nihilism

[iambiguous]

... in the absence of God, as has been noted by some, "all things are permitted". And, for the sociopath, who starts with the presumption that right and wrong revolves solely around that which sustains his or her own self-gratification, any behavior can be rationalized.

And where is the philosophical argument that refutes this?

Do you really believe a human being can do just anything and get away with it, without any consequence. Do you really believe the nature of physical reality can be defied and nothing bad will happen to you?

No, the distinction I make here is between human interactions in a God world and human interactions in a No God world. A further stipulation being that God is both omniscient and omnipotent.

With God there is no question of doing anything at all beyond His grasp. With mere mortals in a No God world there is the possibility of doing something and never being caught. And, with God, there is no question of being punished for behaviors deemed sins. With mere mortals in a No God world, different behaviors in different legal jurisdictions may be okay or not okay. And even if not okay and you are caught you could be found not guilty in an actual trial.

As for "phsyical reality being defied", given what context?

Begin with identifying the requirements of your own nature--both physiological (biological) and psychological (intellectual) requirements and how you must acquired and use them or die.

My biological and psychological nature/requirements given what set of circumstances?

Even the most radical hedonist knows you can't spend all your resources immediately in the pursuit of pleasure because it would end all prospect of any further pleasure. One must at least take, "the long view," if one wishes to enjoy another day.

This is entirely too abstract for me. One would need to question a radical hedonist about the actual behaviors he or she pursues from day to day.

The truth is, "there is no God, and nothing is permitted." Reality is a much more ruthless judge than any God. You cannot do wrong (defy reality) and get away with it, and there is no forgiveness in reality.

Again, note specific examples of what you mean by this. And given all of the many, many, many ways in which any particular individual thinks about their behaviors given all of the vast and various lives that we live, how could we possibly come up with a set of behaviors said to be either forgivable or not forgivable.

[iambiguous]

But Locke started from the position that God exists, God gave us life, and God judges the value of the life He gave us. He built his rationale upon those foundations. Those were his base premises, apart from which Locke had no rationale for rights to offer at all.

My own subjective "perspective" as a moral nihilist revolves around the assumption -- and that's all it is a "personal opinion" rooted existentially in dasein -- that in a No God world there is no "mere mortal" font we are all able to turn to in order to resolve moral conflicts. Though, of course, others convince themselves that there is. Humanism for example. Or one or another political ideology. Or one or another deontological/philosophical assessment of moral obligations. Or one or another No God "spiritual" path. Or those who fall back on their own rendition of biological imperatives. Behaviors said to be either natural or unnatural.

And yet I'm the first to admit that there may well be a foundation for "universal morality" or "objective morality". God or No God. I merely note that "here and now", I have not myself come across an argument -- a demonstrable argument -- that convinces me of it.

Then I go here...

It's not like in the absence of God and objective moral values, an individual just plucks a moral narrative or political agenda out of thin air. Instead, he or she is "thrown" at birth into a particular historical and cultural context, is indoctrinated as a child to believe certain things and then has a series of uniquely personal experiences that predispose them to believe this and not that.

Correct. I think that's true.

But the problem, then becomes the old problem of Cultural Relativism. And that's not easy to escape.

If, say, female forcible circumcision or child-marriage is an ancient and culturally-approved tradition in the tribes of North Africa, why is it an abomination in North America? If slavery was an august and general practice in the pre-bellum American South, why did it become anathema to the American North, and why is it today?

Yes, the more extreme the behavior, the more difficult it is to suggest that "in the absence of God all things are permitted". Permitted because historically and culturally almost every possible behavior that human beings can engage in is able to be rationalized. Up to and including genocide.

Still, I come back to God here. If there is no God, what then is the definitive scientific or philosophical argument able to establish once and for all which behaviors are in fact inherently/necessarily Good and Evil.

Again, this demonstrable argument -- Great Code -- might exist, but I am not myself aware of it. Here and now. Or, perhaps, I have been apprised of it but Iack the necessary intelligence or insight to grasp it.

But the crucial fact remains. It is what we believe about these things that ultimately counts. Not what we can definitively prove. And that is because it is based on what we believe is true that motivates our behaviors. And it is our behaviors that precipitate actual consequences for others.

[Immanuel Can]

My own subjective "perspective" as a moral nihilist revolves around the assumption -- and that's all it is a "personal opinion" rooted existentially in dasein -- that in a No God world there is no "mere mortal" font we are all able to turn to in order to resolve moral conflicts. Though, of course, others convince themselves that there is. Humanism for example. Or one or another political ideology. Or one or another deontological/philosophical assessment of moral obligations. Or one or another No God "spiritual" path. Or those who fall back on their own rendition of biological imperatives. Behaviors said to be either natural or unnatural.

Well, as you know, I'm not a Nihilist: and yet I agree with you completely here.

I think you're very perceptive about that. In a no-God world, these things do follow. Humanism, political ideology, secular ethics, "spiritual" paths...all lack a basic legitimation for morality, and hence conduce to Nihilism. And if I were personally a believer in any of them, I think I would long ago have become a Nihilist, too.

And yet I'm the first to admit that there may well be a foundation for "universal morality" or "objective morality". God or No God. I merely note that "here and now", I have not myself come across an argument -- a demonstrable argument -- that convinces me of it.

That's as fair a position as one can take. Well said.

Then I go here...

It's not like in the absence of God and objective moral values, an individual just plucks a moral narrative or political agenda out of thin air. Instead, he or she is "thrown" at birth into a particular historical and cultural context, is indoctrinated as a child to believe certain things and then has a series of uniquely personal experiences that predispose them to believe this and not that.

Correct. I think that's true.

But the problem, then becomes the old problem of Cultural Relativism. And that's not easy to escape.

If, say, female forcible circumcision or child-marriage is an ancient and culturally-approved tradition in the tribes of North Africa, why is it an abomination in North America? If slavery was an august and general practice in the pre-bellum American South, why did it become anathema to the American North, and why is it today?

Yes, the more extreme the behavior, the more difficult it is to suggest that "in the absence of God all things are permitted".

That's Dostoevsky, I believe...and Dostoevsky explored the issues we're talking about so poignantly, in Crime and Punishment. In that story, a man commits a moral abomination -- the killing of a nasty old woman -- as an act of proof that his "will to power," not any moral duty, is determinative of who he is.

Then he finds out what that really means.

Permitted because historically and culturally almost every possible behavior that human beings can engage in is able to be rationalized. Up to and including genocide.

Indeed so.

Female circumcision? And old, cultural-religious practice honoured by millions.

Slavery and prostitution? The oldest "occupations" we know, practiced thorughout human history and today.

Genocide? It's just an exaggerated form of tribal warfare...as ancient a human practice as one can find.

Still, I come back to God here. If there is no God, what then is the definitive scientific or philosophical argument able to establish once and for all which behaviors are in fact inherently/necessarily Good and Evil.

Like you, I know of none. And I have sought diligently for one for many years now. My conclusion is that there's nothing even remotely plausible, and the same weak, implausible "answers" keep circulating, because people are terrified of Nihilism.

Again, this demonstrable argument -- Great Code -- might exist, but I am not myself aware of it. Here and now. Or, perhaps, I have been apprised of it but Iack the necessary intelligence or insight to grasp it.

Fair enough.

But the crucial fact remains. It is what we believe about these things that ultimately counts.

But "counts" for what?

As a motivator? Yes. As an indication of the genuinely good? Not so much.

A great many things may be fervently "believed," and may motivate behaviours very well, and still be entirely false and...if such a thing exists...immoral, too. And the consequences for us and for others may be quite dire. We can both surely think of plenty of instances of that.

