God and morality

[Impenitent]

Yes I recall you posting that clip before. Upon clicking it this time I was greeted again with a five-second ad favorite. The white haired AI doctor with expert knowledge and a great confident tone telling me about poop paralysis again.

So I'm wondering if you guys are getting this doc too or have I somehow been tagged by advertisers as someone who has poop paralysis?

I state for the record that I can't recall the first or even the last time I was constipated (except existentially). My digestive track and bowel system is like a well oiled Chinese factory line of women no taller than 5 feet dressed in identical white uniforms and hair nets. Shit gets done, and very efficiently.

Digestive disturbances have always been typically alien to me. To this I attribute good climate, diet, and almost complete abstinence from alcohol, that origin of German metaphysics...

For two points, what famous philosopher did I just caricature? Don't answer it, Imp, let somebody else have a try FFS.

everyone knows that poop paralysis is cured by Go-nads

-Imp

[Alexis Jacobi]

Naw... I've seen that one with the kid going beast mode on the teacher guy. Somebody posted it.

My error. I thought you meant the music vids.

[FlashDangerpants]

For two points, what famous philosopher did I just caricature? Don't answer it, Imp, let somebody else have a try FFS.

Uhm, wait. Are you talking about the Freddy "absolute enters into but is not in itself...."Ayer routine just up the page, or the Nietzschean rambling about stomachs?

Or, perhaps the epic "A Letter to a Royal Academy about Farting" by BJ Franklin, oft considered America's finest work of literature and reason.

[promethean75]

I remember when i got to the chapters, 'Why I write such good books' and 'Why I'm so clever' or whatever it was titled. Remember, I was like twenty, and Socrates to me was that greek philosopher dude in Bill and Ted's Excellent Advent. I knew nada about anybody, and Fritz is dropping names left and right with these little intriguing commentaries that put you on the edge of your seat. Schopenhauer, Spinoza, "that blockhead Mill"... who tf are these guys now?! It was overwhelming, and i couldn't stay out of the bookstore. I tracked them all down either there or in the university library.

Before all this, however, as i was making my way through The Portable Fritz (I think it was) and got to the bit about climate, coffee, metabolism and carrying drinking glasses around for dipping in springs i was like what the f*** is this dude talking about. I didn't yet know this was just the recreational writing of a genius going slowly insane. It was before the internet, so it took some time to get the full story about the guy. You'd get a little about hugging the horse and collapsing in one book intro, and then you couldn't buy em all fast enough you were so hooked.

You have read my Genealogy of Morels, haven't you?

[Greatest I am]

Socialism. It's cost the world far, far more.

But you didn't answer: why has anybody got a duty to obey a fantasy?

If it is the best in moral tenets one can come up with, it would be immoral and stupid not to.

So...because you think that whatever your fantasies tell you, when you "come up with" them is "moral," then anybody who thinks differently is "immoral and stupid"? Have I got your answer right?

No. Stupid.

Morals are subject to logic and reason.

[promethean75]

I must now make a public confession for austerity sake. The fellow who gave me that copy of The Portable Fritz... well, i broke into his apartment and stole his acoustic guitar. This is what reading Nietzsche will do to a young man if he is not prepared to receive the wisdom properly and in a timely manner. This was not a principled anarchist revolt against all property rights quite yet, for i had only been an exploited construction worker for a few years and hadn't yet been through the civil and criminal courts (losing, of course), betrayed by the State, fucked by landlords and private business owners, etc. No, this was just a young punk who was told by a german edgelord (thanks Mick) with a magnificent mustache that he was THE WILL TO POWER and nothing besides! If that isn't a go-ahead to steal a measley guitar, i don't know what is.

I don't like that i did that, but regret is logically impossible. I do know that my sense of guilt was mitigated by the fact that bro's fam was rich and he was a trustafarian app state student who could buy five guitars if he wanted. I wonder if I'd have taken the guitar if he wasn't so affluent. I say no.

Also, I'm not entirely sure he didn't do something uncool and make me wanna rob em. I can't remember anything but stopping by his apartment on the way out of town and going through the window to get it. It is possible he was a dick somehow, and i just don't remember. I wanna say he wasn't, though. But he was that wealthy hippy patagonia university student with the new 4x4 SUV dad got em for school. The kind of guy that could become snooty, snobish, mocking, subtlety insulting in the right circumstances. Conclusion: i don't remember him being a dick but i remember him being the kind of guy who could be a dick.

