Philosophy Now Forum

Hmm... what if something deeper here is goin on? What if imma superior person who's become a nihilist becuz he's surrounded by shit. In bad company, as it were. Given the sensibility to kick what is already falling.

"She told me herself that she had no morality,—and I thought she had, like myself, a more severe morality than anyone" - Nietzsche (about Lou)

It could be that the small, superficial, ugly... the spiritually infirm and destitute, are the ones who are so happy, who look at the world and clumsily shout 'isn't it great!'... while the strong superior spirits are so disgusted by it (becuz it is inhabited by such superficial trash) and so can only look down at it.

Is that not the most delightful irony? Perhaps the positions are in fact, reversed. Nihilism as an acquired height in a world that is so lowly?

Lou Andreas-Salomé...

“Believe me, the world won't give you any gifts. If you want to have a life, steal it.”

“If you have no more happiness to give:
Give me your pain.”

“Now I understand that this passion for pain, even in the torture of martyrdom, represents the haste and impatience to no longer be interrupted and disturbed by the evil that can come from this side...meaning this life.”

“The closer two people stand to each other inwardly, the more readily they become for each other the condition under which alone their two beings find expression.”

"Isn't a person actually very different from the aspects we find appropriate for us?"

"I am eternally faithful to the memories; I will never be to men."

Bro she's so hot. No wonder Fritz was tryna holla at her. I mean who has a girlfriend that talks like that. They don't make em like that anymore, Biggs.

Moral Relativism Is Unintelligible
Julien Beillard argues that it makes no sense to say that morality is relatively true.

Truth & Belief

Let me try to clarify this objection by introducing some truisms about truth. First, a statement is true only if it represents things as they really are. The statement that I’m wearing blue socks is true only if I really am wearing socks, and they really are blue.

Gasp! The either/or world!! That part of our lives whereby in interacting with others what is true for us is true for them in turn. For example, Mary was wearing blue socks on her way to Planned Parenthood to have an abortion. The socks, the building the operation...all applicable to everyone.

No, instead, what they can't all come into sync regarding is whether the abortion itself is objectively moral or immoral.

The same general principle surely holds for moral statements.

Moral statements? You state that something is true in regard to the morality of abortion and that makes it true?

Suppose I say that suicide is immoral, yet that in objective reality there is no such thing as moral wrongness. That is, suppose that nothing that anyone does really is morally wrong, although some actions seem wrong to us.

Until, given new experiences, you say that suicide is moral? In other words, you change your mind precisely because these new experiences [or new relationships or access to new information and knowledge] prompt you to. It happens all the time to many down through the ages. To me, many times. In fact, that's when some will embrace philosophy -- deontology -- in order to make the claim that objective morality is within the reach of philosophy. Or, for others, within the reach of science itself.

Then my assertion of immorality is simply false, for it attributes to certain acts a property that nothing has. It is like an assertion that my socks were made by Santa’s niece. Nothing has the property of being made by Santa’s niece, and any statement that represents my socks as having it is therefore false.

Only philosophers don't invoke Santa Claus or his niece here do they? Instead, they bring our attention around to Plato and Aristotle and Descartes and Kant. Moral philosophy up in the theoretical clouds, in a world of words. Or derived from one or another "transcending font": God.

Moral Relativism Is Unintelligible
Julien Beillard argues that it makes no sense to say that morality is relatively true.

Those attracted to moral relativism might object that I am simply presupposing an objectivist concept of truth: a concept that relates what is said or thought about the world to the way that the world really is, independent of these thoughts.

On the contrary, moral nihilists of my ilk readily accept that in regard to human interactions in the either/or world, not only does there clearly appear to be objective truths able to be communicated conceptually, but for "all practical purposes" as well.

If John is in fact executed in prison, Bill may in fact insist he was not. But the objective truth is what it is. He's dead and gone. What of the morality of it, however? Yes, it may be a fact that philosophers are able to come up with the optimal frame of mind here. That which all rational men and women really are obligated to believe about the death penalty and the state. All I'm arguing is that as a moral nihilist, "I" am "here and now" fractured and fragmented in regard to the morality of capital punishment.

