moral relativism

Should you think about your duty, or about the consequences of your actions? Or should you concentrate on becoming a good person?

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Veritas Aequitas
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

henry quirk wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 10:37 pm
Lying is wrong only because of a context that needs to be established after the fact when it becomes wrong at the time of the event because of the context.
No. Lyin is wrong even if no one outside the liar and the one lied to are aware of it. Lyin' is wrong even if the one lied to never becomes aware he was lied to. But if he does become aware of it and wants to plead his case, someone has to evaluate his claim. Before we penalize Sam for lyin' we, those who weren't there, have to evaluate the claim against Sam.

But, enough: you don't understand...it is what it is.
You are right as usual intuitively.
I would not say 'lying is morally wrong' as the terms 'right' or 'wrong' can lead to many misunderstandings.

'lying' is a moral deviant, i.e. a deviation from the standard objective moral principle, 'lying is not permissible' period!
The point is 'if lying is permitted universally, then it can lead to possible genocide in its extreme'.
As such to be fool-proof or idiot-proof, the general moral principle is 'lying is not permissible' period!

BUT this objective moral principle is merely a guide and should never be imposed on any individual.
A credible moral system [only possible in the future*] will ensure individuals will develop their moral competence to the extent they would naturally never be triggered to lie.
It does not mean they cannot lie at all, but if the situation necessitate a lie to optimize the well being of all, then they will lie but only after thinking over it many times. Even then, thereafter they will take the necessary preventive steps to avoid the need to lie in the future.

A credible moral system will also strive to ensure humans [only in the future*] will not have to face any situations where they have to lie. If they ever have to do, it would only be very rare cases.
* it is too late for such a project in the present due the the present psychological states of the majority of humans which are being more beastly than being human.
Belinda
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Belinda »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 12:16 pm Well as usual there is no telling whether Belinda is a moral realist or a relativist. once you start twisting the concepts to make them fit a model you would like, thing quickly go that way.
Nobody including me knows whether or not there be that sort of God. I choose my model to fit my moral system according to which there is my God , your God, and each other's God. Ordinary human sympathy + reason is the best measure (or even the best watershed) of whose God is the better God.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Belinda wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 10:33 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 12:16 pm Well as usual there is no telling whether Belinda is a moral realist or a relativist. once you start twisting the concepts to make them fit a model you would like, thing quickly go that way.
Nobody including me knows whether or not there be that sort of God. I choose my model to fit my moral system according to which there is my God , your God, and each other's God. Ordinary human sympathy + reason is the best measure (or even the best watershed) of whose God is the better God.
You are a moral realtivist who keeps banging on about moral facts.

I don't even care why you suddenly invoked a bunch of relgion
Belinda
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Belinda »

FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 10:43 am
Belinda wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 10:33 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Wed Jun 29, 2022 12:16 pm Well as usual there is no telling whether Belinda is a moral realist or a relativist. once you start twisting the concepts to make them fit a model you would like, thing quickly go that way.
Nobody including me knows whether or not there be that sort of God. I choose my model to fit my moral system according to which there is my God , your God, and each other's God. Ordinary human sympathy + reason is the best measure (or even the best watershed) of whose God is the better God.
You are a moral realtivist who keeps banging on about moral facts.

I don't even care why you suddenly invoked a bunch of relgion
I credited you with the understanding that God is another name for moral realism.
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FlashDangerpants
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Re: moral relativism

Post by FlashDangerpants »

Belinda wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 10:52 am
FlashDangerpants wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 10:43 am
Belinda wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 10:33 am

Nobody including me knows whether or not there be that sort of God. I choose my model to fit my moral system according to which there is my God , your God, and each other's God. Ordinary human sympathy + reason is the best measure (or even the best watershed) of whose God is the better God.
You are a moral realtivist who keeps banging on about moral facts.

I don't even care why you suddenly invoked a bunch of relgion
I credited you with the understanding that God is another name for moral realism.
"credited".... That completely bullshit synonym claim doesn't work on anyone who isn't a mystical woo flinger.

So if you are writing " I choose my model to fit my moral system according to which there is my moral facts , your moral facts, and each other's moral facts." you have completely rejected all possible reason to use the word fact.

This is annoyingly fatuous.
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

Post by henry quirk »

You are right as usual intuitively.
Yeah, I believe each man, any man, any where, any when, knows, deep in his bones, he is his own; knows his life, his liberty, his property are his and his alone. And he knows this becuz it's fundamental to him.

