Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2019 4:07 pm
There is no such thing as "collectivist ethics."
Collectives have no ethical awareness or ability to respond to moral precepts. Collectives have no singular conscience. Only the individuals within a collective can respond to ethics, and the collective direction is only ever a byproduct of that.
There is a mantra in management science: if you can't measure it - you can't improve it.
Whether you agree or disagree with it is moot at this point. I merely want you to acknowledge that this is something people subscribe to.
Are you aware that statistics is a "collectivist" endeavor, by virtue of the
law of large numbers? The larger your sample size - the more significant the results.
Now. Here is a chart which plots the human life expectancy over the last 300 years.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life ... 1770..2015
I want you to put 2 and 2 together.
1. We can measure life expectancy
2. We have a sufficiently large sample size to reason about it
Are you REALLY trying to tell me that collectively WE would be better off if the graph had gone the other way?
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:46 pm
Then you aren't collectivist. And you wouldn't believe in any concept of duration after death through the "we," the collective.
You make two ontological errors in one sentence.
To ask or state what things ARE is meaningless. It's just linguistic labels.
To speak of "beliefs" is as spoken words is further meaningless nonsense.
You can't narrate your beliefs. You can only ACT OUT your beliefs. This is why the question of "how does X behave?" is more informative than "what is X?"
How does an "individualist" behave in contrast to a "collectivist"?
I am a collectivist in as much as I subscribe to the law of large numbers. I can't measure my individual success - that's anecdotal.
I can't make ANY inferences about my well-being from my lived experiences.
The only way I can tell if the world is getting better is if it's getting better for EVERYONE. Because it's getting better for everyone - it's also getting better for me.
That's how logical deduction works. You are allowed to go from the general to the particular.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:46 pm
No, it's not. And Nietzsche knew it's not. Ubermensch "cooperate" only strategically, and never as a matter of principle. They consider themselves beyond all concepts of good and evil.
ONLY strategically?
What I asked you WAS as strategic question. What is your life-strategy?
Do everything yourself OR cooperate?
Do you intend to become a doctor (only for yourself)?
Do you intend to manufacture food (only for yourself)?
Do you intend to become an banker (only for yourself)?
Do you intend to run your own water purification (only for yourself)?
Do you think
Economies of scale matter in strategy?
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:46 pm
Instead, Nietzsche thought Ubermensch practice essentially what is sometimes called "radical moral neutralism," meaning the ability to behave well or badly, to appear to serve the collective and to serve oneself, as the situation offers the opportunity.
And after you have done all that how do you know if your life is "better"?
What is your baseline? How do you determine that you are indeed "serving yourself" or "serving the collective"?
How do you measure your own progress towards your own goals?
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Apr 15, 2019 2:46 pm
It's amorality. It's nothing but pragmatism. It has no principles, and no ethics.
Not even teleology? Not even individual goals?
The ethical is the pragmatic