nihilism

[iambiguous]

Does Philosophy Cause Nihilism?
by Rick Lewis

Is it true that philosophy causes nihilism?

This seems reasonable to me...

To the extent that philosophy does prompt someone to examine what either can or cannot be pinned down as objectively applicable to all of us, what conclusions will they come to? If someone arrives at the conclusion [as I did] that objective morality itself is beyond the reach of philosophers, they might call that nihilism. Moral nihilism.

But it's not really philosophy itself that is causing nihilism, in my view...merely particular philosophers who conclude that objective value judgments are beyond the reach of mere mortals in a No God world.

As for the either/or world, nihilism comes into play here when even that is brought into question...demonic dream worlds, sim worlds, solipsism, the blue pill.

It is certainly true that philosophy has helped to undermine religion; even philosophers who are Christians would surely accept that the mere act of questioning God’s existence has broken the automatic acceptance of the truth of religion which many people once had.

This certainly seems to be true for some of us. Still, what does not change is that in the absence of God, or "the Gods", or a No God spiritual path like Buddhism, we have no access to objective morality or immortality or salvation.

Good luck with that, right?

And science, philosophy’s estranged offspring, has offered convincing alternative ways of explaining the natural world. By weakening religion philosophy may have contributed to nihilism.

Same here though, isn't it? Science has provided us with a world bursting at the seams with dazzling engineering feats, technologies and all that can be encompassed in "the modern world". But it is no less impotent when it comes to morality, immortality and salvation.

However, we should keep things in proportion. Some politicians and religious revivalists talk as if we are constantly teetering on the verge of a moral abyss. In fact, although society has become fairly secular, large numbers of people seems to be living purposeful lives and acting reasonably decently towards one another, with or without a formal moral code. Of course there are those who really don’t feel the pull of any values and who really are living Tarantino-style lives, only without the gangster glamour.

Indeed, many here no doubt fit themselves into this assessment. But, in my view, it doesn't make the reality of a No God world go away. It doesn't make moral nihilism any less relevant. At least until either science or philosophy are, in fact, able to concoct a secular rendition of God and religion.

But the problems there are probably due more to a breakdown in the mechanisms for transmitting values from one generation to the next (broken homes, crummy schools) rather than overexposure to the works of David Hume. Where there is a fundamental crisis of faith in a given set of values, philosophy may be part of the problem but must also be part of the cure. The cure for problems isn’t to stop thinking, but instead to think harder.

Alas, from my own frame of mind, "thinking harder" is what the moral objectivists among us claim to have accomplished. And, once having achieved a secular rendition of God here -- deontology, ideology, biological imperatives etc. -- they set out crush all the "idiots" or "retards" who refuse to think exactly as they do.

If only about...everything?

[iambiguous]

Camus, The Plague and Us
Ray Boisvert on Albert Camus, Thomas Merton and a call to be a healer in a crisis.

Self-isolating and bored? Reading helps. Across the pandemic-tinged globe one book is flying off shelves: The Plague, a novel by Albert Camus about a deadly epidemic in the Algerian town of Oran. If, as the saying goes, crisis reveals character, why not pick up a book whose central question is “What should I do?”

This article was written smack dab in the middle of a modern plague: Covid.

Start here: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

To date there have been 702,871,779 reported cases. Unless, of course the whole thing is just a hoax...a liberal attempt to impose Big Brother across the entire globe.

And whether a crisis reveals character or not, it can confront us with a world so far off the beaten path that suddenly we are confronted with a new reality that in any number of crucial ways can challenge our thinking about any number of things.

In fact, in an exchange with Maia a while back, she noted this is basically what the Covid pandemic did in regard to her own life. Many things changed and she had to reconfigure her thinking, adjust her behaviors.

Then, of course, those who insist that what they do in confronting a plague -- a real one, say? -- all others must do as well.

On the other hand, Maia is in possession of a Spiritual Self, an intuitive deep down inside her Self that allows her to retain her "basic values".

In a plague there is no avoiding the issue. Pretend there is no problem: that’s taking a stand. Remain neutral: that’s a choice. Profit from the crisis: that’s charting a path. Camus’s hero is Doctor Rieux. His answer: make an effort, help the healing.

Then back to why each of us reacts to the plague in different ways. I root this existentially in dasein. What do you root it in? And does anyone here believe that what we really need here is a collection of philosopher kings, those "hypothetical rulers in whom political skill is combined with philosophical knowledge"?

