Could you elaborate on this for me, please? By “relevant,” do you mean “relevant to human action” or merely “relevant to this discussion”?
Yes. I’ve been online for a long time (coming up on 13 years shortly), and I’ve seen all sorts of cranks, kooks, nutjobs, and whacktards. I’ve read what passes for posts from Vichy, and while there are some bits of intelligence in there somewhere, it’s much like finding the the little bits of goodness in a sea of post-modernist, post-structuralist gimblebabble. In fact: that’s precisely what it is.
I know energy creatures, and Vichy is one.
And you’re reduced to “NO U!” How cute.
You’re not helping yourself any.
http://www.nonserviam.com/egoistarchive/stirner/bookhtml/The_Ego.html
That is an online link to the full text of “The Ego and It’s Own”, well worth the read.
I mean, ‘relevant for the purpose of this criticism’. As I said, there are other things people might call ‘ethics’ or morality, but I consider this to be the quintessential proposition and psychology of moralism. Without the notion that one ought to obey the dictates of morality contra practical motivations, I don’t think it’s accurate terminology to call it ‘morality’.
My basic view of why this is would be that what people actually call morality is just a tendency to feel that things are ‘acceptable’, ‘right’ or ‘wrong’; and to feel indignation and guilt if the moral views are driven against. People tend to believe these things are true of the world, or the actions they refer to (That was wrong, he is evil) rather than true of their own psychology. It’s a fictional narrative of reality, and to quote Nietzsche again, “There are no moral phenomena, only moral interpretations of phenomena.”
Thank you for the link. I will absolutely give it a look.
So, with this in mind, what is your view on praxeology? Do you think there is any sort of logic to human action?
So what you said is ‘with the notion that one ought to obey the dictates of morality contra practical motivations’, then it is morality. I differ. I perceive morality also being practical.
Those moral interpretations of phenomena therefore make the phenomena moral. This is a statement rearranged to fit my perspective. So, I differ with yours.
Like I said, that just seems to be misleading terminology. Since that is certainly not what most people mean, and does not enable people to make the sorts of statements most of them would consider necessary to be called ‘morality’. The fact that it totally ceases to be interpersonal is also a problem for most people.
The furthe problem is that, factually, morality is nothing but values you have. To talk about ‘moral’ values as if they had some extrensic worth is nonsense.
Likewise, moral arguments often refer to non-properties and thus don’t really mean anything. So acting upon moral values is, more or less, arbitrary. It’s not even internally consistent as an idea of ‘justice’, since what you think ‘liberty’ implies in practice can not be restricted in a non-arbitrary manner.
Does it really matter if you call it “morality” or not? I think it’s a big who cares. Couldn’t it be right and wrong because some actions just don’t get rewarded? For example as a player of Euchre and Pinochle (two card games) they have “no cheating” rules. They also have customs where the winner of the game takes the money, and this all goes on in illegal gambling so there is no law to enforce it. The people/ places get weeded out on things most people would consider “bad” behavior.
The same easily goes from me (and most other bar owners I know of) owning a rough bar, where you actually run across very violent people who have nothing to lose and no care in the world. These are very scary people to deal with, but after the initial shock of dealing with them, they get weeded out too. Many of these degenrates from my experience (6 yrs owning the place) end up dead , in jail, or ostracized completley from the groups they were initially with. They certainly were not welcomed with any bars I was familiar with in the area. Call it what you want but undesirable people/ traits get weeded out. And the more undesired (example, people who murder) the more likely they are not to last.
A) sentence one: misleading to you
B) sentence two: generalizing
C) sentence three: opinion not validated by my experience
We’ve had this conversation before. I said I’m a moral artist. So you’re saying nothing new here.
A) opinion not validated by my experience
My moral argument refers to properties.
yeap arbitrary, free choice…
don’t coerce me, and I won’t need to defend myself… simple.
Dear Vichy,
What is wrong with you
People use words like “reasonable” when the are making judgments of virtue and vice, which are generally matters of character, not morality. Matters of morality (and especially those we’ve been discussing) generally concern questions of justice and crime (in the broader, non-state sense).
This reminds me of the cultural relativist Greek sophists and modern anthropologists who criticize the western culture of criticizing other cultures, because, according to their culture, cultures are not to be criticized.
Vichy, do you honestly believe the statement, “you shouldn’t have murdered my son, damn you” is a ridiculous statement, akin to “water, thou shouldst not be wet.”?
Vichy, do you honestly believe the statement, “you shouldn’t have murdered my son, damn you” is a ridiculous statement, akin to “water, thou shouldst not be wet.”?
Absolutely - because there are no reasons other than practical reasons, if something does not motivate someone to act it is literally irrelevant. All you are doing is stating your preference which, if the person in question agreed with you, he would not have killed your son. By the way, the term ‘murder’ is in itself begging the question.
Vichy,
Would you agree with the statement that, given any desired end, there are necessarily some means that are more appropriate to employ and some that are less appropriate to employ, in the pursuit of that desired end?
Would you agree with the statement that, given any desired end, there are necessarily some means that are more appropriate to employ and some that are less appropriate to employ, in the pursuit of that desired end?
But end variance is vast, and only meaningful in the context of a given specific individual and the circumstances he actually resides in. Furthermore, you are attempting morality-by-redefinition. Read my post here about the problems with that.
What if there were to be a singular desired end that is pursued by all acting humans at all times?
What if there were to be a singular desired end that is pursued by all acting humans at all times?
Then we’d live in a fantasy land. And how would you possibly prove this? It is CLEARLY an empirical question, and I doubt you much know what your nearest relatives ‘aims’ are, much less the planet’s.
Furthermore, even individual human beings do not have unified ‘ends’ - we’re a complex pattern of conscious and unconscious motivations, frequently at odds and contorted in relations with eachother so complex they’re almost impossible to sort out. There is no ‘single-end’ for one reason because there is no unified ‘self’ which can sort amongst them, the self is a congruence of various disparate and incommensearable ends which basically strain for control and satisfaction. And there is no way to sort between these various ends, since that would presume an extra-personal ability to judge between values which is pure nonsense.
Do you agree with Ludwig von Mises that the purpose of human action is always to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory state of affairs?
Alright then, I’m not going to convince you, given that you seem to be enamored with this line of thought. I’m satisfied that with the above exchange, to anyone you might have tempted toward philosophical amoralism, it is now sufficiently evident how unhinged your position is.
That said, I enjoyed debating you (it helped me crystallize some of my ideas), and I sincerely hope you don’t get banned, as I feel that would be grossly unfair.
Do you agree with Ludwig von Mises that the purpose of human action is always to substitute a more satisfactory state of affairs for a less satisfactory state of affairs?
Yes, but what is ‘satisfactory’ is not any specific emotional state, nor some specific end sought after, it is tautological - the satisfaction of a particular end that is actually held by a particular person at a particular time in particular circumstances. It is impermissible to try to fight amongst the ends an individual has at one time or another, or to claim as invalid whatever ends he actually holds. This is as fallacious as comparing my utility to yours.
I’m satisfied that with the above exchange, to anyone you might have tempted toward philosophical amoralism, it is now sufficiently evident how unhinged your position is.
That’s exactly what amoralism implies. It’s only ‘unhinged’ because your psychological machinery has a hell of a time believing that ‘morality’ is literally false, just as most people can’t believe that well-intentioned policy could possibly result in mass slaughter. You can not criticize the accuracy of a belief by attacking its consequences, these two parts are strictly irrelevant to one another.