless I make that of others equally my aim. Consequently, when I recognise, as entirely authentic, that man is a being whose existence precedes his essence, and that he is a free being who cannot, in any circumstances, but will his freedom, at the same time I realize that I cannot not will the freedom of others. Thus, in the name of that will to freedom which is implied in freedom itself, I can form judgments upon those who seek to hide from themselves the wholly voluntary nature of their existence and its complete freedom. Those who hide from this total freedom, in a guise of solemnity or with deterministic excuses, I shall call cowards [losers (laches)]. Others, who try to show that their existence is necessary, when it is merely an accident of the appearance of the human race on earth – I shall call scum [bastards (salauds)]. But neither cowards nor scum can be identified except upon the plane of strict authenticity. Thus, although the content of morality is variable, a certain form of this morality is universal.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 19:37
|
|
|
Brainiac Five posted:Your position is that values are immutable and cannot be consciously altered, and that is what I am calling a passive stance, since it argues that, if you are racist you will always be racist until your biology or culture makes you suddenly not-racist. That is the very definition of passive- you cannot attempt to counteract your racism, because your racism is immutable unless altered externally by what are more-or-less divine forces in your metaphysics. I said the limits of the changes you can make are beyond your control, which in no way rules out the possibility of consciously changing your beliefs. For instance, I hope that with conscious attention you will be capable of moving beyond this rather puerile tendency to debate by telling other people what their position on the matter is.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 19:41
|
|
|
Helsing posted:I said the limits of the changes you can make are beyond your control, which in no way rules out the possibility of consciously changing your beliefs. For instance, I hope that with conscious attention you will be capable of moving beyond this rather puerile tendency to debate by telling other people what their position on the matter is. I hope your god Biology cures you of this tendency towards condescension. With that out of the way, "While there is no outside judge or arbiter of your life's rightness or wrongness you are still just an organism which is programmed through some mixture of socialization and instinct to have certain values and you can't really escape or transcend those values until you die and cease to exist, at most you can change the way you think about them." Does not really seem compatible with what you are saying now. Perhaps you're using a particularly idiosyncratic definition? Anyways, if you're going to whine about people misrepresenting you and yet not offer any clarification, perhaps your values are simply incompatible with reasoned discussion?
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 19:52
|
|
|
Brainiac Five posted:I hope your god Biology cures you of this tendency towards condescension. I don't think there's any contradiction there. You can change your mind as time goes by but your life as you live it now is necessarily going to be in a continuous inner dialogue with the values that you absorbed when you were young. You might abandon an old religion or convert to a new one, you might change your perspective on gender or race, you might become kinder or crueler, but you're not going to ever truly escape the system of values you were raised in, especially since so many of those values aren't really present in your mind as consciously articulated beliefs. This seems like a fairly uncontroversial statement to me. It would probably be easier to determine what we disagree about if you suggested an alternative view.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 19:59
|
|
|
Helsing posted:I don't think there's any contradiction there. You can change your mind as time goes by but your life as you live it now is necessarily going to be in a continuous inner dialogue with the values that you absorbed when you were young. You might abandon an old religion or convert to a new one, you might change your perspective on gender or race, you might become kinder or crueler, but you're not going to ever truly escape the system of values you were raised in, especially since so many of those values aren't really present in your mind as consciously articulated beliefs. Define "system of values" and "escape". Because if we're saying that racism and nonracism coexist within a single system of values, what is really being said, to my mind, is that systems of values are necessarily broad enough to be self-contradictory, and that they cannot be escaped because they are broad enough it's impossible to hold a set of beliefs external to them. In which case "system of values" is more or less meaningless on an instrumental level.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 20:02
|
|
|
Oh dear me posted:When you say they are good, you are praising them. Are you in fact saying that there is zero difference between good and bad things? I meant to say there's such thing as praising them too much.
|
|
#
?
Dec 3, 2016 20:27
|
|
|
Juffo-Wup posted:I think being a murderer is a wrong way to be a human being. That seems pretty obvious. isn't the definition of murder something like "Illegal killing of another person". Using terms that rely on laws to make absolute moral judgement seems bad. Do you think killing people is the wrong way to be a human being? Or just unlawful killing?
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2016 00:54
|
|
|
Doorknob Slobber posted:isn't the definition of murder something like "Illegal killing of another person". Using terms that rely on laws to make absolute moral judgement seems bad. You can think that everyone who kills someone unlawfully has done something wrong without thinking that what made it wrong was that it was illegal. Obviously. It's pretty silly to think you can read someone's moral theory off of a single asserted moral fact.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2016 02:07
|
|
|
The claim I scoffed at was not that someone can call something bad, but that we would all agree that murder was bad, which mistakenly assumes we would agree on the content of the word. Instead, we commonly use it to attach negative connotations to a killing act. It should be painfully obvious that many people think a great deal of the killing done in war is murder. People can call it murder when the act is legal where it takes place, when it is never prosecuted, and when the perpetrators are found to not be responsible. People call Georges Tiller and Zimmerman murderers, and while you can disagree with either or both characterization, to do so because "words have definitions" is the most  poo poo I can currently be bothered to imagine.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2016 05:19
|
|
|
Refusing to acknowledge basic moral facts on the basis of 'but can we ever agree?!' is pretty feeble. Right up there with 'but how can we ever, like, really know anything?' for faux-sophistication. What kind of person ever thought people had to agree to facts in order for them to be true?
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2016 06:02
|
|
|
If I make a moral judgment, it's a fact that i've made it, but the judgment is not a fact. e: it's very easy to know stuff so I don't know where your argument on that front came from
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2016 08:33
|
|
|
PortalFreak posted:Pretty self explanatory None of this is self-explanatory and I'd actually like you to explain what you mean by these terms.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2016 12:24
|
|
|
Doc Hawkins posted:If I make a moral judgment, it's a fact that i've made it, but the judgment is not a fact. Is this view one of the sort that you come to on the basis of some reasons, or is it the other kind?
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2016 15:40
|
|
|
botany posted:None of this is self-explanatory and I'd actually like you to explain what you mean by these terms. "Existence precedes essence" means that the fact that something or someone exists alone is what gives it value, and not what the thing or person "is." I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I'd highly suggest looking it up for a clearer view on it.
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2016 16:33
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 29, 2024 09:27 |
|
|
PortalFreak posted:"Existence precedes essence" means that the fact that something or someone exists alone is what gives it value, and not what the thing or person "is." I'm not sure if that makes sense, but I'd highly suggest looking it up for a clearer view on it. So your thesis is that human live has inherent value outside of the specific form that human life takes. Is that about right? The obvious follow-ups would be: (a) Where does this value come from? (b) Does this mean that the specifics of human individual lives are morally irrelevant or is there an additional layer of moral values attached? To make this clearer: Would you say that a murderer and a philanthropist are morally of equal value since they are both human beings and the specifics of their lives are morally irrelevant, or is your position that they both have moral value qua being human, but the specifics of their lives (murdering people vs. helping people) has an additional moral content?
|
|
#
?
Dec 4, 2016 16:57
|
|