[iambiguous]

My own subjective "perspective" as a moral nihilist revolves around the assumption -- and that's all it is a "personal opinion" rooted existentially in dasein -- that in a No God world there is no "mere mortal" font we are all able to turn to in order to resolve moral conflicts. Though, of course, others convince themselves that there is. Humanism for example. Or one or another political ideology. Or one or another deontological/philosophical assessment of moral obligations. Or one or another No God "spiritual" path. Or those who fall back on their own rendition of biological imperatives. Behaviors said to be either natural or unnatural.

Well, as you know, I'm not a Nihilist: and yet I agree with you completely here.

I think you're very perceptive about that. In a no-God world, these things do follow. Humanism, political ideology, secular ethics, "spiritual" paths...all lack a basic legitimation for morality, and hence conduce to Nihilism. And if I were personally a believer in any of them, I think I would long ago have become a Nihilist, too.

Again, from my frame of mind, it's not that some become nihilists and some do not, but that, given the lives they lived, some become predisposed to it and others do not. And that there does not appear to be an argument [philosophical or otherwise] that might at least allow someone to determine whether nihilism is a rational -- perhaps the most rational -- frame of mind there is in encompassing the relationship between "in my head" and "out in the world with others".

And, as always, I make that crucial distinction between "meaning and purpose" in the either/or world and the is/ought world.

And yet I'm the first to admit that there may well be a foundation for "universal morality" or "objective morality". God or No God. I merely note that "here and now", I have not myself come across an argument -- a demonstrable argument -- that convinces me of it.

That's as fair a position as one can take. Well said.

Yes, that's the part -- the loophole -- I can always fall back on. I'm not arguing that I'm a moral nihilist and you ought to be too, but that, "here and now", given the life I've lived, it seems reasonable to believe what I do based on the assumptions I make about a No God world. But how could I possibly demonstrate that what "I" do believe is the optimal frame of mind. Especially when acknowledging that given new experiences, relationships, and access to information and knowledge "I" might come to believe something entirely different.

And, of course, the same for others.

Yes, the more extreme the behavior, the more difficult it is to suggest that "in the absence of God all things are permitted".

That's Dostoevsky, I believe...and Dostoevsky explored the issues we're talking about so poignantly, in Crime and Punishment. In that story, a man commits a moral abomination -- the killing of a nasty old woman -- as an act of proof that his "will to power," not any moral duty, is determinative of who he is.

Then he finds out what that really means.

For me it revolves around one or another rendition of "in the absence of God, all things are permitted". Permitted meaning rationalized.

Of course, in the "real world" all things are almost never permitted. In any given human community, there will be rules of behavior that intertwine law and morality given one or another set of rewards and punishments for any particular behaviors. But why one and not the other? And here one might have convinced oneself to embrace a frame of mind that ranges from the deontologist to the sociopath.

But it's all about the existence God in the end to me. No God, no objective font. I've just managed to think myself into rationalizing a "fractured and fragmented" moral philosophy that revolves around this:

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

And now I can't think up a way to not think it.

But the crucial fact remains. It is what we believe about these things that ultimately counts.

But "counts" for what?

For whatever you have managed "here and now" to believe in.

As a motivator? Yes. As an indication of the genuinely good? Not so much.

And yet if you have thought yourself into believing that sans God nothing is inherently and necessarily genuinely good, almost anything at all might motivate you. It's like which is worse, a world in which someone has the power to enforce his or her own assumptions about genuinely good behavior [from theocrats to fascists] or a world in which the moral nihilists who own and operate the global economy predicate their own "morality" on "show me the money".

A great many things may be fervently "believed," and may motivate behaviours very well, and still be entirely false and...if such a thing exists...immoral, too. And the consequences for us and for others may be quite dire. We can both surely think of plenty of instances of that.

For me, however, "false and immoral" behavior is largely an "existential contraption rooted in in dasein".

I'm just basically at a loss in explaining that to others because of what is at stake for them if they come to believe it too. Of themselves. I can only hope to come across an argument [or an experience] that manages to bring me up out of the hole I have dug myself down into.

A philosophical hole for one thing.

[Immanuel Can]

Again, from my frame of mind, it's not that some become nihilists and some do not, but that, given the lives they lived, some become predisposed to it and others do not.

I don't know...I think the rationale for Nihilism is stronger than a mere "predisposition," as if one simply chose it. Rather, it seems to me like if anybody reasons consistently starting from the non-God universe, they're bound to end up in Nihilism. Now, they can avoid that, of course, but only by not being consistent in reasoning. I think that if you think about it "all the way," so to speak, Nihilism is the necessary end game.

And that there does not appear to be an argument [philosophical or otherwise] that might at least allow someone to determine whether nihilism is a rational -- perhaps the most rational -- frame of mind there is in encompassing the relationship between "in my head" and "out in the world with others".

Oh, I would say there is.

I'm not arguing that I'm a moral nihilist and you ought to be too,

Oh yes...I get that. No problem.

But how could I possibly demonstrate that what "I" do believe is the optimal frame of mind.

There are people who have done it. Some would say that Nietzsche was one of them. But I think Nietzsche fudged his conclusions a bit, so instead, I'd point to a brilliant little book by an ex-Atheist, Fr. Seraphim Rose. He's an Orthodox scholar (I'm not, but his book is great: an Orthodox friend pointed it out to me.) Another good book on the consequences of that worldview is The Atheist Who Didn't Exist, by Andy Bannister. His book has the additional charm of being not merely profound but funny, as well.

For me it revolves around one or another rendition of "in the absence of God, all things are permitted". Permitted meaning rationalized.

Of course, in the "real world" all things are almost never permitted. In any given human community, there will be rules of behavior that intertwine law and morality given one or another set of rewards and punishments for any particular behaviors. But why one and not the other? And here one might have convinced oneself to embrace a frame of mind that ranges from the deontologist to the sociopath.

That's a reasonable distinction, actually. There's quite a difference between saying that something is rationally "permitted" within consistency with one's own worldview, and saying that people around one -- society generally -- are willing to "permit" the same things.

In Dostoevsky's story, the murder of a nasty old woman is "permitted" in the sense that the hero, Raskolnikov, finds it "permissible" to his own set of suppostions about morality being dead. But he finds himself chased by police who think his actions are not "permissible." So the two are very often at variance.

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

Well, again, the moral and the political may sometimes be alligned, but often they're not.

The problem with the dasein perspective is that it denies one any points of reference by which to orient oneself. What does one go with? Is it, "Well I feel this is right/wrong, so it is?" But the "I" also knows that his/her feelings are often misleading or confused. So is it "If my friends or my society say this is right/wrong, it is?" But why should we think that several "I"s, each one fallible itself, somehow become inerrant when grouped? Besides, others are not really part of the dasein world...they're "outside," impinging on the "I" but not the secure basis of the "I."

Dasein leave us adrift. We know we are "here," wherever that is, and that we are "something," but we have little idea of what that is.

On a side note, did you ever see the old movie "Being There"? It's realy about dasein. The main character is this stumblebum who doesn't even have a real name of his own, other than "Chance." And he tries to find his way daseinically through the world of 1970s New York. It's quite funny, but also a little sad, and highly ironic.

But the crucial fact remains. It is what we believe about these things that ultimately counts.

But "counts" for what?

For whatever you have managed "here and now" to believe in.

That answer looks circular to me. It looks like it reads, "Believing things counts for the things we believe in."

Can you clear that up for me?

It's like which is worse, a world in which someone has the power to enforce his or her own assumptions about genuinely good behavior [from theocrats to fascists] or a world in which the moral nihilists who own and operate the global economy predicate their own "morality" on "show me the money".

