Andrew: Jon Irenicus: You act as though it abused your fragile little psyche... apart from assertions that morality is a human construct, I see little of substance. Justice &c. are moral concepts. They make no sense apart from it. -Jon And that moral concept of "justice" has been used for otherwise immoral actions such as for the white race to pursue "justice" for itself, by killing Jews, which poisoned the white race. When's the last time a horrific event was started by an appeal to relative immorality on behalf of those who started it?
Jon Irenicus: You act as though it abused your fragile little psyche... apart from assertions that morality is a human construct, I see little of substance. Justice &c. are moral concepts. They make no sense apart from it. -Jon
You act as though it abused your fragile little psyche... apart from assertions that morality is a human construct, I see little of substance. Justice &c. are moral concepts. They make no sense apart from it.
-Jon
And that moral concept of "justice" has been used for otherwise immoral actions such as for the white race to pursue "justice" for itself, by killing Jews, which poisoned the white race. When's the last time a horrific event was started by an appeal to relative immorality on behalf of those who started it?
Another amateur mistake. This is irrelevant. The fact that people have been mistaken about what actually counts as justice is no argument against the concept justice being a moral and legal concept or against it having objective meaning.
Yours in liberty,Geoffrey Allan PlaucheDoctoral CandidatePolitical ScienceLouisiana State University
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"(Who watches the watchmen?)-Juvenal, Satires VI.347
Oh, is this the same sort of argument that money is the root of all evil? Nihilists love bringing this up, as if it matters. Trouble is, a morality of non-interference is pretty much disqualified from being a nexus of pain and suffering...
I cannot be caged. I cannot be controlled. Understand this as you die, ever pathetic, ever fools.
Irenicus' Diaries.
Jon Irenicus: Oh, is this the same sort of argument that money is the root of all evil? Nihilists love bringing this up, as if it matters. Trouble is, a morality of non-interference is pretty much disqualified from being a nexus of pain and suffering... -Jon
What is a morality of non interference? Like Schopenhaurian resignation.
Democracy is nothing more than replacing bullets with ballots
If Pro is the opposite of Con. What is the opposite of Progress?
The NAP, what else?
At what point do I defend others, complete strangers, from aggression by others, when I am not being aggressed against. If I am restricted by principle, but their suffering makes me suffer, isn't that a nexus of pain? Or is it the principal itself that does not create pain.
You're grasping at straws now, and to show how ridiculous this is, I can just posit, what if nihilism caused me psychological damage? How, then, is it "better" (by what standard?) than any moral system? You are, of course, free to defend anyone you wish - the only problem is they may not want you to. Deal with it.
Nihilism is not a "moral system" to begin with. Or is that just semantics?
A standard that I judge it by is from a pessimistic point of view of life. Since all morals have been violated in history, and since science has eliminated religion as a "physical" doctrine, any moral system held will create pain and disappointment when violated or rationalized away. He who hopes nothing shall never be disappointed.
Of course this varies from what philosophy of life you believe in. I tend to look at it from an Epicurean point of view.
Do you think we need to add a philosophy forum or section, like we have Economic, History, and General?
Yeah, then you're just making a general argument against optimism which does not apply to morality specifically, but rather anything that aims to bring about change. My point was that it is misleading to say moral systems must entail misery, as contrasted with nihilism, which is a different argument altogether.
I think all we need to is expand the political section to include philosophic debates, as it already serves this purpose.
Oh, the evolution myth ?
Snarky.
people feeling they did something wrong not because they were told so, but because of 'something' within themselves, which is usually referred to as conscience. Such a natural phenomenon doesn't seem to square well with amoralism, does it ?
Genes propigate themselves, they aren't built around individual happiness and only partially reflect division of labor. Humans are intellectually malleable on top of this, other people and their perceptions figure very deeply into our own estiamtion of the relative value of things, including our own actions.
Furthermore The 'case for amorality' or rather the 'Egoism: The Case Against Morality' to be George Smithesque, is based on deductive logic and facts like methodological individualism, the uniqueness of perspective, the relation of values to individuals and individuals to reality. Whether or not some person has some sort of feeling or another for whatever reason no more fails to 'square with amorality' than it fails to square with economics. Amorality is a fact of human existence, whatever peculiar feelings people have for whatever reason can be precisely as arbitrary as their circumstances. Which is, in fact, exactly what a strictly 'amoral' view would expect.