And becuz a man is his own, becuz his life, liberty, and property are his and his alone, it's wrong to, without just cause, deprive him of his life, his liberty, his property. (lace, if you're readin', that makes, what, the 10 thousandth time I posted such a thing?)
I would not say 'lying is morally wrong' as the terms 'right' or 'wrong' can lead to many misunderstandings.
The problem, it seems to me, is the lack of nuanced placeholders. For example, kill as in Joe kills Stan. Joe had good cause to kill Stan or he had no good cause to kill Stan. The best we can say is Joe justly killed Stan, or, Joe unjustly killed Stan. Both are awkward. Me, I often substitute murder for unjust killing, but, more than once, this has supposedly confused the person I'm talkin' to or arguing with (becuz murder is a legal term). Havin' to explain I've appropriated it kinda defeats the purpose.

Lie/lying/liar is even more problematic. Kill kinda, sorta, lends itself to bein' unfinished. We hear Joe killed Stan and we wanna know why; we wanna know if Joe had good cause or not. We hear Joe lied and we auto-assume he acted unjustly or immorally (even if Joe lied to self-defend, lie colors the account). We can try to get around that by sayin' Joe told an untruth or Joe conveyed inaccurate information but these constructs (the later in particular) are awkward and give the impression one is dancin' around instead of gettin' to the root of the matter.
'lying is not permissible' period!
At first blush, anyone would say you're right. Consider, though...

If I tell the guy who breaks into my home and who holds a gun to my head no, there's no one else in the house when I know my kid is hunkered down under his bed on the other side of our home, most certainly, I've lied, but have I been immoral?

If I tell the guy who breaks into my home and who holds a gun to my head yes, there's someone else in the house, my kid is hunkered down under his bed on the other side of our home, most certainly, I've been truthful, but have I been moral?

Me, I'd like to have nuanced placeholders to apply instead of sayin' moral lie or just lie, or, immoral truth or unjust truth.
Veritas Aequitas
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Re: moral relativism

Post by Veritas Aequitas »

henry quirk wrote: Thu Jun 30, 2022 7:03 pm
'lying is not permissible' period!
At first blush, anyone would say you're right. Consider, though...

If I tell the guy who breaks into my home and who holds a gun to my head no, there's no one else in the house when I know my kid is hunkered down under his bed on the other side of our home, most certainly, I've lied, but have I been immoral?

If I tell the guy who breaks into my home and who holds a gun to my head yes, there's someone else in the house, my kid is hunkered down under his bed on the other side of our home, most certainly, I've been truthful, but have I been moral?

Me, I'd like to have nuanced placeholders to apply instead of sayin' moral lie or just lie, or, immoral truth or unjust truth.
You missed my point.

This " 'lying is not permissible' period!" is only a guiding principle, standard or policy which is not strictly enforceable on any individual without exception.
And this standard must be verified and justified as an objective moral fact, not from a God or enacted by laws.

Because it is merely a guiding principle, obviously one can still lie where there is an imperative to optimize the well-being of individual[s] or humanity [save lives, prevent violence, etc.].

But because there is a guiding principle,
" 'lying is not permissible' period!"
the act of lying itself will generate a moral deviation against the standard which will then trigger the need for improvement in diagnosing the root causes and resolve them such that the above scenario do not happen again.
Example in the future [next >100 years], to resolve the moral deviations, self development programs will be implemented so that humans will progress morally to the extent no humans would break into anyone's home with a gun looking for a victim to kill. In this case, there would be no scenario that trigger a need to lie.

At present, due to the beastly nature of the majority, the guiding principle,
" 'lying is not permissible' period!" is not likely be effective.
It is only possible to work in the future, provided we recognize that guiding principle as a moral fact and start to implement the right strategies now.

If there is not guiding principle such as
" 'lying is not permissible' period!"
humans will continue to lie in all sorts of circumstances without any guide for them to improve for the better.
This is analogous to a ship maneuvering a coast full of rocks in the dark without a lighthouse.
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henry quirk
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Re: moral relativism

Post by henry quirk »

You missed my point.
No, I got it. I didn't have any comments on it, is all.
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

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Recognizing Moral Identity as a Cultural Construct
Fanli Jia and Tobias Krettenauer at Frontiers In Psychology website
Confucianism provides further support of the societally oriented moral system in Eastern cultures. From the perspective of Confucianism, understandings of morality help to socialize individuals by encouraging them to suppress personal desires in social interactions and to eliminate “Xiao Wo,” personal-centered actions, by emphasizing “Da Wo,” societal-centered actions instead (Hwang, 1999). As a consequence of Eastern ideology, a highly moral person, “I,” is transformed into “we” and, consequently, feelings of society within the group are strengthened.
All this revolves around the age-old tug of war between "I" and we" in any particular human community. And, of course, the dramatic shift from "we" to "I" once capitalism shifted human interaction from "the village" to the "market".