Well, Marxism is even more prone to totalitarianism than is Capitalism, though both can be tyrannical, I confess. For whereas laissez-faie Capitalism is a kind of tyranny of the very wealthy, Marxism is a tyranny of the collective. If I had to choose, I'd prefer to be tyrannized by a greedy, materialistic person than by a theological or ideological zealot. And the reason is that while the former may exploit and tyrannize me, his interest in doing so has limits; so long as he makes his profit, he concerns himself little with me. But both the religious and the ideological zealot have motives to tyrannize me 24-7, and never find their motives for doing so abated. Their ideology drives them on, even when they are past the point of having achieved any material wish they may have by abusing me.

So if it's between those two evils, I'd opt to err on the side of allowing more capitalism than ideological zealotry. An economy with no controls could be very bad, and one with strict controls is inevitably dead; but between those two extremes, radical laissez-faire and radical Maxism, is a huge space for alternatives.

I'm just basically at a loss in explaining that to others because of what is at stake for them if they come to believe it too. Of themselves. I can only hope to come across an argument [or an experience] that manages to bring me up out of the hole I have dug myself down into.

A philosophical hole for one thing.

Well, surely the first step is one you've already made; it's the admission that one is "down a hole" in the first place -- not an admission for the faint of heart, and not one that most people find easy to make. But only then can one start looking for a rope up out of there.

I'm reminded of Thomas Hardy the famed agnostic noveliist's poetic words, "If way to the better there be / It exacts a full look at the worst." There's wisdom in that.

[iambiguous]

Again, from my frame of mind, it's not that some become nihilists and some do not, but that, given the lives they lived, some become predisposed to it and others do not.

I don't know...I think the rationale for Nihilism is stronger than a mere "predisposition," as if one simply chose it. Rather, it seems to me like if anybody reasons consistently starting from the non-God universe, they're bound to end up in Nihilism. Now, they can avoid that, of course, but only by not being consistent in reasoning. I think that if you think about it "all the way," so to speak, Nihilism is the necessary end game.

Well, where this gets increasingly more problematic for me is when nihilism becomes Nihilism. Upper case Nihilism seems to denote Nihilism as it actually is whereas [for me] lower case nihilism connotes a subjective understanding rooted existentially in dasein. My dasein encompassed in the OP here -- https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=176529 -- as opposed to Heidegger's upper case Dasein. Nihilism from the perspective of becoming rather than Being.

And even here I always focus in on "I" in the is/ought world.

But how could I possibly demonstrate that what "I" do believe is the optimal frame of mind.

There are people who have done it. Some would say that Nietzsche was one of them. But I think Nietzsche fudged his conclusions a bit, so instead, I'd point to a brilliant little book by an ex-Atheist, Fr. Seraphim Rose. He's an Orthodox scholar (I'm not, but his book is great: an Orthodox friend pointed it out to me.) Another good book on the consequences of that worldview is The Atheist Who Didn't Exist, by Andy Bannister. His book has the additional charm of being not merely profound but funny, as well.

Here though I would suggest that we bring such demonstrations "down to Earth". An "optimal frame of mind" in regard to what set of circumstances? And didn't Nietzsche more or less reconfigure God into the Übermensch. You may not have access to objective morality but you can choose to become either a master or a slave. Okay, but what does that mean "for all practical purposes" given a particular context?

For me it revolves around one or another rendition of "in the absence of God, all things are permitted". Permitted meaning rationalized.

Of course, in the "real world" all things are almost never permitted. In any given human community, there will be rules of behavior that intertwine law and morality given one or another set of rewards and punishments for any particular behaviors. But why one and not the other? And here one might have convinced oneself to embrace a frame of mind that ranges from the deontologist to the sociopath.

That's a reasonable distinction, actually. There's quite a difference between saying that something is rationally "permitted" within consistency with one's own worldview, and saying that people around one -- society generally -- are willing to "permit" the same things.

Again, however, what would allow us perhaps to grasp the meaning of this more clearly is a particular "situation" in which the deontologist and the sociopath, the moral objectivist and the moral nihilist, argued for their own moral philosophy. Abortion, conscription, immigration, animal rights and the like. Something that brings the theoretical and the practical into better focus when intertwined.

In Dostoevsky's story, the murder of a nasty old woman is "permitted" in the sense that the hero, Raskolnikov, finds it "permissible" to his own set of suppostions about morality being dead. But he finds himself chased by police who think his actions are not "permissible." So the two are very often at variance.

Using this example, it is the existence of God that becomes crucial for me. If there is no demonstrable God to differentiate permissible from impermissible behavior, then mere mortals either fall back on more or less blind faith and a Scripture, become philosophers or political ideologues and argue for a Rational Resolution, or, as a sociopath, ask themselves, "what's in it for me if she's dead?"; and then if there's enough in it for them if she is, ask themselves, "how do I make sure I don't get caught if I kill her?"

If I am always of the opinion that 1] my own values are rooted in dasein and 2] that there are no objective values "I" can reach, then every time I make one particular moral/political leap, I am admitting that I might have gone in the other direction...or that I might just as well have gone in the other direction. Then "I" begins to fracture and fragment to the point there is nothing able to actually keep it all together. At least not with respect to choosing sides morally and politically.

Well, again, the moral and the political may sometimes be alligned, but often they're not.

What's crucial for me here is that, however you may conclude this or that behavior is either moral or immoral, what ultimately counts in your interactions with others is who has the power to actually enforce his or her own conclusions.

The problem with the dasein perspective is that it denies one any points of reference by which to orient oneself. What does one go with? Is it, "Well I feel this is right/wrong, so it is?" But the "I" also knows that his/her feelings are often misleading or confused. So is it "If my friends or my society say this is right/wrong, it is?" But why should we think that several "I"s, each one fallible itself, somehow become inerrant when grouped? Besides, others are not really part of the dasein world...they're "outside," impinging on the "I" but not the secure basis of the "I."

Again, we need to zero in on the factors in one's life that do act existentially as reference points to orient "I". These include the historical and cultural context into which one is "thrown" at birth. The family and community which acts to indoctrinate a child into the ways of his or her own particular world. And since this indoctrination is not seen to be indoctrination at all, and can revolve around love and concern for the child's well-being, it can be that much more effective. Then the trajectory of personal experiences, relationships and access to information and knowledge that this particular individual comes to embody.

As opposed to the orientation of other individuals in very different historical and cultural contexts, being indoctrinated to see the world very differently and having very different experiences,

Dasein leave us adrift. We know we are "here," wherever that is, and that we are "something," but we have little idea of what that is.

Here it depends on the extent to which someone has an experience that prompts him or her to think this through more "philosophically".

Consider this "personal experience" I noted in a thread over at ILP:

I still recall the very first experience I had as a child with my "identity" as more than just me thinking this or doing that. I was at my Aunt Betty and Uncle Mike's house in Miners Mills, Pennsylvania. My family moved to Baltimore when I was 7, but every summer I would go back and spend a couple of months at my Grandmother's house. That day I had I had done something I was being reprimanded for but I refused to go into details as to why I had done it. That's when my Aunt Mary said something to the effect, "it's no use, he is just like his father".

And then for the first time, and for reasons I did not understand, I began to really think about that. "Philosophically", as it were. I began to wonder how the boy I had become was connected to my parents and my family and how they had raised me and how in some ways I had come to be like them.

What if I had been raised by different parents in very different circumstances? Would I have done what I did that day? Would I have reacted to others as I did?

But then of course I slipped back into just being a kid again.

On a side note, did you ever see the old movie "Being There"? It's realy about dasein. The main character is this stumblebum who doesn't even have a real name of his own, other than "Chance." And he tries to find his way daseinically through the world of 1970s New York. It's quite funny, but also a little sad, and highly ironic.

Yes, I've seen that film. In fact my reaction to it is included in my Film thread at ILP:
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... y#p2348303

But the crucial fact remains. It is what we believe about these things that ultimately counts.

But "counts" for what?

For whatever you have managed "here and now" to believe in.

That answer looks circular to me. It looks like it reads, "Believing things counts for the things we believe in."

