nihilism

[Immanuel Can]

. Fairy's dramatic performance presupposed agreement. In other words, it clearly took for granted that all right-thinking people would be drawn to sympathize. So Fairy was leaning on the assumption that her appeals would invoke a sense of moral compulsion. But why should she think so, since she also claims that there can be no moral duties, no moral rightness, no moral obligations, no moral consensus, not even a set of stable moral criteria of judgment...just total subjectivism?

Philosophically, that just doesn't add up.

Why would a desire for sympathy assume moral agreement, let alone moral compulsion?

Because it's not rational to expect people whose views are purely subjective to have any duty or even any inclination to agree with one's whining and complaining that "bad" has been done to one. Only if one can refer to a common standard, one that one can reasonably expect all right-thinking people to agree about, can one expect to invoke agreement on a moral point.

Fairy whined like a vineyard. And clearly, she expected us all to "tsk tsk" Harbal about it, and to "there there" her about it. (Why else would she think it was a "weapon" as she says.) But subjectively speaking, why should we feel we "ought" to agree with her? Unless we all already know that what H. did was "bad," there's nothing to agree with. So Fairy was assuming we'd all know the common standard, and that we'd all feel we ought to adhere to it. She was behaving like an objectivist could, but no subjectivist reasonably can.

[henry quirk]

The point you're tryin' to make is lost in the soap opera melodrama.

Just let it go, for Crom's sake. Use another example and leave that nutjob be.

[Immanuel Can]

The point you're tryin' to make is lost in the soap opera melodrama.

Just let it go, for Crom's sake. Use another example and leave that nutjob be.

Yep, I'm done.

I can't make it simpler, unless I confine myself to one-syllable words. So they're going to have to accept it or miss the point.

Either way, I'm past caring.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I on the other hand have only just begun to care! When I get through here everyone is going to be so healed it won’t even be funny.

[Iwannaplato]

On the other hand, to what extent then might Joker be seen as either a sociopath or a psychopath? Sociopaths center everything around their own narcissistic wants and needs.

On the other hand? How is what you are saying opposed to what you quoted?

And psychopaths in particular are problematic here because how can they be held responsible for something that is largely "beyond their control"?

Are you suggesting that psychopaths are less in control than other people? Are other people more autonomous? Is this in a deterministic universe?

Further, they are held responsible. I think you probably know the how of them being held responsible. They get arrested if they commit crimes. Some people hit them (and not someone else, for example), people blame them, fire them and so on.

And because he is a cartoon character inhabiting a cartoon character world, how seriously can we take him?

Well, in the article he is introduced as

We normally see this kind of nihilism embodied by anarchic characters in media.

and then

The Joker epitomises the populist understanding of nihilism and one of the primary ethical risks of this philosophical world view.

So, the author is suggesting that The Joker reflects a common belief about nihilism. Do you disagree?

You're joking, right?

Well, at least you're not pretending to respond with any content.

[Alexiev]

. Fairy's dramatic performance presupposed agreement. In other words, it clearly took for granted that all right-thinking people would be drawn to sympathize. So Fairy was leaning on the assumption that her appeals would invoke a sense of moral compulsion. But why should she think so, since she also claims that there can be no moral duties, no moral rightness, no moral obligations, no moral consensus, not even a set of stable moral criteria of judgment...just total subjectivism?

Philosophically, that just doesn't add up.

Why would a desire for sympathy assume moral agreement, let alone moral compulsion?

Because it's not rational to expect people whose views are purely subjective to have any duty or even any inclination to agree with one's whining and complaining that "bad" has been done to one. Only if one can refer to a common standard, one that one can reasonably expect all right-thinking people to agree about, can one expect to invoke agreement on a moral point.

Fairy whined like a vineyard. And clearly, she expected us all to "tsk tsk" Harbal about it, and to "there there" her about it. (Why else would she think it was a "weapon" as she says.) But subjectively speaking, why should we feel we "ought" to agree with her? Unless we all already know that what H. did was "bad," there's nothing to agree with. So Fairy was assuming we'd all know the common standard, and that we'd all feel we ought to adhere to it. She was behaving like an objectivist could, but no subjectivist reasonably can.