After all, it's not for nothing that Confucianism itself is taking hit after hit in modern day state capitalist regimes like China. Or will someone here argue that "we" still prevails there today as it did back then. It's the historical, organic nature of capitalism that, in making competition rather than cooperation the main driving force in human interactions, everyone will be pitted against everyone else to see who and what prevails re supply and demand.

In cultures of old everyone had a place in the community and together the community would rise or fall. Today, it can be far more complex and convoluted. And that is because, for individuals, the options can increase dramatically. But among those options there is a better chance that in choosing this rather than that you have to take away the options of others.

Expressions like "dog eat dog", "survival of the fittest", "cutthroat competition", "every man for himself"...how often did they pop up in the time of Confucious?

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

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Recognizing Moral Identity as a Cultural Construct
Fanli Jia and Tobias Krettenauer at Frontiers In Psychology website
Chinese education system employed Confucian values of effortful and respectful learning. Consequently, for 1000s of years, Chinese citizens were accustomed to giving, obeying, and following authority. Extended families with hierarchical relationships were also important in traditional Chinese society. Moreover, in the contemporary Chinese history, Cultural Revolution swept the nation in 1970s, driving Chinese to “nation-oriented” collectivism.
And now, whatever we can possibly learn about Chinese society today. Confucius and Mao meet Xi Jinping? A tightly controlled capitalist economy engendering a new set of freedoms for the individual meets a brand spanking new kind of repression from the state. It has to be.

There's never been a capitalism quite like this before. Indeed, any number of authoritarian right-wing MAGA billionaires right here in America would just love to emulate it.
A very popular Chinese analogy of this national value states that “Chinese people are like bricks,” which means that all people have the same functions and that they are willing to be assigned throughout the society wherever ‘society’ needs them. Thus, Chinese people should attribute national and societal meanings to the concept of a highly moral person, based on the moral ideology that nation is the most basic and important source of collective identity.
Bricks in the great wall that is China. Sure, why not describe the Chinese people today in that manner. A place for everyone and everyone in their place. Only not as Confucius and Mao would have imagined the wall to be. A wall that is perhaps rapidly becoming the future of the global economy. A whole new take on the "I" and "we" relationship.

Take unions for example: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/how ... 0transport.

"The country boasts the biggest union in the world, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), a state-run body.

All unions in China are required to register with the ACFTU and have largely been confined to sectors such as manufacturing and transport."


Clearly, though, the CCP has reconfigured Communism as imagined by Marx and Mao into something altogether more dynamic. And, for some, altogether more profitable.

The crucial point being to recognize human identity [and morality] today as a political economy construct.
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

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Moral Relativism and Moral Nihilism
James Dreier, David Copp
What Are Nihilism and Relativism?

Moral nihilism and moral relativism are metaethical theories, theories of the nature of morality.
And you know me: bring any "metaethical theory" you might have "down to Earth". Explore and examine it given situations that precipitate actual conflicts among flesh and blood human beings.

I start with the assumption that in a No God world the existential nature of morality and ethics revolves around the existential components of the life we lived...and continue to live.
Nihilism is the view that there are no moral facts. It says that nothing is right or wrong, or morally good or bad.
My own subjective understanding of nihilism starts with the assumption that in regard to our moral convictions there are facts that, in the either/or world, are applicable to all of us. Facts about abortion, facts about guns, facts about the role of government.
Nihilists believe that moral language is infected by a massive false presupposition, much as atheists understand religious talk. While nihilism is sometimes associated with the `anything goes' outlook that Nietzsche seems to be propounding in some of his writings, nihilists nowadays typically deny that their doctrine is a moral position. John Mackie, who called his own nihilism an “error theory,” was careful to insist that his was not a theory of what to do.
This nihilist believes that moral language reflects historical and cultural and personal biases that as children we are indoctrinated to believe and that [given a free will world] as more autonomous adults we are often profoundly influenced by. And that only the sociopaths tend toward an "anything goes, just don't get caught" frame of mind.