Can you clear that up for me?

It's circular in the sense that if you believe that such and such a behavior is right then you may well act on that assumption. And it is the behaviors that we choice that result in actual consequences.

Thus...

"Why did you choose that behavior?"
"Because I believe it is the right behavior."
"Why do you believe it is the right behavior?"
"Because it produces consequences I believe in".

This, however, I root subjectively/existentially in dasein rather than in anything philosophers can provide us in the way of optimal behaviors.

It's like which is worse, a world in which someone has the power to enforce his or her own assumptions about genuinely good behavior [from theocrats to fascists] or a world in which the moral nihilists who own and operate the global economy predicate their own "morality" on "show me the money".

Well, Marxism is even more prone to totalitarianism than is Capitalism, though both can be tyrannical, I confess. For whereas laissez-faie Capitalism is a kind of tyranny of the very wealthy, Marxism is a tyranny of the collective. If I had to choose, I'd prefer to be tyrannized by a greedy, materialistic person than by a theological or ideological zealot. And the reason is that while the former may exploit and tyrannize me, his interest in doing so has limits; so long as he makes his profit, he concerns himself little with me. But both the religious and the ideological zealot have motives to tyrannize me 24-7, and never find their motives for doing so abated. Their ideology drives them on, even when they are past the point of having achieved any material wish they may have by abusing me.

So if it's between those two evils, I'd opt to err on the side of allowing more capitalism than ideological zealotry. An economy with no controls could be very bad, and one with strict controls is inevitably dead; but between those two extremes, radical laissez-faire and radical Maxism, is a huge space for alternatives.

Yes, but from my frame of mind, this is but one particular political prejudice that you have been predisposed existentially to accept given the manner in which I root value judgments of this sort in dasein. Had your life been very different you might be here arguing more favorably for Marxism.

Then the assumption that both sides have reasonable arguments to make...points the other side can't just make go away. And thus that philosophers, ethicists, political scientists etc., appear unable, using the tools at their disposal, to arrive at the optimal or the only reasonable argument that all rational men and women are obligated to embrace.

[Immanuel Can]

Well, where this gets increasingly more problematic for me is when nihilism becomes Nihilism.

Oh, I see...a feeling or experience, rather than an ideology or conclusion.

And even here I always focus in on "I" in the is/ought world.

I'm not sure I get what you mean. Of course, I know the is-ought problem, but I'm not sure what you "focus" on.

But how could I possibly demonstrate that what "I" do believe is the optimal frame of mind.

There are people who have done it. Some would say that Nietzsche was one of them. But I think Nietzsche fudged his conclusions a bit, so instead, I'd point to a brilliant little book by an ex-Atheist, Fr. Seraphim Rose. He's an Orthodox scholar (I'm not, but his book is great: an Orthodox friend pointed it out to me.) Another good book on the consequences of that worldview is The Atheist Who Didn't Exist, by Andy Bannister. His book has the additional charm of being not merely profound but funny, as well.

Here though I would suggest that we bring such demonstrations "down to Earth". An "optimal frame of mind" in regard to what set of circumstances? [/quote]
I just mean "most consistent with what one believes to be fundamentally true": most realistic, on the given terms, most in accord with the "how things are" of a non-God universe.

...what would allow us perhaps to grasp the meaning of this more clearly is a particular "situation" in which the deontologist and the sociopath, the moral objectivist and the moral nihilist, argued for their own moral philosophy. Abortion, conscription, immigration, animal rights and the like. Something that brings the theoretical and the practical into better focus when intertwined.

That's a debate I'd like to see.

In Dostoevsky's story, the murder of a nasty old woman is "permitted" in the sense that the hero, Raskolnikov, finds it "permissible" to his own set of suppostions about morality being dead. But he finds himself chased by police who think his actions are not "permissible." So the two are very often at variance.

Using this example, it is the existence of God that becomes crucial for me. If there is no demonstrable God to differentiate permissible from impermissible behavior, then mere mortals either fall back on more or less blind faith and a Scripture, become philosophers or political ideologues and argue for a Rational Resolution, or, as a sociopath, ask themselves, "what's in it for me if she's dead?"; and then if there's enough in it for them if she is, ask themselves, "how do I make sure I don't get caught if I kill her?"

Yes, that's essentially the shape of the problem Dostoevsky walks us through. Raskolnikov starts off Nietzschean, behaves sociopathically, and then tries to rationalize his actions. And (spoiler alert) he "gets away" with it, eventually only to discover that he's condemned himself to an unliveable world. His encounter with a prostitute turns out to be transformative, and at the end, he has to essentially become his own judge and jailer, because life in a universe with no Law-Giver is no life at all.

What's crucial for me here is that, however you may conclude this or that behavior is either moral or immoral, what ultimately counts in your interactions with others is who has the power to actually enforce his or her own conclusions.

But then, "morality" and "force" are exactly the same words and concepts. That we don't think they are, is an illusion. And as Nietzsche maintained, the final fact becomes "will to power," not morality at all. "Morality" persists as a sort of ghost-concept only...a nuclear shadow on the wall, when the objective cause of the shadow has long ago been turned to ashes and dust. For a time, people continue to behave as if morality exists; but it's only on borrowed time. Eventually, people capitulate to the logic of non-Godness, and forsake their traditional conceptions of right and wrong, transgressing one after another by degrees, until, as you say, "everything is permissible."

And that's pretty much where our society is today. Everything is now "permissible" -- except the assertion of conventional morality.

That's why Nietzsche's madman throws down his lamp and smashes it, and declares, "I have come too early..." What Nietzsche foresaw, he knew would take time to arrive. It would not be instantly that people would forego conventional morality, but the forces to extirpate it were already in motion, long before the average Joe realized they were.

The problem with the dasein perspective is that it denies one any points of reference by which to orient oneself. What does one go with? Is it, "Well I feel this is right/wrong, so it is?" But the "I" also knows that his/her feelings are often misleading or confused. So is it "If my friends or my society say this is right/wrong, it is?" But why should we think that several "I"s, each one fallible itself, somehow become inerrant when grouped? Besides, others are not really part of the dasein world...they're "outside," impinging on the "I" but not the secure basis of the "I."

Again, we need to zero in on the factors in one's life that do act existentially as reference points to orient "I". These include the historical and cultural context into which one is "thrown" at birth. [/quote]
Ah, but as the poststructuralists insist, we don't know what these are.

Both our grasp of history and our grasp of our cultural context are, they say, erroneous. They take the Existentialists one step further, and say that you're not only "thrown into" history and positionality, but also that you don't even know what history or positionality it really is. All you have to go on is a metanarrative you shape out of the detritus of your existential experience, and one that is guaranteed to be no more than your own fabrication.

And before we simply dismiss them, we need to realize they do have a kind of point. You know this, if you ever returned to a place you knew some decades ago, and found that the memories you had in your head were strangely different from the actuality of the place you revisited. Even the memories we're making at the moment are fraught with inaccuracies and interpretations that may not be objectively true.

So it's actually not trite an simplistic -- not at all the way the SJW set would like us to think it is -- that you are born into a particular context, and that context simply dictates your preferences to you, as if all boys born to white, working-class Pennsylvania families were automatically Steeler fans. It's much more complicated than that.

Consider this "personal experience" I noted in a thread over at ILP:

I still recall the very first experience I had as a child with my "identity" as more than just me thinking this or doing that. I was at my Aunt Betty and Uncle Mike's house in Miners Mills, Pennsylvania. My family moved to Baltimore when I was 7, but every summer I would go back and spend a couple of months at my Grandmother's house. That day I had I had done something I was being reprimanded for but I refused to go into details as to why I had done it. That's when my Aunt Mary said something to the effect, "it's no use, he is just like his father".