[promethean75]

"What is the remaining quarter"

Causation. That's the only real metaphysical subject. It would be the only empirical fact about the world that we can not directly perceive via the means of physics. A feature about the world that can only be known 'a priori', thus the metaphysical nature of its subject matter.

Nothing else in philosophy is really metaphysical. Ethics is biology. Epistemology is psychologistic, i.e., all knowledge states mirror brain states... mathematical rule following reflects the way logic gates in the brain function... not some objective mathematical object in space that gets representation in language. Ontology is still having trouble with third grade grammar. What's left? Politics, economics, that's all biology... which is 'living materialism', which is physics.

If i could talk to two dudes RIGHT NOW THIS VERY INSTANT, it would be Comte and Spencer. I am totally vibing with these two right now.

[Immanuel Can]

If it is the best in moral tenets one can come up with, it would be immoral and stupid not to.

So...because you think that whatever your fantasies tell you, when you "come up with" them is "moral," then anybody who thinks differently is "immoral and stupid"? Have I got your answer right?

No. Stupid.

Morals are subject to logic and reason.

And yet, you can't give any "logic" or "reasoning" that justifies, them, apparently. You seem to have a very odd idea of "logic."

[promethean75]

"Morals are subject to logic and reason."

Correct and incorrect! Statements are subject to logic and reason, but moral statements can't be true or false (they 'emote', that's all). Therefore, moral statements can not be subject to logic and reason and your statement is true; logically and reasonably there are no moral facts!

[Immanuel Can]

...logically and reasonably there are no moral facts!

Well, logically according to secularism, that is.

Let's go with that.

Assuming there are no moral facts, why is anybody supposed to feel they ought to obey a moral claim?

[promethean75]

Hmm... a statement that is obeyed or not is a command or imperative... but these aren't claims or assertions.

You have to explain what you mean by 'obey a moral claim'.

But I needn't really know what you mean to answer the question anyway. One ought to do anything because it brings pleasure. And the rational hedonists are divided into two camps, btw. The stoics that want to examine themselves and their perverse desires all day and the libertines who don't care why they're perverts and wanna just go with it.

[Immanuel Can]

Hmm... a statement that is obeyed or not is a command or imperative...

Yes, it can be either or both.

Moral statements are "ought" statements. But if, as you say, they are not facts, then why "ought" anybody to care what they say?

One ought to do anything because it brings pleasure.

So a psychopath "ought" to kill, because he enjoys it. A pedophile or rapist ought to abuse or rape because he or she likes it. And slave owners ought to own slaves, because he or she likes not having to do demeaning work. And rich people ought to be allowed to be rich, because it makes them happy.

That's what you'd have to conclude, if you were to give that answer.

But if you respond, "Well, they have a duty to make OTHERS happy, not just themselves," then the response is easy: why? Why (morally) must somebody who finds pleasure in something give up that pleasure to please anybody else? Where is that "law" written?

[Alexis Jacobi]

I hope it was a Martin but intuition tells me it was a Yamaha …

[Alexis Jacobi]

Causation. That's the only real metaphysical subject.

Thou hast thine own self contradicted. According to you there can be nothing outside of causation. So it cannot be 25% but must be 100%. And therefore causation cannot be a ‘subject’ of metaphysics. Metaphysics is phantasy.

[promethean75]

"Moral statements are "ought" statements."

Really, I'm not tryna be argumentative, but not all moral statements are 'ought' statements. "He is a good, loving father" is a moral statement that isn't an imperative.

"But if, as you say, they are not facts, then why "ought" anybody to care what they say?"

The fact that moral commands aren't facts isn't why someone should or shouldn't obey (care) what they say, haus. Why someone ought or ought not care depends on the return, the consequences, of each. If greater pleasure is gained from following command x, then one 'ought' to do x.

"So a psychopath "ought" to kill, because he enjoys it, etc., etc."

This is a trick question. I'm not saying that he ought to keel somevon... only that eef he does keel somevon it ees because he sinks he ought to. Von veel always have zeir oughts!