As for my own frame of mind being a "doctrine", I'm the first to admit that it is no less an existential assessment derived from my own constellation of experiences, relationships and access to information and knowledge.

Next up: moral relativism.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

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Nietzsche and Moral Nihilism
Dr W Large
In popular culture, the philosopher Nietzsche is usually associated with moral nihilism. We might define nihilism as the absence of the highest values. Associated with moral nihilism is moral relativism. Moral relativism is the belief that all values, precisely because there are no higher values, are merely the expression of personal preference. Ironically, however, is it exactly this kind of moral viewpoint that Nietzsche is criticising. Rather than being a nihilist he is an anti-nihilist. Nihilism is a diagnosis of the decadence of Western culture, rather than a position that Nietzsche wants, and still less, wants us to aspire to.
First, of course, how I react to this conclusion may or may not be how you react to it. It all depends [as always] on how, over the course of our lives, we have come to understand the meaning of these words. Both in terms of our personal experiences and in terms of all the books and articles and sources of information we have come upon.

You tell me: What are the odds that yours overlaps mine?

In other words, in noting all of the elements in our lives that came together predisposing us to embrace one rather than another moral identity, we are acknowledging all of the other elements we did not come into contact with. How then are we to know the extent to which, had we encountered them, they might have had a profound impact on our value judgments today.

And, of course, the irony that revolves around those who insist that, however one understands Nietzsche's own take on the relationship between nihilism and morality, it is nihilism itself -- given any rendition subscribed to -- that is responsible for the decadence that is sweeping our planet. It is the absence of a moral font [God or No God] that has created the conditions that sustain the amoral "show me the money" mentality of the global capitalists and the burgeoning spread of, among other dissolute elements, the sociopathic personality.

And if Nietzsche's Übermensch narrative is basically an attempt to supplant the "higher values" attributed to in God by attributing them to so-called superior mere mortals instead, how is that not just another attempt to make the part where in a No God world human existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless go away?

With "eternal return" thrown in as the alternative to oblivion.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121
Belinda
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Re: moral relativism

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iambiguous wrote: Fri Jul 29, 2022 6:43 pm Nietzsche and Moral Nihilism
Dr W Large
In popular culture, the philosopher Nietzsche is usually associated with moral nihilism. We might define nihilism as the absence of the highest values. Associated with moral nihilism is moral relativism. Moral relativism is the belief that all values, precisely because there are no higher values, are merely the expression of personal preference. Ironically, however, is it exactly this kind of moral viewpoint that Nietzsche is criticising. Rather than being a nihilist he is an anti-nihilist. Nihilism is a diagnosis of the decadence of Western culture, rather than a position that Nietzsche wants, and still less, wants us to aspire to.
First, of course, how I react to this conclusion may or may not be how you react to it. It all depends [as always] on how, over the course of our lives, we have come to understand the meaning of these words. Both in terms of our personal experiences and in terms of all the books and articles and sources of information we have come upon.

You tell me: What are the odds that yours overlaps mine?

In other words, in noting all of the elements in our lives that came together predisposing us to embrace one rather than another moral identity, we are acknowledging all of the other elements we did not come into contact with. How then are we to know the extent to which, had we encountered them, they might have had a profound impact on our value judgments today.

And, of course, the irony that revolves around those who insist that, however one understands Nietzsche's own take on the relationship between nihilism and morality, it is nihilism itself -- given any rendition subscribed to -- that is responsible for the decadence that is sweeping our planet. It is the absence of a moral font [God or No God] that has created the conditions that sustain the amoral "show me the money" mentality of the global capitalists and the burgeoning spread of, among other dissolute elements, the sociopathic personality.

And if Nietzsche's Übermensch narrative is basically an attempt to supplant the "higher values" attributed to in God by attributing them to so-called superior mere mortals instead, how is that not just another attempt to make the part where in a No God world human existence is essentially meaningless and purposeless go away?

With "eternal return" thrown in as the alternative to oblivion.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121
It's undeniable there is a feeling in Nietzsche that Ubermensch is born that way and others are born otherwise than Uber. If however I presume man evolves culturally not genetically then I am a socialist who believes no Mensch is beyond raising to Ubermensch in some area peculiar to himself.