And then for the first time, and for reasons I did not understand, I began to really think about that. "Philosophically", as it were. I began to wonder how the boy I had become was connected to my parents and my family and how they had raised me and how in some ways I had come to be like them.

What if I had been raised by different parents in very different circumstances? Would I have done what I did that day? Would I have reacted to others as I did?

But then of course I slipped back into just being a kid again.

Yes, I see.

But you were, as you say, a child. And that dawning suspicion was actually the first evidence of you having obtained sufficient maturity of insight to "step out of" yourself and your Pennsylvania programming for a few short seconds, and to look at it for the first time "from the outside," and with a critical eye. That faculty was to increase and develop, wasn't it?

Are you now still in thrall to your upbringing? Surely not, even if there are vestiges of it still to be made conscious and examined. You've chosen a lot of what you've become. If you had not, then all children from your kind of background would always end up the same.

You now know not all Pennsylvanians don't end up as Steeler fans. Some go for the Eagles, and the unfortunate ones, for the Bears or Browns.

...it is the behaviors that we choice that result in actual consequences.

That's the most unDeterministic thing you could possibly say.

Thus...

"Why did you choose that behavior?"
"Because I believe it is the right behavior."
"Why do you believe it is the right behavior?"
"Because it produces consequences I believe in".

But why do you want those particular consequences? And who is this agent, this "you" that wants them? And how can this "you," being a product of nothing but predetermined forces, speak of having "chosen" anything?

Yes, but from my frame of mind, this is but one particular political prejudice that you have been predisposed existentially to accept given the manner in which I root value judgments of this sort in dasein. Had your life been very different you might be here arguing more favorably for Marxism.

I think not. And I'll say why, if I may.

I know Marxism. I could have chosen it, if I thought it rational. I have had it advocated to me, and even lived in circumstances in which it was a favoured dogma. And the only conditions under which I can even imagine being drawn to Marxism at all is if I had no historical, practical or theoretical knowledge of it, and were a totally different kind of person as well. By the time speculations get that wild, and require that many things to be "other than they are," I think we're well into the realm of speculative fiction.

Then the assumption that both sides have reasonable arguments to make...

I think the vast preponderance of the evidence counts against Marxism. Killing 140 million in the last century is a pretty hard tally to counterbalance, for starters. But I think it's both historically disproven and ideologically incoherent, as well. So I don't think we ought to weigh it up equally with the alternatives.

Almost anything is better than Marxism. And that's an empirical fact, I would say.

[iambiguous]

THE STONE
Navigating Past Nihilism
BY SEAN D. KELLY at the NYT

“Nihilism stands at the door,” wrote Nietzsche. “Whence comes this uncanniest of all guests?” The year was 1885 or 1886, and Nietzsche was writing in a notebook whose contents were not intended for publication. The discussion of nihilism ─ the sense that it is no longer obvious what our most fundamental commitments are, or what matters in a life of distinction and worth, the sense that the world is an abyss of meaning rather than its God-given preserve ─ finds no sustained treatment in the works that Nietzsche prepared for publication during his lifetime.

Perhaps because there is no treatment at all -- no fundamental treatment anyway -- published or unpublished, sustained or not. On the other hand, Nietzsche did get around to "thinking up" the next best thing to God among mere mortals...the Übermensch.

No, there may not be an actual fate for "I" on "the other side", and, no, there isn't access to objective morality on this side, but one can still choose to be a master rather than a slave. And with any luck at all [Woody Allen notwithstanding] an "eternal recurrence" will still keep us around for all of eternity. Thus all the more reason to be a master rather than a slave.

But a few years earlier, in 1882, the German philosopher had already published a possible answer to the question of nihilism’s ultimate source. “God is dead,” Nietzsche wrote in a famous passage from “The Gay Science.” “God remains dead. And we have killed him.”

This has always been my own starting point. No God, no one to turn to for the Final Answers. To either the Big Questions or in regard to the moral conflagrations that have rent the species now for thousands and thousands of years. And only we could have killed Him because we are the ones who invented Him.

No God and as Nietzsche speculated, "any aim is lacking, any answer to the question 'why' is lacking."

Lacking insofar as one is able to configure existential meaning and purpose into essential meaning and purpose.

No God, and, as Michael Novak speculated in The Experience of Nothingness, mere mortals, "recognize that [they] put structure into my world....There is no 'real' world out there, given, intact, full of significance. Consciousness is constituted by random, virtually infinite barrages of experience; these experiences are indistinguishably 'inner' and 'outer'.....Structure is put into experience by culture and self, and may also be pulled out again....The experience of nothingness is an experience beyond the limits of reason...it is terrifying. It makes all attempts at speaking of purpose, goals, aims, meaning, importance, conformity, harmony, unity----it makes all such attempts seem doubtful and spurious."

Of course, Novak took a leap of faith to Catholicism. For the nihilists of my ilk, however, that is no longer an option. At least not "here and now".

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=195600

[iambiguous]

Well, where this gets increasingly more problematic for me is when nihilism becomes Nihilism.

Oh, I see...a feeling or experience, rather than an ideology or conclusion.

Well, for me, upper case Nihilism becomes this "thing". It's like you take Nihilism out of your pocket [like a wallet or a comb] and say, "look everybody, Nihilism". Whereas, for me, it's less definitive. What does meaningful itself mean in a world we still know so little about ontologically. A world in which there may or may not be a teleological component at all.

And even here I always focus in on "I" in the is/ought world.

I'm not sure I get what you mean. Of course, I know the is-ought problem, but I'm not sure what you "focus" on.

Because, if we do have free will but there is no God, there seems [to me] to be a clear distinction between meaning and purpose in the either/or world and our conflicting reactions to that in the is/ought world.

For example, as doctors, men and women speak the same language regarding abortion as a medical procedure. What does it mean to perform an abortion and what is the purpose of performing one is the same for all of them. Only the individual circumstances will be different.

But among ethicists, reacting to abortion as a moral conflict, they may use the same words, but they are not able to come to the same understanding regarding which set of words encompassing which argument reflects the most rational and viruous point of view.

Conflicts among those who perform abortions may exist, but the biological facts don't change. While the ethical assumptions can, again, range from the deontologist to the sociopath. Which I root in dasein. But even here only as I understand this "here and now".

Using this example, it is the existence of God that becomes crucial for me. If there is no demonstrable God to differentiate permissible from impermissible behavior, then mere mortals either fall back on more or less blind faith and a Scripture, become philosophers or political ideologues and argue for a Rational Resolution, or, as a sociopath, ask themselves, "what's in it for me if she's dead?"; and then if there's enough in it for them if she is, ask themselves, "how do I make sure I don't get caught if I kill her?"

Yes, that's essentially the shape of the problem Dostoevsky walks us through. Raskolnikov starts off Nietzschean, behaves sociopathically, and then tries to rationalize his actions. And (spoiler alert) he "gets away" with it, eventually only to discover that he's condemned himself to an unliveable world. His encounter with a prostitute turns out to be transformative, and at the end, he has to essentially become his own judge and jailer, because life in a universe with no Law-Giver is no life at all.

Yes, all of this becomes entangled in what I construe to be the enormously complex interaction between "in my head" and "out in the world with others". All of the myriad variables that become intertwined for us in ways that they do not for others. In regard to conflicting moral convictions [or the lack thereof] it seems a miracle we can communicate as well as we do. To me anyway.

What's crucial for me here is that, however you may conclude this or that behavior is either moral or immoral, what ultimately counts in your interactions with others is who has the power to actually enforce his or her own conclusions.

