One of the most common mistakes is assuming that political opponents are ignorant. If only they had the right education; consumed the right media; or had the correct experience, they’d surely see things properly. The error is believing that we arrived at our values through reason. Values like hierarchy or equity are adopted by a complex process of disposition, emotion, and experience. Reason may be a component of this process, it may be a value unto itself, but it cannot support values.
Even simple moral claims like “it’s wrong to steal” cannot be supported by logic. Give it a try and you’ll come up with arguments like: “stealing is wrong because it harms the victim”. But you’ve not solved the problem, just pushed it back a step because now you have to defend the claim “it’s wrong to harm”. You cannot use observations about how the world is to calculate how it ought to be. Justifying moral claims with other moral claims dooms you to circular reasoning and infinite regression.
For those of you clever enough to argue deontology or utilitarianism, I’ll point out that these systems are ethical. Only concerned with how one should behave; helpless to prove something just or wicked. The moral principles of deontology and utilitarianism are assumed, not proven. Both systems will endorse ridiculous, intolerable, and outrageous actions in particular circumstances.
Objective morality probably doesn’t exist and has never been justified.
Political essays in a meme community. I fucking hate Lemmy sometimes.
And then we have to remind each other how on the brink of rape and animalistic we are. Cuz everything is so doom. Hyperbolic politics!
This is general philosophy, not political philosophy.
I hate it even more
Shut up nerd
Just get dumped?
Community rules
- No politics
Too serious for a meme, gtfo 👉🚪
I don’t necessarily disagree with many things you’ve said here, but you have ironically presented it as absolute fact, even going so far as to define what you consider to be the only clever comebacks to your own opinions. In other words: pot, meet kettle.
Tons of text to come out as unempathetic and morally ambiguous.
Imo its not wrong to steal. Its ok to harm living things if that means preventing greater harm to them or far greater harm to everyone else.
Examples:
- Killing hitler would have been ok in my book
- Putting animals in tiny pens so we can eat cheap meat is wrong
- Taking from those who are weaker than you is wrong
- hierarchy between living things without dire need is wrong (if you were forced at gunpoint to decide for example)
And so on. I dont think its that hard to have a moral code and stand by it.
But I‘m also autistic and thats a defining trait for many of us so it might be just that.
Nihilists! Fuck me. I mean, say what you like about the tenets of National Socialism, Dude, at least it’s an ethos.
Well yeah… Morals aren’t absolute. I didn’t even think that was a controversial opinion outside of religion and such nonsense.
Sure we have laws to define the most generally acceptable cases (and many which are not) but that’s only because it’s the best system we can manage for the masses.
Let’s do a thought experiment: imagine I heartily kicked you in the balls. How would you feel about that? So yeah, that’s not a moral absolute but at least I have an empirical basis for saying it’s wrong to harm.
The best way to refute a moral relativist is to simply kill them.
It’s wrong to harm because we have defined morally wrong to mean that which is harmful.
After watching a few nature documentaries I came to the conclusion that we inhabit an actual horror movie. Creatures are eating each other alive, eating their babies and raping others to death. It is a real fucking nightmare. Life is pain and suffering on a planetary scale. Good is whatever reduces this misery or makes it bearable for a time.
Well they don’t vote, they don’t have politics. They don’t have a store with ready made food in it they can go to. They don’t have medical science. They don’t have transport. They often don’t even live in shelter. They don’t have something that sweeps away shit and piss.
We have those things. We’re well beyond bearable and misery at this point.
Those are all good things and we have record rates of depression and anxiety to go with them. Yay!
FWIW i seem to lack the ability to feel joy in anything, as a result I only feel the pain of living which gives me an extremely skewed viewpoint. Enjoy whatever you can in life.
so long as you’re being realistic and owning it as a ‘you’ problem as It isn’t reality.
when meanwhile there are people living happily with stage 4 cancer with a positive outlook and hope while stabilizing it with modern medicine.
It’s a frame of mind.
we can observe reality in such comparisons to reach any conclusion we want to perpetuate and ruminate however we see to choose. Eg: googling and finding self perpetuating ‘facts’ to fit an internal dialog. If we want to believe the entire world is on fire, we could extrapolate anything to make it seem that way.
Record rates of depression can be linked to many things such as more exposure to media. A very skewed media. And with google at your finger tips to take you anywhere you want to go, anything is possible.
Half the battle is admitting that.
Hope you find the help you need to battle those demons.
I agree we’re over exposed to all the bad stuff and echoey internet rabbit holes are a definite problem. Antidepressants haven’t had any effect on me but i’ve learned to live without joy. I have no desire to take it away from others or judge their outlook on life.
I’m a moral absolutist in that I think genocide is wrong under any circumstance. In my view, the moral relativists are going full Veruca Salt. Gotta whine and stomp their feet to justify why starving children is actually ok.
Moral relativism is just a way to justify doing awful shit to yourself and others.
The irony that this statement is flawed by its absolutionist position. Yes people can use relativism to justify awful shit. But that’s not the outcome when used sensibly with the right intention.
No, one of the most common mistakes is ignoring the man-made societal and economical powers that beyond merely influencing, but actively creating and shaping not only our morals and reason but our very objectivity to ensure they benefit those in power at all cost, when talking about why people behave the way they do.
The idea that the kind of media or education a person is exposed to has nothing to do with how they see the world and behave in it is beyond ridiculous.
Check out “Everything is Fucked” by Mark Manson. Really good take on modern philosophy of what you’re talking about here. Sorry for the silly edgy title.