Yes, I know La Boetie. I also understand that people who like philosophy have a tendency to think that ideas are oh so important.
The State only exists because people believe it has a moral legitemacy. The amount of passive evasion people could engage in, and its multiplication in size by the very fact of mass evasion, would collapse the state. The wealthier and more technologically dependent the STate, the faster it would collapse.
Okay, now what about the system of 'rational' ideas which delegitimizes all aggressive violence and favors no arbitrary group but all individuals ?
As far as your final question, I have no idea to what it refers.
Furthermore The 'case for amorality' or rather the 'Egoism: The Case Against Morality' to be George Smithesque, is based on deductive logic and facts like methodological individualism, the uniqueness of perspective, the relation of values to individuals and individuals to reality.
Whether or not some person has some sort of feeling or another for whatever reason no more fails to 'square with amorality' than it fails to square with economics. Amorality is a fact of human existence,
The State only exists because people believe it has a moral legitemacy.
R.J. Moore II: Juan: Okay, now what about the system of 'rational' ideas which delegitimizes all aggressive violence and favors no arbitrary group but all individuals ? As far as your final question, I have no idea to what it refers.
Juan: Okay, now what about the system of 'rational' ideas which delegitimizes all aggressive violence and favors no arbitrary group but all individuals ?
R.J. Moore II: [...]
[...]
Personal Message sent.
"Melody is a form of remembrance. It must have a quality of inevitability in our ears." - Gian Carlo Menotti
And we probably agree with respect to logic and methodological individualism, but, Why do you feel the need to make a case for amorality ?
Likely we do, which is why I hold the Austrian school is such high regard; I reached both of these ideas independently and - like the Austrians - have been arguing with everyone and his grandmother defending them. I believe that amorality is correct. More exactly, I do not believe any values or imperatives exist outside of an individual's consciousness and that all he is 'bound' by are the facts of reality. I think morality has numerous logical errors as a concept and that every branch of ethical and moral studies I am familiar with has additional errors in itself. Some moralists claim that my egoistic views are moral or that some kinds of morality are compatible with my views. Insofar as this is correct I think that it is no longer 'morality' in the traditional sense, and can not make the same claims that 'ethics' and 'morals' typically do.
If you're asking why I argue it so vehemently it is because I am of that subset of humans who is both skilled and interested in analytic considerations that I will promote them at my own expense and against social pressures. On another level I think morality is used to control people. I think it is a dangerous error from an individual and universal point of view. I think it (incorrectly) subjects individual values and ideas to irrational commandments. I very much to value individualism as a principle and a practice and I believe that the denigration of self by means such as morality is a prime cause for human repression and 'psychological' irrationalism. The fact that I empathise very keenly with individuals subject to this, and typically value those who are willing and able to define their own values based on their own understanding - consciously, without self-deception - are generally the most productive and tolerable people. My desires and motivations extend well beyond this, I am sure.
You might have very similar motivations in promiting libertarianism. I don't know. What I do know is that I have no found an argument that can meaningfully define and defend morality against violation when an individual (by his own judgement) sees following morality as against his own best interest. And this is only the tip of the iceburg. And I do not believe it is going to happen. For the same reason you don't believe that the law of marginal utility will ever be violated or the calculation argument against socialism will be refuted. I believe I have reached defensible certainty and, while open to counter-evidence, I certainly don't expect counter-evidence. I mainly survey the moralist-ethicist camps to refine and express my own views.
of, pertaining to, or concerned with the principles or rules of right conduct or the distinction between right and wrong
When I talk about morality or ethics I mean the principles of morality as well as the idea of right and wrong independent of a specific person's specific values. I do not deny that people hold ideas about what people 'ought' to do. I do not deny that people are concerned with distinguising right-action and wrong-action. But I don't think it is logically coherent to claim that a thing is 'right' or 'wrong' outside of a specific individual's desired ends and his action's ability to achieve them. I do not think an action or outcome can be judged by some impartial third standard of morality, because I believe values are inherently individualistic and specific. I do not think it is logically coherent to tell a conscious actor that he 'ought' to do something without an appeal to values he holds and ends he desires. Technically, this isn't even possible.