But then, "morality" and "force" are exactly the same words and concepts. That we don't think they are, is an illusion. And as Nietzsche maintained, the final fact becomes "will to power," not morality at all. "Morality" persists as a sort of ghost-concept only...a nuclear shadow on the wall, when the objective cause of the shadow has long ago been turned to ashes and dust. For a time, people continue to behave as if morality exists; but it's only on borrowed time. Eventually, people capitulate to the logic of non-Godness, and forsake their traditional conceptions of right and wrong, transgressing one after another by degrees, until, as you say, "everything is permissible."

And that's pretty much where our society is today. Everything is now "permissible" -- except the assertion of conventional morality.

That's why Nietzsche's madman throws down his lamp and smashes it, and declares, "I have come too early..." What Nietzsche foresaw, he knew would take time to arrive. It would not be instantly that people would forego conventional morality, but the forces to extirpate it were already in motion, long before the average Joe realized they were.

Not sure what you mean here. For me the moral convictions you subscribe to are only as potent as your capacity to act them out. You might believe what you do about abortion or homosexuality or gun ownership, but if you are living in a community where those in power have the capacity to enforce laws that punish behaviors predicated on those beliefs...what then? It's less a question of what you believe being too early or too late but how others react to what you do based on what you believe here and now. You either can act out your beliefs without dire consequences or you can't.

The problem with the dasein perspective is that it denies one any points of reference by which to orient oneself. What does one go with? Is it, "Well I feel this is right/wrong, so it is?" But the "I" also knows that his/her feelings are often misleading or confused. So is it "If my friends or my society say this is right/wrong, it is?" But why should we think that several "I"s, each one fallible itself, somehow become inerrant when grouped? Besides, others are not really part of the dasein world...they're "outside," impinging on the "I" but not the secure basis of the "I."

Again, we need to zero in on the factors in one's life that do act existentially as reference points to orient "I". These include the historical and cultural context into which one is "thrown" at birth.

Ah, but as the poststructuralists insist, we don't know what these are.

Both our grasp of history and our grasp of our cultural context are, they say, erroneous. They take the Existentialists one step further, and say that you're not only "thrown into" history and positionality, but also that you don't even know what history or positionality it really is. All you have to go on is a metanarrative you shape out of the detritus of your existential experience, and one that is guaranteed to be no more than your own fabrication.

Again, bringing this "out into the world". Whatever the post-structuralists might surmise, if, in fact, you are "thrown" at birth into a particular historical, cultural and experiential context in regard to any particular moral issue, there are going to be "rules of behavior". There will be complex existential factors, derived from an intertwining of nature and nurture, genes and memes, that go a long way in rewarding or punishing particular behaviors. My point then is that the objectivists among us will insist that their own moral narrative/political agenda is not an existential "prejudice" but does reflect a universal truth about Good and Evil. And that ultimately in any given community it comes down to those who are able to enforce their own prejudices. Prejudices I then root in my own understanding of dasein.

Consider this "personal experience" I noted in a thread over at ILP:

Yes, I see.

But you were, as you say, a child. And that dawning suspicion was actually the first evidence of you having obtained sufficient maturity of insight to "step out of" yourself and your Pennsylvania programming for a few short seconds, and to look at it for the first time "from the outside," and with a critical eye. That faculty was to increase and develop, wasn't it?
Are you now still in thrall to your upbringing? Surely not, even if there are vestiges of it still to be made conscious and examined. You've chosen a lot of what you've become. If you had not, then all children from your kind of background would always end up the same.

Yes, but that's the point. As a child we are bombarded with experiences, relationships, information, socialization, rules of behavior, etc., that we do not "think through" as we might as adults. So, it sinks down into our brains in ways that are all but beyond our reach as children. We are shaped and molded in ways we can never really grasp clearly. Let alone comprehensively.

And my point is that, even to the extent our insights do increase and develop, there still does not appear to be access to an optimal frame of mind in regard to "I" in the is/ought world. Meanwhile, how much can we really grasp about the at times labyrinthian relationship between "as a child" and "as an adult".

You now know not all Pennsylvanians don't end up as Steeler fans. Some go for the Eagles, and the unfortunate ones, for the Bears or Browns.

Indeed, some of us come to conclude that professional sports itself is just part of the pernicious "pop culture" that keeps countless millions from exploring it...philosophically?

...it is the behaviors that we choice that result in actual consequences.

That's the most unDeterministic thing you could possibly say.

But, as I noted on another thread: click.

Click being the assumption that we do have some measure of free will in discussing things like this. Then the surreal part where I am still convinced that we do not.

Yes, but from my frame of mind, this is but one particular political prejudice that you have been predisposed existentially to accept given the manner in which I root value judgments of this sort in dasein. Had your life been very different you might be here arguing more favorably for Marxism.

I think not. And I'll say why, if I may.

I know Marxism. I could have chosen it, if I thought it rational. I have had it advocated to me, and even lived in circumstances in which it was a favoured dogma. And the only conditions under which I can even imagine being drawn to Marxism at all is if I had no historical, practical or theoretical knowledge of it, and were a totally different kind of person as well. By the time speculations get that wild, and require that many things to be "other than they are," I think we're well into the realm of speculative fiction.

Yes, but then those who still embrace Marxism have their own existential rendition of this. They'll claim to know Marxism better than you do. And they choose it because they concluded that it was rational. Why? Because given their own experiences...the people they met, the books they read, the films they viewed, the media they subscribe to, the epiphanies they stumbled upon...how could they not have come to this conclusion?

But: given the tools at their disposal, is it possible for philosophers, ethicists, political scientists, etc., to arrive at the optimal frame of mind here?

Well, given my set of assumptions, sans God, not at all very likely.

Then the assumption that both sides have reasonable arguments to make...

I think the vast preponderance of the evidence counts against Marxism. Killing 140 million in the last century is a pretty hard tally to counterbalance, for starters. But I think it's both historically disproven and ideologically incoherent, as well. So I don't think we ought to weigh it up equally with the alternatives.

Almost anything is better than Marxism. And that's an empirical fact, I would say.

Yes, but empirical facts the champions of Marxism will explain, can only be understood given the fact that Marxism was never really allowed to come into existence in the industrial West. Instead it sprouted in largely agrarian, almost feudal nations like Russia. Also, the ferocious attacks by the capitalist West forced these "Marxists" to concentrate almost entirely on defense spending, on rooting our those at home in cahoots with the "enemies of the state".

And on and on. They have their own set of assumptions just like you do.

[Immanuel Can]

And even here I always focus in on "I" in the is/ought world.

I'm not sure I get what you mean. Of course, I know the is-ought problem, but I'm not sure what you "focus" on.

For example, as doctors,..[/quote]
I guess I still don't follow.


Using this example, it is the existence of God that becomes crucial for me. If there is no demonstrable God to differentiate permissible from impermissible behavior, then mere mortals either fall back on more or less blind faith and a Scripture, [/quote]
No, they can't: you've already ruled that out. You've assumed a no-God world, right?

So there's no "faith" and the only "scriptures" there are are the mere scribblings of men who are in no better position to say anything than is anyone else.

become philosophers or political ideologues and argue for a Rational Resolution,

But there is no "rational ethic," as we know...and ideology is also arbitrary...

or, as a sociopath, ask themselves, "what's in it for me if she's dead?"; and then if there's enough in it for them if she is, ask themselves, "how do I make sure I don't get caught if I kill her?"

That's what Raskolnikov chose.

What's crucial for me here is that, however you may conclude this or that behavior is either moral or immoral, what ultimately counts in your interactions with others is who has the power to actually enforce his or her own conclusions.

But then, "morality" and "force" are exactly the same words and concepts. That we don't think they are, is an illusion. And as Nietzsche maintained, the final fact becomes "will to power," not morality at all. "Morality" persists as a sort of ghost-concept only...a nuclear shadow on the wall, when the objective cause of the shadow has long ago been turned to ashes and dust. For a time, people continue to behave as if morality exists; but it's only on borrowed time. Eventually, people capitulate to the logic of non-Godness, and forsake their traditional conceptions of right and wrong, transgressing one after another by degrees, until, as you say, "everything is permissible."