Political elites obviously are not Ubermensch just because they are born that way. Political elites are as they are via the inherited violence of a social class. Sometimes a man who is born into that political elite culture can rise above it and become a socialist. Other men, born as non-politicians, can join the elite class via subterfuge or charisma, where they are generally trouble makers like Trump or Hitler.
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

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Nietzsche and Moral Nihilism
Dr W Large
What is the cause and origin of nihilism in contemporary society? It is the continued destruction of all meaning and signification. It is the belief that nothing really matters any more, because nothing really has any meaning. We have no system of beliefs or values which could orientate us.
Again, suppose this could be demonstrated unequivocally to be true. How much would it matter to you? Wouldn't it depend on the extent to which "meaning and signification" in your life was construed as an essential, underlying foundation that you could anchor your life and death to. Otherwise [existentially] you can always find the things that bring you fulfilment and satisfaction from day to day to day meaningful and significant enough to shrug off that "ultimate" meaning stuff.

That is, until you come eyeball to eyeball with oblivion itself. Then a nihilistic perspective comes eyeball to eyeball with the limitations of nihilism itself. Nihilism only works on this side of the grave. Works in the sense that if you are not anchored to one or another objectivist font, your options increase dramatically. For some, all the way out to that ghastly sociopathic perspective: what's in it for me? End of story.
The old systems of belief, like religion and morality, still exist, but at best we only follow them half-heartedly, and at worst, think that they have no meaning whatsoever. They exist only the edges of our lives and consciousnesses.
Right, like this is necessarily applicable to all of us. Like there aren't still millions religious and moral fanatics "out there". And "in here" too. The moral monsters come from both ends of the spectrum here. Historically, for instance. Which are worse? The Hitlers or the Kissingers?

You tell me.

Still, for some of us...
...it isn’t just the world that doesn’t have any meaning anymore. We ourselves don’t have any meaning to ourselves. Why should we choose one course of action over the other? What does it really matter anymore, since no-one’s individual life really has any significance in the grand scheme of things as Michel Haar describes.
How to live with that? How to decide what to choose in a world where "in the absence of God all things are permitted"?

You tell me.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121
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iambiguous
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Re: moral relativism

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Nietzsche and Moral Nihilism
Dr W Large
Nothing is worth much anymore, everything comes down to the same thing, everything is equalized. Everything is the same and equivalent: the true and the false, the good and the bad. Everything is outdated, used up, old dilapidated, dying: an undefined agony of meaning, an unending twilight: not a definite annihilation of significations, but their indefinite collapse.
Nothing and everything. When, in actuality, over and over and over again, it's almost never either one of them in regard to connecting the dots between a philosophical assessment of nihilism like the one above and the existential parameters of the lives we live from day to day to day. Is it any wonder then that so many have little or no use for such abstract intellectual conjectures?
It would be quite absurd, therefore, to claim that this is what Nietzsche actually desires. On the contrary, he wants to diagnose how we got there. Our culture is like the character God in Philip Pullman’s Dark Materials trilogy: old and worn out, barely alive, and certainly nothing to really believe in anymore.
No, it appears that what Nietzsche was aiming to accomplish was to replace the God font with the "will to power" Übermensch font.

Whatever that means.

But that's my point. In the absence of the God font "up there" to settle conflicts of this sort, we mere mortals have managed to come up with any number of hopelessly conflicting secular narratives to take His place.

Is yours perhaps the optimal assessment?
The most dangerous side of this nihilism, however, is that in the end it becomes happy and satisfied with itself. Once we used to feel horror and terror at the fact that religion, morality and philosophy don’t really have any meaning, but now we’re quite happy to live in a world without meaning.
Says who? And those who do say so...what exactly are they intent on putting in its place? There are, of course, the amoral capitalists, the amoral sociopaths, the amoral libertines.

What of your own amoral foundation? What are you intent on doing with it?

And then the part here that always comes back around to God:
One example of this satisfaction is the death of God. Again we have to remind ourselves of the passage in the Gay Science, where Nietzsche writes of the madman who rushes into the marketplace and declares that God is dead. Many people read this as Nietzsche is simply celebrating atheism, but if we read this passage more carefully we can see that what it really describes is how the ordinary people don’t really care at all whether God is dead or not. This is what is truly terrifying. Not that God is dead, but that no-one even noticed that he had died:

"Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: ‘I seek God! I seek God!’ – As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, the provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? Emigrated? – Thus they yelled and laughed."
In our modern world of course this basically revolves around all of the millions upon millions of "lost souls" who spend their days mindlessly preoccupied with pop culture, social media, mass consumption, and the pursuit of celebrity.

God doesn't stand a chance there.

And, come to think of it, neither does philosophy. Or, rather, what's left of it these days.

https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=175121
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