Easier said than done. Avoiding responsibility is a major human sport, matched by the ability to concoct rationalizations. As a mid-20th century figure, Camus inherited the responsibility question as part of a wider framework: religion or nihilism, choose one. His take: they’re both bad. Each makes it easy to avoid responsibility.

True enough. Sometimes. It depends on how you construe the meaning of nihilism:

The dilemma seems odd today. Religion should encourage responsibility. Nihilism, well, the very label has faded. It used to signal that life is objectively meaningless, and that all meaning is subjective. Although the word has faded, the perspective lives on in phrases like “it’s up to the individual,” “whatever floats your boat,” “don’t make value judgments.”

Of course, the thing about deadly plagues is that whatever perspective you embrace, it can precipitate behaviors that have considerably consequences for others. Thus the existential relationship between the plague, the government and each individual citizen can vary enormously.

How about yours? Have you yourself pinned down either the optimal or the only rational manner in which to grasp the covid pandemic? If only philosophically up in the theoretical clouds?

[iambiguous]

Camus, The Plague and Us
Ray Boisvert on Albert Camus, Thomas Merton and a call to be a healer in a crisis.

Camus wrote The Plague in a way that it would challenge the last pronouncement [above]. Readers are led to make value judgments, to praise Rieux and the volunteers who combat the plague.

No doubt not counting those convinced that all plaques are part of a vast conspiracy by the collectivists to crush all remaining vestiges of rugged individualism.

Here is where “it’s up to the individual” comes into play. It’s an expression with two separate meanings. The phrase, rightly, (a) emphasizes the personal dimension in choice. In a challenging situation, it’s up to the individual to select among options.

Two points...

In some communities youth may be encouraged to "find themselves", but there are always going to be certain behaviors that are understood to be...mandatory? beyond the pale? Second, there are any number of objectivist communities that revolve around and champion individualism, but these are basically owned and operated by "the founders". Think Ayn Rand and L. Ron Hubbard.

In other words, selections based on moral and political prejudices acquired existentially or on objectivist truths derived from one or another Scripture or Manifesto.

However, the fan of full-blown nihilism adds a second dimension. “It’s up to the individual” becomes (b) “whatever choice the individual makes is the right one.” To grasp the contrast, think of nutrition. It’s up to the individual (a) to decide which foodstuffs to ingest. It’s not up to the individual (b) whether those choices are healthy or not.

That's one manner in which to describe it. But if the individual is basically predisposed [even in a free will universe] to embody one set of moral and political prejudices rather than another, who gets to say which choice is the right one...Leonard Peikoff or Tom Cruise?

Besides, in a No God world, any particular one of us can claim that the choices we are making are the right ones. Then that part whereby, for many moral objectivists, just believing this "in their head" need be as far as it goes in "demonstrating" that it is true.

As for relating this to nutrition and healthcare the more relevant context would revolve around the medical industrial complex and those who wish to change that into a "single payer" system. Both side have reasonable arguments pro and con.

Camus challenged nihilism because of ‘b’. When ‘a’ and ‘b’ are run together, evaluations like “Dr Rieux’s actions are honorable” don’t mean much. “It’s up to the individual” translates into “That’s just your opinion.”

Again, however, in my view, arguing as a nihilist that any choice an individual makes is the right one has almost nothing to do with the real world. One way or another in regard to "rules of behaviors", each community must intertwine "might makes right", "right makes might" and "moderation negotiation and compromise." And ultimately that will revolve around those able to enforce their own set of assumptions. Deontological or otherwise.

Political economy has almost always prevailed here.

Why not, then, go with religion? For Camus, as for Nietzsche before him, religion just offers a disguised version of nihilism. The world is ‘fallen’, meaningless in itself. All values derive from divine commands.

In other words, from my frame of mind, the exact opposite of nihilism. Nihilism swirling around the assumption that, given a Kingdom of End, anything goes.

[iambiguous]

Camus, The Plague and Us
Ray Boisvert on Albert Camus, Thomas Merton and a call to be a healer in a crisis.

Such an emphasis on God’s will bothered Camus. The Plague has a priest called Father Paneloux who delivers two sermons with standard themes: (1) “it’s a punishment for sins;” (2) “God works in mysterious ways.” As far as the doctor is concerned, such sermons carry dangerous messages: find scapegoats, welcome ignorance, accept God’s will, don’t roll up your sleeves and help.