And that's pretty much where our society is today. Everything is now "permissible" -- except the assertion of conventional morality.

That's why Nietzsche's madman throws down his lamp and smashes it, and declares, "I have come too early..." What Nietzsche foresaw, he knew would take time to arrive. It would not be instantly that people would forego conventional morality, but the forces to extirpate it were already in motion, long before the average Joe realized they were.

Not sure what you mean here.

Did you ever read Nietzsche's "The Madman's Tale"? You should, if you haven't. It has direct application here, for sure.

For me the moral convictions you subscribe to are only as potent as your capacity to act them out.

That's just force. There's no moral dimension to that.

The strongest is most potent to act; end of story. Sucks to be anyone else.

Again, bringing this "out into the world". Whatever the post-structuralists might surmise, if, in fact, you are "thrown" at birth into a particular historical, cultural and experiential context in regard to any particular moral issue, there are going to be "rules of behavior".

Well, the poststructuralists would point out that you don't really know what these might be. All you know is who has the power at the moment.

As a child we are bombarded with experiences, relationships, information, socialization, rules of behavior, etc., that we do not "think through" as we might as adults. So, it sinks down into our brains in ways that are all but beyond our reach as children. We are shaped and molded in ways we can never really grasp clearly. Let alone comprehensively.

Maybe. But that's far from the whole story, for two reasons. One is that there are things other than our environment that are involved in our makeup. But the other is that we don't stay children. So even if we imagine that children are nothing but "dumb terminals" for their environment, we grow up, we get perspective and distance from ourselves, and we become able to judge our own upbringing and shaping...exactly as you are doing right now.

Meanwhile, how much can we really grasp about the at times labyrinthian relationship between "as a child" and "as an adult".

Quite a bit, actually. It's one of the most-studied relationships on earth.

Click being the assumption that we do have some measure of free will in discussing things like this. Then the surreal part where I am still convinced that we do not.

Then there was no "click." Nothing really happened there.

...those who still embrace Marxism have their own existential rendition of this. They'll claim to know Marxism better than you do.

Those are claims that can be evaluated. And quite frankly, it's truth, not "perspective" that determines the alleged worth of Marxism.

Something doesn't become dignified, important or even equivalent to other things merely because some silly person decides to adopt it as her "perspective." She may be foolish, illogical, ideologically-possessed, or just nuts. Se it can't worry us much that in somebody's "perspective" Marxism looks good.

It's not.

...empirical facts the champions of Marxism will explain, can only be understood given the fact that Marxism was never really allowed to come into existence in the industrial West.

.
That's rubbish, of course. And even Marx himself does not have a place for that kind of dodge. For Marx thought that "class struggle" inevitably defined ALL socieites, both West and East, both North and South. And so he expected his revolution to happen by as sort of Hegelian necessity or historicist teleology.

Of course, we now know he was badly wrong about that. It didnt happen. But then, his theory was rot from the start.

They have their own set of assumptions just like you do.

Let's check those "assumptions" by data. Marxism has produced misery, poverty, oppression and death in every single place it's ever been implemented. So suddenly "assumptions" matter very little at all; what matters is what happens in the real world.

Maybe Marxists should ask themselves why their own history is such a total failure. But in most cases, they won't do that, because the last thing that Marxists ever are is self-reflective. They save all their energy for trying to justify or hide Marxism's own record of unremitting disaster, and trying to convince the rest of us that poverty, misery, oppression and death are in our own interests.

[Immanuel Can]

Well, where this gets increasingly more problematic for me is when nihilism becomes Nihilism.

May I make a friendly recommendation, if you're intensely interested in either nihilism or NIhilism?

It's a book that a friend of mine recommended. I resisted buying it, or even investigating it seriously, but was eventually guilted into getting a copy. And man, am I ever glad I did.

The author is Orthodox (I'm not), and I expected some kind of religous "pitch." What it turned out to be, instead, was a short, concise and very readable summary of how modern life creates both the feeling of being nihilistic and, ultimately, the philosophy as well. It's not religious, surprisingly; it's a kind of analytical/existential treatment.

The author spent years as a Nietzschean, actually: and the book's about his understandings derived from the dasein of nihilism, in which he had once himself been submerged.

I think you'll liike it: and it's cheap, too. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nihilism-Root- ... 1887904069

[iambiguous]

And even here I always focus in on "I" in the is/ought world.

I'm not sure I get what you mean. Of course, I know the is-ought problem, but I'm not sure what you "focus" on.

For example, as doctors...

Using this example, it is the existence of God that becomes crucial for me. If there is no demonstrable God to differentiate permissible from impermissible behavior, then mere mortals either fall back on more or less blind faith and a Scripture,

No, they can't: you've already ruled that out. You've assumed a no-God world, right?

So there's no "faith" and the only "scriptures" there are the mere scribblings of men who are in no better position to say anything than is anyone else.

Again, my point here is in reference to:

Because, if we do have free will but there is no God, there seems [to me] to be a clear distinction between meaning and purpose in the either/or world and our conflicting reactions to that in the is/ought world.

For example, as doctors, men and women speak the same language regarding abortion as a medical procedure. What does it mean to perform an abortion and what is the purpose of performing one is the same for all of them. Only the individual circumstances will be different.

But among ethicists, reacting to abortion as a moral conflict, they may use the same words, but they are not able to come to the same understanding regarding which set of words encompassing which argument reflects the most rational and virtuous point of view.

Conflicts among those who perform abortions may exist, but the biological facts don't change. While the ethical assumptions can, again, range from the deontologist to the sociopath. Which I root in dasein. But even here only as I understand this "here and now".

The communication between doctors are not mere [subjective] scribblings. They are objective descriptions of actual human biology in regard to an unwanted pregnancy.

become philosophers or political ideologues and argue for a Rational Resolution,

But there is no "rational ethic," as we know...and ideology is also arbitrary...

Yes, that's my point. Nihilism is considerably less relevant to human interactions in the either/or world. Instead, the subjective/existential components here are embedded in the moral and political conflicts pertaining to abortion.

or, as a sociopath, ask themselves, "what's in it for me if she's dead?"; and then if there's enough in it for them if she is, ask themselves, "how do I make sure I don't get caught if I kill her?"

That's what Raskolnikov chose.

That's what the author chose for him to choose. Moral nihilism then -- as "I" understand it -- zeros in on whether the choices we make [presuming free will] are rooted more in the problematic nature of dasein or in, say, the arguments of those ranging from the deontologist to the sociopath. In a No God world. Just another necessary assumption.

For me the moral convictions you subscribe to are only as potent as your capacity to act them out.

That's just force. There's no moral dimension to that.

The strongest is most potent to act; end of story. Sucks to be anyone else.

Just force in a might makes right world. However, in a right makes might world, it can revolve around a shared consensus [rooted historically and culturally] regarding "rules of behavior" that reward some choices and punish others. And then those communities that revolve more around moderation, negotiation and compromise. Democracy and the rule of law where moral objectivists put their faith in convincing "the majority" to see things their way in the next election cycle. Or moral "perspectivists" who just recognize the need for moderation, negotiation and compromise.

Again, bringing this "out into the world". Whatever the post-structuralists might surmise, if, in fact, you are "thrown" at birth into a particular historical, cultural and experiential context in regard to any particular moral issue, there are going to be "rules of behavior".

Well, the poststructuralists would point out that you don't really know what these might be. All you know is who has the power at the moment.

True, but, from my frame of mind, poststructuralists are no less the product of dasein given their own subjective value judgments. There's the way things are in their own community, the way they think they ought to be instead, and their capacity to bring that about. We're all in the same boat here out in the "real world".

Thus...