It seems to me that some people are concerned with the distinction between right and and wrong, and so these people are concerned with morality. And so for these humans morality instead of amorality, is a fact.
I will thus accept that people engage in ethacizing and moralising behaviour - behaviour aimed at promoting and understanding certain values and standards. That sort of 'morality' does exist. I say that they are commiting logical errors when they think of values as outside specific individuals, or above his own desires. And in the sense that they say, "This is moral" I say, "Nothing is moral" or "morality is nonsense". To the extent that people are talking about ideas people have and act upon about morality, and to the extent which they discuss 'moral' topics I certainly do not deny it but I deny that it is valid and meaningful to discuss things in such a manner.
I had in mind a remark from Rollins who said something like "morals are just a device to further the interests of some groups at the expense of others". Also, Andrew said that Jews were killed in the name of 'morality'(??) Well, libertarian morality seems to be the opposite of that.
I think Rollins means that morals are propagated on-high by such interests, that morals got their cultural inertia because certain people benefitted materially from it (whether or not the person practicing actually believes it). Think of the same statement about the State. The government is just a device to further the interests of some groups at the expense of others. But this does not mean that everyone either benefitting or defending the State philosophically is consciously and intentionally promoting this, it is a well known fact that people like to justify things to themselves perhaps more than to others. That's my view but, though I don't live far from Rollins, we haven't spoken and thus I can not garuntee that is what he meant.
Libertarian morality, in some extents, is the morality which least calls upon individual self-sacrifice and irrational appeal. But I won't say that morality isn't special-interest. I have a special interest in the promotion of libertarian ideas, and I believe that your emotional and intellectual commitment is motivated by similar feelings. Furthering libertarian morality might seem the opposite of taking advantage of an individual, and I posit that in practice the two conflict for most people only near barbarism. But even here Rollin's view is supported, for certainly specific agents of the state might even be imperiled by a general acceptance of libertarian morals. One might not have much sympathy for tyrants and killers, but it can not be denied that our interest (the reason we promote libertarianism, whatever it may be) conflicts with their interest (statism). Beyond that what's wrong with morality isn't that it's used to justify certain interests (that is merely a reason it exists) but that it is false, that no actual given individual can logically be bound when it contradicts his own ends. When it concurs with all his interests it is superfluous at best.
I would prefer that libertarianism be the morality of the world (if I had to pick one for everyone aside from 'serve Ricky'). But I hold it is false, I think it is detrimental to truth (as all errors are, especially when unconfronted) and that its appeal depends upon historical, habitual and biologically-originated errors rather than reason as such.
R.J. Moore II:When I talk about morality or ethics I mean the principles of morality as well as the idea of right and wrong independent of a specific person's specific values. I do not deny that people hold ideas about what people 'ought' to do. I do not deny that people are concerned with distinguising right-action and wrong-action. But I don't think it is logically coherent to claim that a thing is 'right' or 'wrong' outside of a specific individual's desired ends and his action's ability to achieve them. I do not think an action or outcome can be judged by some impartial third standard of morality, because I believe values are inherently individualistic and specific. I do not think it is logically coherent to tell a conscious actor that he 'ought' to do something without an appeal to values he holds and ends he desires. Technically, this isn't even possible.
I agree with you, as far as the impossibility of normative statements without referring to the values and ends of a moral agent. However, I would argue that there are values and ends that are held by all individuals, whether they are aware of it or not. This doesn't mean that they are independent of a specific person's values; it means that, because of inherent facts of human nature, all individuals hold that end. That means that normative statements can be made that apply to all human beings. Human flourishing has both specific and universal characteristics.
Also, for an argument that praxeology requires an ultimate end, see Roderick Long's Wittgenstein, Austrian Economics, and the Logic of Action.
Agora! Anarchy! Action!
R.J. Moore II:I do not think an action or outcome can be judged by some impartial third standard of morality,
Um...Aristotelian virtue ethics is not an impartialist ethics.
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