Your entire post is a complete failure:
Liberalism doesn’t claim man to have perfect judgment at all!
I’m not quite sure what “non-moral realist” means, a non-cognitivist? I do think that everyone does have a moral compass though, that “fun” and “scary” nonsense just doesn’t do it.
I meant someone who isn’t a moral realist, I probably made it confusing with the -. We could certainly debate whether or not this ‘moral compass’ you talk about is ultimately collapsible into individual preference (I have done so in Lilburne’s thread here) but you certainly haven’t made your case enough to assume it in your argument.
Point-by-point
Incoherent or poorly written (or both). Is the ideology itself dependent on another ideology? Logic, reason, and science aren’t ideologies. Final sentence, there is gap in your chain of reasoning (a leap of faith perhaps?) There isn’t any reason (expressed at least) why there must be a deity (supernatural, immortal, sacred, infallible) at all.
The reasons for determining truth aren’t the tools at all. The reason (motivation) differs, its generally to further one’s understanding to improve one’s odds of survival, gain wealth, or even to discover “truth.” Your contention seems odd for two reasons. One it is out of place in an attempt to show how liberalism is a religion and two, by your previous posts on the fora seem like a complete character change. Just read nirgrahamUKs hilarious trouncing. Regardless…
Are you coming out as a religious nut job (liberal). Stating what “truth can be thought of” is expressing a truth. Saying it exists as a set of “possible truths” is expressing a truth. Saying that knowledge can reduce the size of the “probability cloud” is expressing a truth. Remember your conversation with nigraham, or even myself? What if you are just in a dream? Etc… Anything being feasible doesn’t mean its probable, nor expectable. Bayes wins. (Also, minor caveat, what does this have to do with liberalism?)
I can recap this entire argument.
-
Liberalism is an ideology
-
…
-
Therefore, liberalism is a religion
Liberals don’t believe that man is perfect in judgement at all. I suggest you read Karl Popper as soon as possible (how about that he was a liberal!)
Thats an interesting thread. I think its possible to be a non-moral realist. As in moral statements don’t hold any objective meaning (true/false) but are mere expressions of an attitude or feeling. I’ve almost word-for-word said “they [morals] ultimately come down to individual preference” on the boards before and have repeatedly linked morals with aesthetics, they generally do come down to similar mental phenomena (possibly coming from different parts of the brain though).
It goes something like this:
The Church
God was Lord
God was the mediator
God was the spirit
Liberalism
Man is Lord
Man is the mediator
Man is the spirit
You would look at me and judge me not as a Xtian, but as a Man. Not as me but only as me in relationship to the laws and spirit of Man. The power of the individual gets stripped away to the “rights of man”. Being a man is merely a quality of me (such as being a male, ambidexterous, literate, etc), it is not a condition on which it should be taken as a whole, yet liberalism judges things as Man.
So notions of the ideal man or judging things by man, male, etc is a silly notion. I am a man no matter what, yet a law or judgment in regards to Man is a silly notion as I am always man. As calling the color red not red enough is silly.
To quote Stirner for an allegory:
"The Jewish is not the purely goistic, because the Jew still devotes himself to Jehovah; the Christian is not, because the Xtian lives on the grace of God and subjects himself to him. As Jew and Xtian alike a man satisfies only certain wants, only a certain need, not himself: a *half-*egoism, because the egoism of a half man, who is half he, half Jew, or 1/2 his own proprietor, half a slave. Therefore, too, Jews and Christians always half-way exclude each other, as slaves because they are servents of 2 diff masters. If they were egoists they would exclude each other wholly and hold together much more firmly…Bruno Bauer thinks Jews and Xtians cannot regard each other as “men” till they give up their separate essence…recognize the general essence of “Man” and regard this as their “true essence”.
…As A Jew you are too little, and the Jewish is not your task; to be Greek, a German does not suffice. But be a -man, then you have everything; look upon the human as your calling"
From The Owner in The Ego and His Own
Also a funny (and so true) quote of Stirner’s: “Our atheists are such pious people.”
As a satire I love it, but only as a satire.
Ah, “half-egoism” it still makes me laugh.
I hope it isn’t pretentious of me to link to my own posts, but
and
seem to be relevant to our discussion.
You can see how I was confused by your assertion that nobody can be an amoralist.
While we are posting Stirner quotes, can I post my favorites?
"Man, your head is haunted; you have wheels in your head! You imagine great things, and depict to yourself a whole world of gods that has an existence for you, a spirit-realm to which you suppose yourself to be called, an ideal that beckons to you. You have a fixed idea!
