How is it consistent to criticize the left for hating America AND not having an objective morality ?

Bradskii · Feb 12, 2023

gaara4158 said:
I think if we’re truly looking to understand the nature of morality, it is wisest to look at why we care about morality in the first place and work backward from there. So, why do we care?

Because it works. Because morality gives us practical solutions to practical problems.

Does an act cause harm? No? Well there's nothing to discuss. It does? Well, how do we mitigate that harm? And do we consider the individual, the group or society itself?

How do we do it? We examine the facts of the matter and engage in reasonable discussion. We employ empathy. We listen to our conscience (and there's no need to argue where that came from). We listen to the arguments of those whom we consider experts. Can you use divine guidance? Sure. You can study the entrails of a goat if you like. As long as you can offer good reasons for your opinion.

What happens when we disagree? We generally don't. But in a democratic society, the majority will decide. Does that make them right? Of course not. There is no objectively correct answer to moral problems. But what if you think someone must be stopped? Well, then you have another moral problem. What actions can you take to impose your opinions on someone.

Can you use physical force? Violence? Go to war? Fly planes into buildings? Well, as I said, you better have some good reasons...

2PhiloVoid · Feb 12, 2023

Walking Contradiction said:
Unfortunately I'm not an intelligent guy, so you're going to have to explain to me how @gaara4158's previous post falls under the category of a Fallacy of Incredulity.

And here you are, a Christian, supposedly agreeing with gaara. What's there left for me to explain that you guys are willing to actually engage and listen to and for which I haven't already explained ad infinitum for the last 12 years on CF?

I think it's about time for you guys to do the work of figuring it out, like I had to do.

2PhiloVoid · Feb 12, 2023

Bradskii said:
Because it works. Because morality gives us practical solutions to practical problems.

Does an act cause harm? No? Well there's nothing to discuss. It does? Well, how do we mitigate that harm? And do we consider the individual, the group or society itself?

How do we do it? We examine the facts of the matter and engage in reasonable discussion. We employ empathy. We listen to our conscience (and there's no need to argue where that came from). We listen to the arguments of those whom we consider experts. Can you use divine guidance? Sure. You can study the entrails of a goat if you like. As long as you can offer good reasons for your opinion.

What happens when we disagree? We generally don't. But in a democratic society, the majority will decide. Does that make them right? Of course not. There is no objectively correct answer to moral problems. But what if you think someone must be stopped? Well, then you have another moral problem. What actions can you take to impose your opinions on someone.

Can you use physical force? Violence? Go to war? Fly planes into buildings? Well, as I said, you better have some good reasons...

How very overly simplistic.

Bradskii · Feb 12, 2023

2PhiloVoid said:
How very overly simplistic.

You think it's a simple exercise, determining morality? It's one of our more difficult undertakings. But complex it ain't. The formula is simple but the calculations aren't. And I've yet to see you offer anything in the way of how we should go about it. Plenty of reading lists and constant name dropping of philosophers right, left and centre. But nothing of substance.

So here's your opportunity to put up. Give us some first principles for determining the morality of an act. Tell us how you approach the problem. I've given mine so now you give yours.

2PhiloVoid · Feb 12, 2023

Bradskii said:
You think it's a simple exercise, determining morality? It's one of our more difficult undertakings. But complex it ain't. The formula is simple but the calculations aren't. And I've yet to see you offer anything in the way of how we should go about it. Plenty of reading lists and constant name dropping of philosophers right, left and centre. But nothing of substance.

So here's your opportunity to put up. Give us some first principles for determining the morality of an act. Tell us how you approach the problem. I've given mine so now you give yours.

I'm not here to build up. I'm here to tear apart. You want to hear about 'morality'? Then go to Jesus!

Bradskii · Feb 12, 2023

2PhiloVoid said:
I'm not here to build up. I'm here to tear apart. You want to 'morality'? Then go to Jesus!

So you got nothing? Colour me unsurprised...

Well, actually I do think you have something. We all have our own ways of determinng morality. You can't be any different. Except you'd prefer to do it by proxy. Read this...study that...check out this guy and that one...so that you then don't have to open yourself to any criticism. Nobody can pick holes in your method of determining what's right or wrong if you don't tell anyone what it is.

Exactly as you said, you are here not to offer anything. But only to poke holes in other people's opinions. What a waste of bandwidth...

2PhiloVoid · Feb 12, 2023

Bradskii said:
So you got nothing? Colour me unsurprised...