You are confusing "bad" with "evil". Of course things went "badly". Pain is bad. Sympathy for pain is reasonable and natural.

We do share common human standards, subjective though they may be, In this respect.

Your notion that subjective standards are not "standards" and cannot be shared defies common sense, the evidence of everyday life, and logic.

[Immanuel Can]

Why would a desire for sympathy assume moral agreement, let alone moral compulsion?

Because it's not rational to expect people whose views are purely subjective to have any duty or even any inclination to agree with one's whining and complaining that "bad" has been done to one. Only if one can refer to a common standard, one that one can reasonably expect all right-thinking people to agree about, can one expect to invoke agreement on a moral point.

Fairy whined like a vineyard. And clearly, she expected us all to "tsk tsk" Harbal about it, and to "there there" her about it. (Why else would she think it was a "weapon" as she says.) But subjectively speaking, why should we feel we "ought" to agree with her? Unless we all already know that what H. did was "bad," there's nothing to agree with. So Fairy was assuming we'd all know the common standard, and that we'd all feel we ought to adhere to it. She was behaving like an objectivist could, but no subjectivist reasonably can.

Pain is bad.

Subjectively bad, or objectively bad?

[Iwannaplato]

Because it's not rational to expect people whose views are purely subjective to have any duty

Wait, Fairy said people had a duty to agree with her, or is this part of your usual snake-like manipulation attempts?[rhetorical question]

or even any inclination to agree with one's whining and complaining that "bad" has been done to one. Only if one can refer to a common standard,

Or common preferences and hardly universal ones. She could expect that other people would dislike his actions. Not all, obviously.

But you assume that she assumes they have some moral obligation to agree and that it is a moral standard. Essentially, you just keep putting words in her mouth and your explanation seems obvious to you because you are projecting your own model on her actions. That's what you would mean if you did what she did.

one that one can reasonably expect all right-thinking people to agree about, can one expect to invoke agreement on a moral point.

All right-thinking people. Yeah, that sounds like such a Fairy-phrase. I'm sure she said that. I'm sure it was necessarily entailed by what she wrote.

Fairy whined like a vineyard. And clearly, she expected us all to "tsk tsk" Harbal about it, and to "there there" her about it.

More mind-reading.

(Why else would she think it was a "weapon" as she says.)

From her perspective because some people in his cherished forum a likely to dislike what she says he did. That doesn't entail she believes in objective morality.

But subjectively speaking, why should we feel we "ought" to agree with her?

You tell her and us what she is thinking and doing and then use your projections to justify your position. Apart from being circular, you acting like a carny conning fortune teller.

Unless we all already know that what H. did was "bad," there's nothing to agree with.

1) Even if she was counting on other people have objective moral positions, that wouldn't entail that she has one. It's as if a moral subjectivist can't know how other people think and use that. 2) People are not random in their preferences and she only needs some people to think he's a dick to have succeeded.

So Fairy was assuming we'd all know the common standard, and that we'd all feel we ought to adhere to it. She was behaving like an objectivist could, but no subjectivist reasonably can.

And here you repeat the same silly illogical step. One couldn't for example, point out to a Muslim who is judging others from a supposed Islamic set of judgments that their behavior doesn't fit their own religion? Must one agree with the religion to do this. Of course a moral subjectivist can know that others are moral objectivists and choose his/her actions accordingly. Knowing that others have a common standard does not mean one is an objectivist. And of course there are other errors here: 1) it doesn't need to be a common standard to be effective. In fact, even if JUST Harbal himself is embarrassed by what he did, then writing about it here need only be noticed by him for it to be effective. He knows people are reading about it. He knows that some people will be surprised and judgmental. 3) Other assumptions and silliness I pointed out above. And it's not as if she said much of this herself, in her own way of expressing it.

You're projecting your model onto her and using it to justify...projecting your model onto her.

You're obsessed her. You clearly wanted to know all facets of the participant-related gossip and you can't let it nor your fantasies drop.

[Immanuel Can]

Pain is bad.

Subjectively bad, or objectively bad?

You could argue subjectively since people, for some reason, like pain.

Well, like or dislike is not the same as good or bad.