How could an emphasis on Gods that exist only "in your head" or through a "leap of faith" or through "a wager" or through indoctrination as a child or given particular historical and cultural contexts, not bother those who actually expect something in the way of substantive and substantial evidence that a God, the God, your God does in fact exist?

And then to sweep things like this...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_earthquakes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_l ... _eruptions
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... l_cyclones
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tsunamis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_landslides
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fires
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_deadliest_floods
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_t ... ore_deaths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_diseases
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinction_events

...under the rug [philosophically or otherwise] as just punishment? Punishments we can scarcely understand given God's "mysterious ways"?

Sure, if that works for you in sustaining the comfort and the consolation that revolves around being able to believe in moral commandments and immortality and salvation...?

Then the part where one "rolls up one's sleeves" and "helps" others? Sounds a lot like what Marx was arguing in suggesting that God and religion "for all practical purposes" can often become "opiates for the masses". And the various ruling classes down through the ages have certainly been able to take advantage of that, haven't they?

Rieux realizes that despite bad theory, most religious individuals, in practice, go to a physician when ill.

Of course, with rare exceptions that hasn't changed. Still, those who do leave everything up to God seem, to some, to be the more reasonable folks. If God created human bodies bursting at the seams with afflictions, who are we to intervene and treat them?

In this regard, Rieux has gotten surprising support. A real priest, the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, agreed. Merton thought Camus was right to judge Father Paneloux’s sermons as “revolting.” It was appalling that the cleric would encourage his flock to “submit to a will we do not understand and even to adore and love what appears horrible.”

Note to IC:

So, what is the True Christian to make of all this? Start here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7545013/

Camus’s mistake, according to Merton, was believing that such an attitude is “essential to Christianity.” Idol worship is everywhere and even priests can worship false gods.

Then there's no end to where contentions like this might take the faithful. The whole point being to do the right thing so that, on Judgment Day, you go up instead of down. What on Earth are the judgments of mere mortals down here compared to that?

[iambiguous]

Camus, The Plague and Us
Ray Boisvert on Albert Camus, Thomas Merton and a call to be a healer in a crisis.

Merton provides a sort of mirror image of the ‘a’ and ‘b’ distinction as regards nihilism. What’s right is (a) acceptance of a divinity. What’s wrong is (b) the typical way that divinity is understood.

Then straight back to this: that virtually all of those on divine paths here...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions

...will [in sync] argue from that frame of mind. And then go on to insist that if you do not come over to their own spiritual path then, among other things, your soul is fucked.

On the other hand, yes, any number of moral nihilists themselves have their own "my way or the highway" assessment of nihilism as well.

Camus had little patience for irresolvable ideological subtleties. His focus was on “What should I do?” His answer: become ‘true healers’. Become like doctors. Where there is illness, bring healing. Where there is suffering, bring relief. Churchgoers praying are not bringing relief. Nihilists, denying any deep meaning to the words ‘better’, and ‘worse’, are not sufficiently motivated. “What should I do?” Join the healers, do your part.

Okay, so what should we do in regard to abortion, to gun control, to immigration policy, to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza? Whose suffering must take priority? Whose behaviors really are "better" or "worse"?

Then Camus seeming to reduce everything down to individual freedom...as though the points raised by those like Sartre in regard to political economy and the class struggle were not relevant at all to human interactions.

Of course: those all up and down the ideological spectrum embrace the part where we should do all we can to heal. But then the part where they get around to those that they insist are causing all the pain and suffering?

[iambiguous]

The Departed
Eric Wills reveals how Nietzschean morality is displayed in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning movie.

“We are all on the way out. Act accordingly.”

And how might that be? Reactions to this can vary considerably from individual to individual. There are the religious fanatics who insist that "out" is not really the end of it at all. Thus, we should act always given the assumption that Judgment Day awaits us. Then the hardcore sociopaths who assume instead that the life we live is all that there is. For them the refrain is not "do the right thing for goodness sake" but, "don't get caught doing what society tells you is the wrong thing."

In his recent film The Departed, Martin Scorsese presents us with a conflict between Martin Sheen’s conventionally moral policeman and Jack Nicholson’s amoral gangster, each of whom has his own informant working undercover on the other side.