Well, actually I do think you have something. We all have our own ways of determinng morality. You can't be any different. Except you'd prefer to do it by proxy. Read this...study that...check out this guy and that one...so that you then don't have to open yourself to any criticism. Nobody can pick holes in your method of determining what's right or wrong if you don't tell anyone what it is.

You need to stop the the Russian style rhetorical banter, Bradskii. I'm always open to having folks engaging my sources and tearing into them. But when I offer this option, you know what kind of response I get? "We're not interested." So, spare me your obfuscating psuedo counter-measure. Apply it to yourself.

Bradskii said:
Exactly as you said, you are here not to offer anything. But only to poke holes in other people's opinions. What a waste of bandwidth...

No. I think I've said before why I'm here. It's why I've always ever been on here.

Bradskii · Feb 12, 2023

2PhiloVoid said:
I'm always open to having folks engaging my sources and tearing into them. But when I offer this option, you know what kind of response I get? "We're not interested."

Well, guess what. You're now going to get it again. I'm not interested. I could care less what you've read or who you've read or what you have studied. As this thread has turned into a discussion on morality I'd like to know the result of all that book learnin' you've been doing and how you personally determine that which is morally acceptable as opposed to morally unacceptable.

This is the second time directly asking you for your personal opinion on the matter.

2PhiloVoid · Feb 12, 2023

Bradskii said:
Well, guess what. You're now going to get it again. I'm not interested. I could care less what you've read or who you've read or what you have studied. As this thread has turned into a discussion on morality I'd like to know the result of all that book learnin' you've been doing and how you personally determine that which is morally acceptable as opposed to morally unacceptable.

This is the second time directly asking you for your personal opinion on the matter.

Well, that's seems to settle it, doesn't it? Because until you can find it in yourself to "care more" about what I've read or what I've studied, then all my answers will be given to those ... who do care, as in "care enough to want to read in depth, learn and discuss."

You're just an atheistic needle on your broken record ... **scrtzzz!!** (I don't care) **scrtzzz!!** (I don't care) **scrtzzz!!** (I don't care) **scrtzzz!!**, etc.

And you know what? In my ethos, when others demand something from me that they've also said they don't actually "care" about, I tend to find their obtuseness rather toothless.

Care more if you're going to be on a Christian forum.

Bradskii · Feb 12, 2023

2PhiloVoid said:
Well, that's seems to settle it, doesn't it? Because until you can find it in yourself to "care more" about what I've read or what I've studied, then all my answers will be given to those ... who do care, as in "care enough to want to read in depth, learn and discuss."

Again, I'm not interested in what other people have written or said. I want to know what YOU think about morality. Specifically, how you determine it.

This is the third time of asking.

2PhiloVoid · Feb 16, 2023

Bradskii said:
Again, I'm not interested in what other people have written or said. I want to know what YOU think about morality. Specifically, how you determine it.

This is the third time of asking.

But Bradskii, you've already told me that you know that I'm not a "true intellectual." Why would my moral viewpoint matter to you?

Bradskii · Feb 16, 2023

2PhiloVoid said:
But Bradskii, you've already told me that you know that I'm not a "true intellectual." Why would my moral viewpoint matter to you?

I don't think that you have one worth discussing. I'm not asking looking for enlightenment. I'm asking to show that you have nothing to offer.

2PhiloVoid · Feb 16, 2023

Bradskii said:
I don't think that you have one worth discussing. I'm not asking looking for enlightenment. I'm asking to show that you have nothing to offer.

You're right. I have nothing to offer. I'm simply a man who, like many people, loves his family, prefers an "Ethics of Care" and Communitarian form of moral decision making and attempts to follow Jesus even though I float in an existentially laden bog of reality.

So, there you have it, Bradskii! All of the nothing that I have to offer.

Now, how do you perceive your own Ethical and/or moral praxis?

Bradskii · Feb 16, 2023

2PhiloVoid said:
You're right. I have nothing to offer.

I've no comment. I just wanted to post that again.

FireDragon76 · Feb 16, 2023

Bradskii said:
I've no comment. I just wanted to post that again.

Socrates didn't have much to offer the world, either, except his questions.

Sometimes negation and deconstruction is something on offer.

FireDragon76 · Feb 16, 2023

gaara4158 said:
Identifying the true ontology of morality isn’t about establishing peace, although I suppose you could make an argument for a noble lie.

Why not?

Human beings value peace. It is actually what they are seeking in the deepest part of their being. Peace, wholeness, integration... what the Hebrew word shalom means. It seems to me that peace has a great deal of moral salience.