Do not think that I am jesting or speaking figuratively when I regard those persons who cling to the Higher, and (because the vast majority belongs under this head) almost the whole world of men, as veritable fools, fools in a madhouse. What is it, then, that is called a “fixed idea”? An idea that has subjected the man to itself. When you recognize, with regard to such a fixed idea, that it is a folly, you shut its slave up in an asylum. And is the truth of the faith, say, which we are not to doubt; the majesty of (e.g.) the people, which we are not to strike at (he who does is guilty of lese-majesty); virtue, against which the censor is not to let a word pass, that morality may be kept pure; etc., – are these not “fixed ideas”?
““Thou shalt not call thy brother a fool; if thou dost – etc.” But I do not fear the curse, and I say, my brothers are arch-fools. Whether a poor fool of the insane asylum is possessed by the fancy that his is God the Father, Emperor of Japan, the Holy Spirit, etc., or whether a citizen in comfortable circumstances conceives that it is his mission to be a good Christian, a faithful Protestant, a virtuous man, etc., is possessed and prepossessed by faith, virtuousness, etc. Just as the schoolmen philosophized only inside the belief of the church; as Pope Benedict XIV wrote fat books inside the papist superstition, without ever throwing a doubt upon this belief; as authors fill whole folios on the State without calling in question the fixed idea of the State itself; as our newspapers are crammed with politics because they are conjured into the fancy that man was created to be a zoon politicon, – so also subjects vegetate in subjection, virtuous people in virtue, liberals in humanity, etc., without ever putting to these fixed ideas of theirs the searching knife of criticism. Undislodgeable, like a madman’s delusion, those thoughts stand on a firm footing, and he who doubts them lays hands on the sacred! Yes, the “fixed idea,” that is the truly sacred!”
“Take notice how a “moral man” behaves, who today often thinks he is through with God and throws off Christianity as a bygone thing. If you ask him whether he has ever doubted that the copulation of brother and sister is incest, that monogamy is the truth of marriage, that filial piety is a sacred duty, etc., then a moral shudder will come over him at the conception of one’s being allowed to touch his sister as wife also, etc. And whence this shudder? Because he believes in those moral commandments. This moral faith is deeply rooted in his breast. Much as he rages against the pious Christians, he himself has nevertheless as thoroughly remained a Christian, – to wit, a moral Christian. In the form of morality Christianity holds him a prisoner, and a prisoner under faith. Monogamy is to be something sacred, and he who may live in bigamy is punished as a criminal; he who commits incest suffers as a criminal. Those who are always crying that religion is not to be regarded in the state, and the Jew is to be a citizen equally with the Christian, show themselves in accord with this. Is not this of incest and monogamy a dogma of faith? Touch it, and you will learn by experience how this moral man is a hero of faith too, not less than Krummacher, not less than Philip II. These fight for the faith of the Church, he for the faith of the State, or the moral laws of the State; for articles of faith, both condemn him who acts otherwise than their faith will allow. The brand of “crime” is stamped upon him, and he may languish in reformatories, in jails. Moral faith is as fanatical as religious faith!”
Sure, the difference just seems to be in the conception of what is meant by existence.
Beautifully said and I agree. I’ve enjoyed this discussion considerably.
@ Zefreak
I love the “Wheels in the head” chapter. For some reason I almost set it to music / tones everytime I read it. Odd. I never actualy knew exactly what “wheels in the head” meant though. I mean, I can infer but the exact meaning of the figure of speech eludes me.
@ Angrus
Well at least you enjoy it in some way. I am of the opinion though when one “gets” the book, all the fears and reservations they may have had about it go away, and it can do nothing but help your life. Of course, that’s just me.
I’m not sure what you are referring to liberalism or egoism. For the former, the breakdown of liberalism was just incorrect, it could possibly work for Humanism, but I’ve discussed pages of this already. For the latter, I don’t have any fears or reservations about egoism, the idea that a Christian isn’t fully serving himself (his ego that is) is just plain silly. The book was fun to read, minus the boring parts.
When you read it did you laugh at Stirner’s constant appraisal of “freedom?” To me it looked like he was making it out to be another “god” or “man.” Perhaps he was religious after all…
Stirner goes out of his way to call freedom nothing more as means to an end, he addresses this on more than one occasion. The very 1st sentence he alludes to the fact that he is no worshiper of freedom and it will be under his critique. And again, in the same introduction: “Do truth, freedom…desire anything else that you grow enthusiastic and serve them?”
The whole master/slave stuff is nothing more than Stirner mocking Hegel and some of the left Hegelians and using the dialectic system to do so.
The whole Xtian not serving himself is somewhat irrelevent. I think some Apostolic Theology can skirt the attacks. Protestantism may have a more difficult time of it; but the heart of what Stirner is attacking is atheism, he is just showing the natural evolution of it from Luther onwards, and showing how they weren’t atheists at all, and how the Protestants were hardly Xtians. His Catholic / Apostolic Theology seems rusty (or he isn’t concernd about it), but his assesment of the reformation, Hegelianism, the age of reason, etc is his main concern and focus.