Okay, you're a "serious philosopher". Which frame of mind comes closest to your own understanding of objective morality? Is Sheen necessarily the embodiment of virtue while Nicholson is inherently the embodiment of vice? Do laws necessarily, inherently reflect "the good"? Or are they [historically and culturally] merely the product of those in any particular society who have the political and economic power to differentiate right from wrong based solely on their own self-interests?

Frank Costello (Nicholson) finds his protégé, Sullivan (Matt Damon), in church, and he tells him to kneel to nobody. He encourages him to join the police and be his informant. On the other side, DiCaprio’s character Billy Costigan disowns his petty-criminal father and wants to join the police. His boss tells him he can prove his moral conviction by joining Frank Costello’s gang and feeding back information to the police.

Same thing. For some, "gangster life" is their pride and joy. Think Henry Hill. For others it is evil incarnate. So, philosophically, which is it?

Just as, for some, nihilism is entirely reasonable, while for others it epitomizes an entirely irrational philosophy of life. So, philosophically, which is it?

The story illustrates Friedrich Nietzsche’s claim that everything living seeks to express its strength. This is Nietzsche’s doctrine of the will to power, which he takes to be the reality hidden beneath the mask of our conventional notions of good and bad.

How do you express your "strength"? Conventionally or unconventionally? And how do you defend it, objectively or subjectively?

As for that infamous "will", those like Satyr seem to encompass it as the philosophical equivalent of a "soul". It's just "in there" somewhere, somehow. And only a very, very few [like him] are able to embody their own will such that, in a No God world, they become one of the Übermensch among us.

[Iwannaplato]

From the VA contradicted himself thread, Iambigous writes....

Anyone else?

Seriously, though, how about you and I exploring your own theoretical assumptions about "reading people well"" in regard to a particular moral conflict that is of importance to you.

Or does that miss the whole point about philosophy for those here who take it seriously?

He's over there hijacking a thread as writing as if

we need a context, he tells us, where there was a clear context, then advertising for his abandoned by nearly everyone masturbatory threads.

He's down to earth, sure, like someone who walks into a room and farts.

Of course the real reason anyone might get irritated at him is their terror of the powerful ideas has. One side of his narcissism interpreting the reactions to another side of his narcissism.

When Iambiguous the objectivist says 'we need' he means he wants something. He just can't manage to be honest about his philosophical position and his desires.

Whenever he's confronted on his rude, false, distracting, narcissistic, evasive and other patterns, he reacts like no one has ever pointed out this shit. Well, it's been pointed out for 20 years now by a wide variety of people in different forums.

And here's another example that his narcissism won't allow him to even consider. Stooges then, Stooges now.

Read: people who notice his bs.

[Iwannaplato]

Right, like that's the sort of context I mean.

I know the context you meant. That was the whole point.
We need a context, writes the narcissist.
No. You wanted a discussion of something other than what was in that thread.

I admitted that, basically.

Basically meaning you didn't.

I posted in order to entice those here who might be interested in exploring contradictions pertaining to the sort of contexts -- actual moral conflicts -- that I am interested in. Doesn't interest you? Okay, by me.

You're just supporting what I said. You advertised for another topic in a thread with a topic and a context.

My pet issue here revolves instead around attempts to nudge those preoccupied with human morality theoretically, into bringing that assessment down out of the didactic clouds.

Yes, your pet issue. Exactly.

Huh? There are zillions of threads from those here at PN intent on exchanging moral dictums theoretically. Do you find me posting in them? Nope. I responded to this one on impulse.

So, just admit it was rude.
You just keep affirming what I said.

VA reflects everything that concerns me most about academic philosophy. And him in particular because his threads are almost always related to that which is most important to me: morality in a No God world.

Which is not what that thread was about.

"How ought one to behave morally in a world bursting at the seams with both conflicting goods and contingency, chance and change"?

That's always been my "thing" here, along with discussions of the Big Questions.

I love your defense against my narcissism accusation.

But that's my pet issue.
That's always been my thing.

Again, concluding you are a moron is the most charitable interpretation.

As for this...

You universalize your wants, but we're supposed to buy you're a nihilist moral antirealist.
And then you pretend that somehow what you want has something to do with this thread.
I end up just hoping you're a moron. It's the most charitable explanation.

...I always find myself coming back to the assumption that my own moral philosophy disturbs you.

Yes, that's a soothing explanation for you. So, you keep coming back to it. Not coming back to it might entail, looking at yourself and your behavior. What a surprise, you go for an option that soothes you. You notice such patterns in others, but yourself....
you find yourself coming back to.........a reason not to look at yourself.