The problem with subjective moralizing is that it makes them out to be exactly the same. But it's not at all clear why we'd have a duty to do what people happen to like or dislike, regardless of their feelings. To know that, we'd need an objective precept that says something like, "It is morally obligatory for one person to do all those things another person likes, and never to do things another person doesn't like." And from where would we get warrant for a precept like that?

However, pain, by definition, is a sensation that you don't like. Therefore, as such, pain is objectively bad...

That's a non-sequitur.

Firstly, there are many things that cause pain that we consider good: childbirth, exercise, sacrifice, discipline, medical treatment...If there was some easy link between not-liking and evil, we'd have to say that all the pains associated with these things also mean that they are evil.

Secondly, even if somebody doesn't like something, the fact of their not liking it doesn't tell us anything at all about anybody's moral duty toward it. Nature, they say, is "red in tooth and claw." Suffering happens. Survival is "survival of the fittest," which they tell us is our highest evolutionary good; and that means the weak die, and not always nicely.

To appeal to subjectivism, to merely not-liking something, doesn't tell us anything at all about its goodness or badness. We can't even really say it even gives us a rough indicator, since countercases are all too easy for us to think of. And there isn't anything inherently obviously moral about somebody's likes and dislikes. They are subjective, and hence, arbitrary.

So if subjectivism is true, then it also follows that there can be no moral certainties, even approximate ones. In fact, the term "moral" ceases to have any referent at all. We have no way of knowing when it's being rightly applied or wrongly applied, even if it could be applied: but we'd have to think it can't really be applied at all.

[Immanuel Can]

Wait,...

Your message is too long for anything worthwhile said in it. It's peppered liberally with both obvious misrepresentations and obvious ad hominems. And it's boring.

I can't be bothered with it.

[Alexiev]

Pain is bad

Subjectively bad, or objectively bad?

Oh come on. The answer is obvious. Pain is subjective, but to everyone except masochists it is bad (i.e. painful), but not evil.

[Immanuel Can]

Pain is bad

Subjectively bad, or objectively bad?

Oh come on. The answer is obvious. Pain is subjective, but to everyone except masochists it is bad (i.e. painful), but not evil.

Not obvious at all. Look at my last response to jasonlava, above. There's simply no deduction that runs from "I don't like pain" to "pain is morally bad." If you suppose there is, all you have to do is supply the missing premise.

[Alexiev]

Pain is bad

Subjectively bad, or objectively bad?

Oh come on. The answer is obvious. Pain is subjective, but to everyone except masochists it is bad (i.e. painful), but not evil.

Not obvious at all. Look at my last response to jasonlava, above. There's simply no deduction that runs from "I don't like pain" to "pain is morally bad." If you suppose there is, all you have to do is supply the missing premise.

I didn''t say pain was morally bad. On the contrary, I contrasted bad with evil (i.e. morally bad). Once again, this is so obvious that misunderstanding is either wilfull or stupid.

[Immanuel Can]

Oh come on. The answer is obvious. Pain is subjective, but to everyone except masochists it is bad (i.e. painful), but not evil.

Not obvious at all. Look at my last response to jasonlava, above. There's simply no deduction that runs from "I don't like pain" to "pain is morally bad." If you suppose there is, all you have to do is supply the missing premise.

I didn''t say pain was morally bad. On the contrary, I contrasted bad with evil (i.e. morally bad). Once again, this is so obvious that misunderstanding is either wilfull or stupid.

I find your ad hominems make you unworthy of serious conversation: that, and the difficulty you seem to have with even basic concepts. Continue as you please, and I shall happily ignore you.

[Iwannaplato]

Pain is bad

Subjectively bad, or objectively bad?

Oh come on. The answer is obvious. Pain is subjective, but to everyone except masochists it is bad (i.e. painful), but not evil.

And even they will have emotional pain that is bad. What is pain to the masochist is not pain to us. Eating butterscotch ice cream is unpleasant to me, very. It is not to others. Experiencing that which gives them a net pleasure is good to them. Experiencing that which gives them a net pain is bad for them. or perhaps better put 'to them.' To some marathon runners what is torture for most people is a wonderful experience and not getting to the race is painful.