As a child we are bombarded with experiences, relationships, information, socialization, rules of behavior, etc., that we do not "think through" as we might as adults. So, it sinks down into our brains in ways that are all but beyond our reach as children. We are shaped and molded in ways we can never really grasp clearly. Let alone comprehensively.

Maybe. But that's far from the whole story, for two reasons. One is that there are things other than our environment that are involved in our makeup. But the other is that we don't stay children. So even if we imagine that children are nothing but "dumb terminals" for their environment, we grow up, we get perspective and distance from ourselves, and we become able to judge our own upbringing and shaping...exactly as you are doing right now.

Yes, there are those aspects of our selves that are derived more from biological imperatives...the color of our skin in communities awash in racism, our gender in communities teeming with sexism, our sexual orientation in communities rife with heterosexists.

And while we don't stay children, who among us really has the capacity to grasp fully where the child stops and the adult begins? Especially given the fact that so much about our earliest experiences are not even within the reach of our conscious minds.

Here I often come back to a film that I recently explored over at ILP:

Suppose as a baby, your parents had died, and you were sent to live with another family. A family and a community with value judgments that were at the radical left end of the political spectrum.

Or consider the fate of these twin sisters: https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... d#p2366489

Based on a true story.

"It basically depicts [historically] the manner in which one's identity revolves around dasein. Who you come to think you are is profoundly rooted in the manner in which your life unfolds existentially. The lives of the sisters here were once virtually identical. Then their father dies and they are sent tumbling down two very, very different paths. Suddenly how they view themselves and the world around them come from entirely different frames of reference."

This is what always fascinates me most about our "identity". Just how profoundly problematic and at times precarious it can be. Nihilism in regard to "I" here.

Meanwhile, how much can we really grasp about the at times labyrinthian relationship between "as a child" and "as an adult".

Quite a bit, actually. It's one of the most-studied relationships on earth.

Perhaps, but taking into account the components of my own "narrative" here?

Click being the assumption that we do have some measure of free will in discussing things like this. Then the surreal part where I am still convinced that we do not.

Then there was no "click." Nothing really happened there.

Then back to the assumptions made that our points regarding things like this were either unable to be other than what they must be or that we do "somehow" have autonomous options to make them "our own".

...those who still embrace Marxism have their own existential rendition of this. They'll claim to know Marxism better than you do.

Those are claims that can be evaluated. And quite frankly, it's truth, not "perspective" that determines the alleged worth of Marxism.

Freely evaluated if you freely reject determinism. But no less subject to the usual "pros and cons" in respect to value judgments of this sort: https://prosancons.com/government/pros- ... f-marxism/

Something doesn't become dignified, important or even equivalent to other things merely because some silly person decides to adopt it as her "perspective." She may be foolish, illogical, ideologically-possessed, or just nuts. Se it can't worry us much that in somebody's "perspective" Marxism looks good.

It's not.

No doubt, but not unlike those who still embrace Marxism might argue. Just commencing with a very different set of initial assumptions. In regard to capitalism however.

...empirical facts the champions of Marxism will explain, can only be understood given the fact that Marxism was never really allowed to come into existence in the industrial West.

.

That's rubbish, of course. And even Marx himself does not have a place for that kind of dodge. For Marx thought that "class struggle" inevitably defined ALL socieites, both West and East, both North and South. And so he expected his revolution to happen by as sort of Hegelian necessity or historicist teleology.

Of course, we now know he was badly wrong about that. It didnt happen. But then, his theory was rot from the start.

Again, just as those who "think through" Marxism from a very different perspective will see this as rubbish. It's not for nothing that Marxism was given birth in the belly of the beast that was the Industrial Revolution. And what did nations like Russia and China have in common with that? Not much. I suspect that what Marx really hadn't factored in is just how innovative capitalism could be. Creating, among other things, the middle class, the welfare state, the rise of unions.

They have their own set of assumptions just like you do.

Let's check those "assumptions" by data. Marxism has produced misery, poverty, oppression and death in every single place it's ever been implemented. So suddenly "assumptions" matter very little at all; what matters is what happens in the real world.

Maybe Marxists should ask themselves why their own history is such a total failure. But in most cases, they won't do that, because the last thing that Marxists ever are is self-reflective. They save all their energy for trying to justify or hide Marxism's own record of unremitting disaster, and trying to convince the rest of us that poverty, misery, oppression and death are in our own interests.

Yes, these are a collection of your own "political prejudices" derived, from my frame of mind, far more from dasein than from a definitive philosophical/scientific/rational/epistemologically sound etc., argument that settles it once and for all. And others prefer to focus instead on the "poverty, misery, oppression and death" that revolves more around a global economy owned and operated by the amoral crony/state capitalists.

And, again, always assuming that this exchange itself is the embodiment of free will...and not merely unfolding only as it ever could have.

As though, for example, the exchange was unfolding in a dream.

[promethean75]

You're wasting your time with that dipshit, Biggs.

Took me all of five days to realize this before you got here. Please, let me do you the favor. Go rearrange your sock drawer.

[iambiguous]

Well, where this gets increasingly more problematic for me is when nihilism becomes Nihilism.

May I make a friendly recommendation, if you're intensely interested in either nihilism or NIhilism?

It's a book that a friend of mine recommended. I resisted buying it, or even investigating it seriously, but was eventually guilted into getting a copy. And man, am I ever glad I did.

The author is Orthodox (I'm not), and I expected some kind of religous "pitch." What it turned out to be, instead, was a short, concise and very readable summary of how modern life creates both the feeling of being nihilistic and, ultimately, the philosophy as well. It's not religious, surprisingly; it's a kind of analytical/existential treatment.

The author spent years as a Nietzschean, actually: and the book's about his understandings derived from the dasein of nihilism, in which he had once himself been submerged.

I think you'll liike it: and it's cheap, too. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nihilism-Root- ... 1887904069

Goggled it and found this: https://www.oodegr.com/english/filosofi ... rn_age.htm

My own rendition of it is Michael Novak's The Experience of Nothingness: https://www.amazon.com/Experience-Nothi ... 1560009888

He does a rather good job in encompassing nihilism in the modern world...but then takes his own leap of faith to Catholicism, right wing conservativism and "democratic capitalism".

Also, there's Colin Wilson's The Outsider.

[iambiguous]

You're wasting your time with that dipshit, Biggs.

Took me all of five days to realize this before you got here. Please, let me do you the favor. Go rearrange your sock drawer.

You know how it is when you're "new" in a philosophy venue. It takes a while to get a sense of where others are coming from in relationship to your own thinking. And, as you know, my thinking is particularly problematic. Even disturbing for some.

That's why I suspect that [so far] I haven't got a lot of folks actually responding to my posts.

Or, as I attempted to grapple with it at ILP...

1] I argue that while philosophers may go in search of wisdom, this wisdom is always truncated by the gap between what philosophers think they know [about anything] and all that there is to be known in order to grasp the human condition in the context of existence itself. That bothers some. When it really begins to sink in that this quest is ultimately futile, some abandon philosophy altogether. Instead, they stick to the part where they concentrate fully on living their lives "for all practical purposes" from day to day.

2] I suggest in turn it appears reasonable that, in a world sans God, the human brain is but more matter wholly in sync [as a part of nature] with the laws of matter. And, thus, anything we think, feel, say or do is always only that which we were ever able to think, feel, say and do. And that includes philosophers. Some will inevitably find that disturbing. If they can't know for certain that they possess autonomy, they can't know for certain that their philosophical excursions are in fact of their own volition.

3] And then the part where, assuming some measure of autonomy, I suggest that "I" in the is/ought world is basically an existential contraption rooted in dasein...interacting with other existential contraptions in a world teeming with conflicting goods; and in contexts in which wealth and power prevails in the political arena. The part where "I" becomes "fractured and fragmented".