I am sorry, Mohamed, about the attack that BarbarianHorde has done on you. It is his business if he is not interested in what you say, but it is not his business to say "who cares". That was despicable by him. If he does not care, others still might. His view serves no philosophical purpose; he is just being a busy-body, talking without saying something. I hate people like that. "Who cares?" What a rube. He has no sense of reality.
And to be honest, I really enjoyed your introduction, it was very well done. I think it was interesting, thought-provoking, and an EXXCELLENT introduction into who you are.
In consequent posts you proved that your thought patterns reflect a pattern AS IF you believed in god. I noticed this is typical of the few Arab thinkers (not that I had known many) that I have come across: they are vicious believers in absolutes, in morals, in protecting the downtrodden, etc., and when they encounter opposing views they can't believe this can exist.
Thank you ! Actually before writing my introduction, I wrote the title , and then I was stuck, I did not know what to say : I do not travel, I do not have day to day friends, I have autism, besides I did not want to mention anything that is not related to philosophy.
The paradox, is that if "none cares" then this whole category of self-introduction would be useless ... it would be very irrational to keep it. Why would I introduce myself if no one cares?!
It is maybe right to some extent : people like to talk about themselves more than other people are willing to listen, a guy in love would nod and pretend like he cares about what color his girlfriend likes , while in fact who cares?! she is hot !
It is interesting how people find it fuzzy to know what they do and do not care about.
I know that most people do not care about your philosophical positions ... but all I know is that most of us care about what 9/11 terrorists had in their minds (if they had minds).
Most of us only care in extreme cases, because that's what triggers our concerns.
In consequent posts you proved that your thought patterns reflect a pattern AS IF you believed in god. I noticed this is typical of the few Arab thinkers
Ah, I see .. My name and family name (Taqi means Pious) are Arabic, my family is Amazigh (aka berber ... and berbers are not technically considered Arabs here). I only started learning Arabic at age 6 . But nevertheless I was raised a Muslim (with some Jewish influence) . At age 16 I considered myself a nonreligious.
I do not believe God exists, in fact : God probably does not exist ( I can't say that with 100% certainty but I am convinced that God probably does not exist)
I am a Nihilist, I think the Universe inherently has no meaning or purpose at all, because meaning and purpose are very complex that they need a complex system (like a brain) to emerge, same goes for our perception of moral truths.
But who established these moral truths?
Probably it is not God ... these moral truths (deontological ethics) are forced upon us by necessity, not by any sentient law-giver.
How is that possible? I will show you while replying to your other comments :
Not good for the enemies of the helped one. Good deeds are always, always, relative, subjective. There is no objectively absolute good deed in the world.
I am not talking about something that is Good (absolutely good), no ... I am a relativist too. Deontology does not mean absolutism, there is a difference between these terms.
Deontological ethics is concerned with what is "good"? (under and such and such circumstances), It is not good for you if I helped an enemy who would cause you harm.
- Is it wrong if I helped him? without knowing that he would cause you harm?
- On the other hand, if it is wrong ... what makes it wrong?
Deontological ethics answers to these questions like this :
- It is not wrong, because my intent was to help someone in need.
- If it is wrong, nothing makes it wrong, even its consequences do not make it wrong... it is intrinsically wrong in that exact circumstances.
It does not mean that it is absolutely wrong or right .. because circumstances change.
Deontology is only about : "What makes it wrong?" / "Why is it wrong?"
And the answer to these questions in deontological ethics is : it is intrinsically wrong... the fact that I helped that guy who will harm you is intrinsically right in that situation where I do not know that he would harm you.
That is - This act : "Helping that guy in that exact situation while I do not know what he will do" , is ABSOLUTELY intrinsically right . Consequences do not make it wrong.
But hold on, doesn't this absolutely contradict what I said that I am a relativist too?
No,
Because the act is the whole conditional :
"If a guy that will cause harm is in that situation AND you do not know about what he will do THEN you ought to help him"
This is akin to a hypothetical imperative (according to Kant's deontology), and it is absolutely true (the whole conditional, not just the help him part).
But I am a relativist when you ask me : "is it right to help Bob ?" ... I need the conditional.
The biconditional here would look like this : "You ought to help Bob IF AND ONLY IF he does not do / will not do anything wrong that you know of"
(A if and only if B)
, and it is absolutely true.
I would ask : Give me the whole story and circumstances?
And the answer for example : Help him steal a car" ...
Well, the conditional (which is always intrinsically absolutely true) does not permit this .. because not-B therefore not-A.
But the biconditional is always a deontological truth, a moral value that always holds
What makes that moral truth a moral truth? Let's say that after me helping Bob fix his tire, he thanked me and drove away, then he hit and killed a child.
Again, here : I do not know that Bob will hit a child (he does not know his future either) ... does that make my helping him wrong? Deontological ethics do not care about consequences .. all that matters is my intent when I helped him, because what I did is subject to a conditional that is absolutely true (no human or consequence made it true), and it exists whether we exist or not.
Confusing eh? I know ... I already said that nothing has purpose or meaning, and then now I say that there are deontological truths that are always true. How to reconcile these views?
They do not need reconciliation , of course there is no meaning or purpose in the Universe (it is just matter, energy, natural laws...etc).
To give you an analogy : The Universe does not care about mathematics and numbers, equations...etc. It just works.
But nevertheless mathematical concepts are enforced upon us (you can not make 1+1=3 ) , it just is ... because that's how the Universe works.
Now, back to ethics : deontological truths (those conditionals I already talked about) can be described as a set of matrices of does and don'ts that are in terms of conditionals (do this if this, don't do this if that...etc), so that these values are the best thing that can result in increasing the fitness of individual brains / society / human communities / civilization in the Universe...
Tell me what you want, there exist values that are the best thing that maximizes the good of social communities and minimizes the harms , and these are conditionals, not direct statements, and the best we can do is to approximate them (the way we approximate the value of Pi)
For example : L1 and L2 , one of them has to be closer than the other to the optimal value that the thief deserves (no more, no less)
I tell you there is a value because it cannot be 5 years for a stealing a chicken, it cannot 1 day .. it has to be somewhere in between (like 15 days,...etc). I know that chopping a thief's hands off is immoral because this is too far away from the range of punishments that I know he deserves. I do not know what he deserves with a good precision, But there being a true and real moral value constrains the possible punishments that I can apply without causing much injustice ... but still I can miss by 1 - 2 or even 3 months, or 1 - 2 years), but the best that law can do is approximate these moral values ... Chopping a thief's hands is far fetched and doesn't even approach (even slightly) the nature of this crime.
But the more you approach that true value (that does not result in injustice ) , so that the more people approach that value for that exact same condition and circumstances, it results results in the maximum chances for society to survive.
And those values are not something we create, they are intrinsically true, Otherwise we would not see injustice when it happens.
I hope you see the picture , it is difficult to convey it ... it is a mix of deontological kantian ethics and evolution.