"There is no way to peace: peace is the way" - Abraham Muste

gaara4158 said:
However - the big, red, bouncy problem that emerges as soon as you try to tie morality to something Transcendent is you’ve created a tautology. Things aren’t good because of the benefits they have to humanity or society at large, but simply because they’re on a “nice” list, and things aren’t bad because of the harm they cause, but simply because they’re on the “naughty” list.

I don't see a tautology. Only if you discredit the notion of transcendence altogether is that a possible conclusion.

Morality can orient us towards the transcendent. Many religions across the planet have recognized that, whether Buddhist, Taoist, Christian, Hindu, etc. And the morality is remarkably consistent, being rooted in what the New Testament scholar Marcus Borg recognized as unconventional wisdom. Values like compassion, generosity, benevolence, etc. These values did not come out of nowhere, nor were they discovered to uphold the existing social order (quite the contrary, they were discovered to transcend the existing bronze age social order based on violence and power).

Neutral Observer · Feb 16, 2023

FireDragon76 said:
Human beings value peace. It is actually what they are seeking in the deepest part of their being. Peace, wholeness, integration... what the Hebrew word shalom means.

This has puzzled me for a long time, because I've never quite been able to figure out what it is that people really want.

What do you think people really want, and how do you envision that?

I really would like to know.

Bradskii · Feb 16, 2023

FireDragon76 said:
Sometimes negation and deconstruction is something on offer.

It's a two way street. To deconstruct a position to test it's validity, we need that position to be presented.

I don't mind my beliefs being picked apart. Being deconstructed. In fact, that process has led me to where I am now. By having my beliefs questioned. Having them examined. Having arguments put forward against them and forcing me to find good arguments for them. But I expect positive options to be presented as an alternative. Else it's all negativity. It's all naysaying.

Questioning beliefs is entirely accetable. And responding in kind likewise. This is a forum after all. So I expect positions to be stated. To have them nailed to the mast. If they are not, then either the person has none. Or they don't want them tested.

Either way, there's then nothing to discuss.

FireDragon76 · Feb 16, 2023

Bradskii said:
It's a two way street. To deconstruct a position to test it's validity, we need that position to be presented.

How do you propose to test the validity of a belief or position? A correspondence theory of truth itself is a modernist paradigm that rests on certain metaphysical assumptions that aren't open to simple verification.

I look at a bigger, more integrated picture to figure out what to believe and what to take seriously, and I suppose @2PhiloVoid is doing the same thing. If we don't believe it's possible to have a transcendent vision of the world, then there is no point in talking about "testing" or "validity" anymore. We might as well go sit down and listen to whatever the technocratic billionaires have to say. If you don't believe in transcendence, you will bow before their immanence. After all, who cares about the opinions of little people like you and me? If we live in world where only natural science and materialism are salient features, then they are the true "high priests" of this world, and we are nothing.

Bradskii said:
I don't mind my beliefs being picked apart. Being deconstructed. In fact, that process has led me to where I am know. By having my beliefs questioned. Having them examined. Having arguments put forward against them and forcing me to find good arguments for them. But I expect positive options to be presented as an alternative. Else it's all negativity. It's all naysaying.

Argument based on instrumental reason is itself an artifact of the modern paradigm. In postmodernism it's been revealed to be just power games and name calling. Anybody that's read Medieval and Reneissance disputations would understand that ship sailed long ago. So if you aren't interested in genuine dialogue, you're wasting your time. And you seem to be dismiss what @2PhiloVoid has to say just because he won't stoop to the vulgar terms of modernism, of "argument". And why should he? Nothing productive comes of it.

FireDragon76 · Feb 16, 2023

Walking Contradiction said:
This has puzzled me for a long time, because I've never quite been able to figure out what it is that people really want.

What do you think people really want, and how do you envision that?

I really would like to know.

People may have conscious intimations of what they want (or not, which is more often the case), but they don't know how to get it. They lived confused, muddle lives in a seemingly confusing world. Welcome to Plato's Cave of Allegory. That is the human condition. Like a blind man, they stumble around, listening to other blind men for directions until they all fall into a pit together (both Buddha and Jesus had nearly the exact same parable, in fact, over 2,000 years ago). Things are so bad, that if somebody begins to wake up to their own condition, they are quickly told they are insane and need medication (in Socrates case, it was literally poison to silence him). Anxiety, depression, those are all manifestations of waking up. They are not illnesses caused by chemical imbalances, they are Purgatory.

How is it consistent to criticize the left for hating America AND not having an objective morality ?

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