Concerned perhaps that you too might one day find yourself "fractured and fragmented" in regard to conflicting goods?

Idiot. There are much scarier things than that for me.

Your response to being called out on trying to hijack a thread and being a narcissist is to tell me, Hey but that's my pet issue and it's always been my thing. I mean, you simply have not the slightest ability to introspect or see yourself. It's actually remarkable.

And the only possible explanation for anyone reacting negatively to your behavior is they are so threatened by your ideas. It took you wars and many changes in your moral stances to even consider this as what, a middle-aged man, an older middle aged man? You were in dreamland for a long, long time.

Despite your narcissism, you'd think you might be dimly aware that other people might have noticed such things much younger than you. What, you think your the only person whose gone through this? More narcissism. the implicit, they can't face what I can narcissism.

And the issue that bothers you, that's what everyone is afraid of, and there aren't other issues that might be scarier to other people and there's no one whose faced what you, actually seem not to have faced. More narcissism.

Your narcissism makes you so dumb that you defend yourself against the accusation of being a narcissist by telling people about yourself and your interests. And you mind read the people pointing out like you're the only person who has faced what terrifies you.

I'm not a narcissist because I'm a narcissist.

Idiot.

[iambiguous]

From the VA contradicted himself thread, Iambigous writes....

Anyone else?

Seriously, though, how about you and I exploring your own theoretical assumptions about "reading people well"" in regard to a particular moral conflict that is of importance to you.

Or does that miss the whole point about philosophy for those here who take it seriously?

He's over there hijacking a thread as writing as if

we need a context, he tells us, where there was a clear context, then advertising for his abandoned by nearly everyone masturbatory threads.

He's down to earth, sure, like someone who walks into a room and farts.

Of course the real reason anyone might get irritated at him is their terror of the powerful ideas has. One side of his narcissism interpreting the reactions to another side of his narcissism.

When Iambiguous the objectivist says 'we need' he means he wants something. He just can't manage to be honest about his philosophical position and his desires.

Whenever he's confronted on his rude, false, distracting, narcissistic, evasive and other patterns, he reacts like no one has ever pointed out this shit. Well, it's been pointed out for 20 years now by a wide variety of people in different forums.

And here's another example that his narcissism won't allow him to even consider. Stooges then, Stooges now.

Read: people who notice his bs.

What I wouldn't give to grasp what really motivates him to make this all about me. Any guesses from anyone?


As I noted elsewhere, I suspect it revolves around the manner in which he reacts to my argument that in a No God world, it is entirely reasonable to be fractured and fragmented in regard to conflicting goods. In other words, he is either himself a moral objectivist convinced that his own value judgments reflect the optimal frame of mind, or he is one of those moral realists embracing "the view that there are mind-independent moral facts in the universe, and people can make statements about them that are true or false."

Here though we'll need a context.

[Iwannaplato]

Yeah, in those five seconds you actually considered what I said.
You can't. You're so fractured and fragmented, but never the least bit about when people point out things about you.
Then you keep coming back to....

They can't face what me so brave can face.

I don't believe you're fractured and fragmented. I don't believe you actually consider that dasein is affecting how you react when people point out your toxic behavior I think it's all a head game.

In any on the ground actual interaction here with someone else when you have a conflict, you are never fractured and fragmented.

It has no effect on interpersonal interactions here.

You keep coming back to the same thing, one conclusion, that it's other people and never you.

You're not fractured. You can't even consider another position for ten seconds. Just knee jerk denial and smugness.

Narcissists aren't nihilists.

[iambiguous]

Right, like that's the sort of context I mean.

I know the context you meant. That was the whole point.
We need a context, writes the narcissist.
No. You wanted a discussion of something other than what was in that thread.

No, I'm always hoping I can entice those who broach, examine, explore and embrace human morality theoretically to take their conclusions over to the Applied Ethics board and, there, given a particular issue and set of circumstances, we can exchange assessments of our own moral philosophy.

An exchange of intelligent, civil opinions sans all the "huffing and puffing" that often goes on here. I can assure anyone willing to go there with their own theoretical assessments that it won't be me that goes into rant mode or makes it all personal.

Huh? There are zillions of threads from those here at PN intent on exchanging moral dictums theoretically. Do you find me posting in them? Nope. I responded to this one on impulse.