That doesn’t really help him any though, as the book as a whole makes him look quite different and an ends, any end doesn’t really change anything -I he said (translating) Free… from what exactly? Oh, what cannot be shaken? Which begs the question in my opinion.
I don’t see why his mistake on Christians not serving themselves is irrelevent, it looks like a failure to fully grasp the possibilities and extents.
"Truth can have a variety of meanings, from the state of being the case, being in accord with a particular fact or reality, being in accord with the body of real things, events, actuality, or fidelity to an original or to a standard." - Wiki
By this definition of truth, these are all absolute statements but then:
You can’t have your cake and eat it too. By asserting that there is truth, you assume the capability of man (in this case, yourself) to have perfect judgement. Either you believe truth is knowable, or you don’t. Which is it?
Yeah, sorry about that, I am very bad at writing cohesively. It’s more of just a stream of consciousness rant.
No. It is dependent on faith.
Upon re-reading that passage, it is confusing.
“There are many ways to determine these laws of action- ways which are dependent on the ideology (God, Logic, reason, science, etc.)”
What I meant was that “(God, Logic, reason, science, etc)” are examples of methods employed to justify an ideology’s beliefs.
Because you have to presume omniscience to believe that something is capable of perfect judgment. I call it deification, as an analogy to the supposed perfection of God. You can just substitute “omniscient being” if it makes you feel better.
You’re right. “Reasons” should probably be replaced with “methods”. Again, not a professional writer for a reason.
Bringing out the ad hominem stuff already? Man, you must be getting pissed, or desperate… Anyways, yes I have been doing some serious self-reflection since joining the forums. The whole reason I joined was to challenge my beliefs against others, to see if they withstood criticism, not to have my biases endlessly confirmed. So forgive me for learning, and not leaning on my faiths and shutting off my mind.
No. I have accepted that “truth”, as espoused by a non-omniscient entity, is just them talking out their ass.
OK, just place “I think that” in front of all those suppositions. I didn’t for the sake of brevity, but that is what I mean before I make any assertion. Sorry if this confused you. I have faith in what I think, but at least I’m honest enough with myself to admit that’s all it is, rather than pretentious enough to claim it as “truth”.
".
It’s unfortunate that you’ve (presumably) read what I posted and assert that I think that anything/everything is equally possible. What you perceive as “more/less probable” is based on your accumulated knowledge of reality (which in turn is based on observation). This narrows down the size of the “probability cloud”, but since your perception and knowledge is limited (unless you are omniscient), it would be impossible for the “waveform of probability” to collapse to a point, a “truth”. Do you understand?
Than man cannot determine truth
Liberalism is an ideology that asserts “man should be free” as a truth.
So Liberalism must be taken on faith (just as any ideology/religion). QED
I don’t know man, his position seems fairly consistent to me. You might want to give it another read at some point.
And that’s some good stuff zefreak, and very appropriate to the conversation.
I don’t feel like reading this whole thread, but what does this have to do with it? I also don’t really care about “liberalism”. The word has been held hostage by the left. We use the word ‘libertarianism’ now as the logical conclusion of “classical liberalism”. That is, all forms of the initiation of aggression are unjust, especially the existence of states. Hoppe extended the same approach of Austrian economics to morality with argumentation ethics. Its axioms are categorically “is” statements about our reality. So, whatever other “political ideology” is at odds with reality to pretend that it upholds anything we can call freedom. It doesn’t ethically prove anyone ought to practice its doctrine, just that to argue against it places one in a state of performative contradiction. These axiomatic-deductive truths are even more Verstehende than those we reach from a hypothetico-deductive approach. I hold to something like Wittgensteinian noncognitivism related to noumenal abstractions like god. I don’t deny the value of holding such beliefs, just that they can’t be coherently applied to other disciplines.
I have taken the position that Liberalism and all it’s sects (Classical Liberalism, Libertarianism, communism, social liberalism, fascism, nazism, socialism, etc.) are faith based ideologies, or religions.
The rest of your post is just the result of confusion over definitons/semantics.
No one stated it did. Just because someone believes that Jesus was crucified for our sins, doesn’t require everyone ought to be Christian. The contradiction argument doesn’t account for those who take an agnostic stance to ideologies, as they do not stand against said ideology, they just don’t know if it is true or false in the objective, absolute sense (and boy, do the ideologues give them a lot of heat for that!).
I’m not really familiar with much of the terminology in this passage. Could I have it in layman’s terms?
That seems fair, although I think it’s important to recognize beliefs as beliefs, not as truth. Otherwise, they can become rather dangerous.
An ideology can be implemented in determining all sorts of supposed truths, as it gives you an a priori base for further deduction. The problem is that another individual with a different a priori worldview will come to completely different conclusions. That is when conflict between ideologies could arise. That is how millions die under the auspices of “fixed ideas”, like truth, or righteousness.