So, just admit it was rude.
You just keep affirming what I said.

No, rude would be me posting in every single thread Veritas Aequitas contributes here mocking him for not going over to the Applied Ethics board. Instead, I merely suggested that we "take these theoretical conjectures over to the Applied Ethics board and, given a moral conflagration of note, explore just what it means 'for all practical purposes' to be or not to be contradictory in regard to actual conflicting goods."

Or rude would be what he's doing here: haranguing me up one side and down the other because I don't pursue philosophy in the manner that he deems to be...serious? or relevant?

Besides, if I want to be called an idiot, I can just respond again to Satyr and his ilk over at ILP.

Concerned perhaps that you too might one day find yourself "fractured and fragmented" in regard to conflicting goods?

Now, of course, he is really starting to get worked up about me. Seething with contempt. He goes all out Stooge:

Idiot. There are much scarier things than that for me.

Your response to being called out on trying to hijack a thread and being a narcissist is to tell me, Hey but that's my pet issue and it's always been my thing. I mean, you simply have not the slightest ability to introspect or see yourself. It's actually remarkable.

And the only possible explanation for anyone reacting negatively to your behavior is they are so threatened by your ideas. It took you wars and many changes in your moral stances to even consider this as what, a middle-aged man, an older middle aged man? You were in dreamland for a long, long time.

Despite your narcissism, you'd think you might be dimly aware that other people might have noticed such things much younger than you. What, you think your the only person whose gone through this? More narcissism. the implicit, they can't face what I can narcissism.

And the issue that bothers you, that's what everyone is afraid of, and there aren't other issues that might be scarier to other people and there's no one whose faced what you, actually seem not to have faced. More narcissism.

Your narcissism makes you so dumb that you defend yourself against the accusation of being a narcissist by telling people about yourself and your interests. And you mind read the people pointing out like you're the only person who has faced what terrifies you.

I'm not a narcissist because I'm a narcissist.

Idiot.

Sounds like a personal problem to me.

[iambiguous]

I don't believe you're fractured and fragmented. I don't believe you actually consider that dasein is affecting how you react when people point out your toxic behavior I think it's all a head game.

Start with the OPs here:

https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=194382
https://www.ilovephilosophy.com/viewtop ... 1&t=175121

Here I explore both my personal experiences and my philosophical sources [mainly William Barrett's Irrational Man] pertaining to my fractured and fragmented moral philosophy. In regard to abortion here but it is basically true of all conflicting goods in my view. Given a No God world.

Now, in regard to his own moral assessment of abortion, how do his views either overlap with mine or are in conflict.

[Iwannaplato]

And yet to even suggest that this is especially pertinent relating to moral, political and spiritual value judgments, provokes some here to either suggest that I am hijacking the tread,

No, asshole. You entered a thread where VA was specifically asking people to point out contradictions in his philosophy. Which is what people were doing.

You tried to get people to write about conflicting goods, which, if you did in your own thread people might ignore or might participate, but it would be your topic.

IOW narcissist, you got called out for trying to change the topic of the thread and in a way, since you quoted the OP, as if you were somehow on topic.

Make a thread asking VA to deal with the conflicting goods issue.

Or you could even have quoted one of this threads on morality and show how he was contradicting himself there or in relation to another one of his posts or threads.

But you, dick that you, are, linked people to one of your threads and were off topic.

Conflicting goods and the issues around moral realism is a perfectly valid topic and a good one. It seems completely beyond your ability to imagine or consider that it's not the topic, it's that you're an asshole in the way you communicate with people in discussion forums that has led to similar reactions to you for nearly 20 years.

Some of the people who you think can't bear challenges to objectivism have been arguing against moral realism in many different discussions. But given your solipsism, you notice none of this.

No, no. Anyone with a problem with you is a 'serious philosopher' and terrified moral antirealism.

[iambiguous]

Now this is entertainment! Move over IC and henry.

And yet to even suggest that this is especially pertinent relating to moral, political and spiritual value judgments, provokes some here to either suggest that I am hijacking the tread,

No, asshole. You entered a thread where VA was specifically asking people to point out contradictions in his philosophy. Which is what people were doing.

You tried to get people to write about conflicting goods, which, if you did in your own thread people might ignore or might participate, but it would be your topic.

Right, and diviating from the OP almost never, ever happens here, does it?

And, again, my primary aim was to ask if some here might be interested in taking "contradictions" over to the Applied Ethics board.

IOW narcissist, you got called out for trying to change the topic of the thread and in a way, since you quoted the OP, as if you were somehow on topic.

Make a thread asking VA to deal with the conflicting goods issue.

Or you could even have quoted one of this threads on morality and show how he was contradicting himself there or in relation to another one of his posts or threads.

I did once. And VA sent me a PM. He informed me that he would never be responding to me here. He'd had enough of me as Prismatic over at ILP.

As for ILP, I will not be going back there anymore. I really do appreciate Carleas's attempt to bring it back around to the good old days. But, in my view, that is not likely to happen until he is able to recruit moderators of Only_Humean's and Faust's caliber. And, if you recall, they were both often very critical of me.

Also, the forum is now awash with declamatory right wing fanatics. Though I'd feel much the same way about declamatory left wing fanatics. It's the virulence of their contempt [left or right] for those who don't think exactly as they do.

And then those there who were always more interested in turning ILP into just another social media outlet for the "Kids". Yak, yak, yak.

So, it's Philosophy Now and the new forum.

Conflicting goods and the issues around moral realism is a perfectly valid topic and a good one. It seems completely beyond your ability to imagine or consider that it's not the topic, it's that you're an asshole in the way you communicate with people in discussion forums that has led to similar reactions to you for nearly 20 years.

Again and again: I invited anyone posting on this thread [or, from time to time, on other threads in the ethical theory forum] if they wished to bring their arguments over to the Applied Ethics board.

It's not like I posted, "Any of you chickenshit objectivists here able to grow a pair and defend your P and NOT-P "theoretical" gibberish out in the world of actual human conflicts?"

Some of the people who you think can't bear challenges to objectivism have been arguing against moral realism in many different discussions. But given your solipsism, you notice none of this.

Link a few of them please.

No, no. Anyone with a problem with you is a 'serious philosopher' and terrified moral antirealism.

We'll need a context here too. And I generally use "serious philosopher" [often parenthetically] regarding discussions that revolve around moral and political conflagrations. Those who never, ever seem inclined to bring their posts from the theoretical forum down out of the clouds with me.

Though, sure, if some here insist they have tried and failed to do this with me, note some examples.

[iambiguous]

The Departed
Eric Wills reveals how Nietzschean morality is displayed in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning movie.

Costello rejects any moral constraint. He’s sated by the pleasures money buys, but otherwise displays a complete nihilism.

Not counting his contributions to the FBI as an informant, perhaps? Actually, even here he is only doing what he feels that he has to do in order to sustain his own best interests. That way he could continue to pursue crimes he knew the Feds would turn a blind eye to.

What would be curious here is an attempt to connect the dots between Costello's own agenda and philosophical assessments of nihilism.

In our everyday lives we are bound by social conventions and enslaved to the work-machine, so it ’s tempting to admire Nicholson’s gangster ‘telling it as it is’. He relishes attacking priests as moralising hypocrites, and when he says to Costigan, “We’re all on the way out. Act accordingly,” he is offering a choice between ‘acting’ in the sense of putting on a pious mask of morality, or simply ‘acting as we please’.

And, of course, whether Costello thought this all through philosophically or not, it coincides with my own assumption that nihilism offers us far, far more options in our daily interactions with others. Once everything gets reduced down to "what's in it for me?" then you can concentrate entirely on not getting caught.

Nietzsche famously announced the death of God, by which he implied that in our scientific, post-Enlightenment age moral certainty has dropped away, leaving us pursuing a plebeian hedonism.

Unless, of course, you count all of the various political ideologues, the deontologists and the "biological imperative" fanatics. In other words, those who turn something other than God into a religion.

But God is not the only departed. For Nietzsche, we are all on the way out, because pleasure and relief from suffering bring about the death of a certain kind of spiritedness. So there would be further ambiguity in Costello’s injunction to “Act accordingly”, because the new philosopher of the future, the Nietzschean ‘overman’ (übermensch) would recognise this as an injunction to settle “the wherefore and whither of mankind.” The overman has a responsibility to rekindle a noble set of human virtues that are also being extinguished.

On the other hand, Costello's agenda is not exactly in the vicinity of noble pursuits. He's more like a vicious thug...a narcissistic sociopath hell bent on getting his way whatever the costs to others.

In a No God world, these types can become especially dangerous. Steer clear of them if at all possible. Though, again, some will want to become them.