Unless, of course, in a No God world, someone can link me to a deontological resolution.

What they have in mind instead is a different concept of truth – one that does not involve any such relation between subjective points of view or representations and something independent of those points of view.

Well, if I am understanding this correctly, that's not me. Not "here and now" anyway. The "concept of truth" aside, I'm still more interested in the extent to which "for all practical purposes" what we think is true [about anything] we are able to effectively communicate it to others because it is true for them too. Objectively true as an inherent component of the either/or world.

Moral Relativism Is Unintelligible
Julien Beillard argues that it makes no sense to say that morality is relatively true.

I admit that I am presupposing an objectivist conception of truth, but what’s the alternative? Do we have any concept of truth that does not involve that kind of relation?

Presupposing an objectivist conception of truth?

Okay, but, eventually, we'll need a context.

To be sure, people sometimes say that a statement is true for one person but not another – meaning that the statement seems true to the first person but does not seem true to the second. But just as seeming gold is not a kind of gold, seeming truth is not a kind of truth.

Presupposing an objectivist conception of truth?

Okay, but, eventually, we'll need a context.

How about Santa Claus?

What is meant by this way of speaking (if anything), is simply belief. To say that it is true for some children that Santa Claus lives in the North Pole, if that means merely that to some children it seems true that he does, is really just a way of saying that they believe it. But believing doesn’t make it so.

Besides, with Santa Claus, being naughty might result in far fewer [if any] presents under the tree, but he doesn't send the kids to Hell.

Similarly, if moral relativism is just the claim that what seems true of morality to some people (what they believe about morality) seems false to others, this is true but philosophically trivial, and consistent with objectivism about moral truth.

Well, from my own hopelessly prejudiced frame of mind, much of what those like Plato and Aristotle and Descartes and Kant wrote about human morality is "for all practical purposes" trivial precisely because it is all done up in the philosophical clouds. Of course morality can be objective if it comes down to insisting that the definitions and the deductions that one uses in the arguments are rationally sound.

Only the author [if I am understanding him correctly] anchors triviality instead in moral relativism itself...

It is also worth noting that, interpreted in this trivial way, moral relativism could not be supported by the argument from disagreement. The gist of that argument was that moral relativism is a good explanation of the moral disagreements we observe. Yet the claim that some moral statements seem true to some people and false to others merely restates the fact of moral disagreement that is supposedly explained by relativism, it cannot explain that fact. (Perhaps some things are self-explanatory, but not moral disagreement!)

Agree with this? Okay, given a moral conflagration that sparks profound disagreement, let's explore this point given a particular context.

Moral Relativism Is Unintelligible
Julien Beillard argues that it makes no sense to say that morality is relatively true.

So there is the familiar kind of truth dependent on how reality is apart from people’s beliefs or perceptions, and a bogus kind that is nothing more than belief.

Sound familiar? It ought to. I've been making that distinction now for years. Truth in the either/or world and "truth" in the is/ought world. The objective facts that everyone can agree regarding, say, the buying and the selling of guns here in America and the hopelessly conflicting beliefs -- personal opinions -- regarding the Second Amendment.

The relativist’s theory of moral truth explicitly denies that moral statements are ever true (or false) in the familiar sense; but if it is interpreted in the second way, relativism collapses into absurdity or triviality.

Again, if you believe this let's focus in on a particular issue like gun control and explore moral truths that you embrace. Think, for example, henry quirk and the buying and selling of weapons of mass destruction. Collapse my arguments into absurdity or triviality.

Instead, the "argument" nestles up in the theoretical clouds...

The relativist needs a third kind of truth, midway between the familiar and the bogus: not just an appearance of truth, but not a truth that depends on objective reality. But there is no such thing. At least, I am unable to imagine what this special kind of truth would be, and relativists are strangely silent on this core issue.

Same thing.

You choose the issue. You choose the context. I'll defend moral nihilism as I understand it "here and now" and you defend...objective morality? moral realism?

Moral Relativism Is Unintelligible
Julien Beillard argues that it makes no sense to say that morality is relatively true.

No Third Way

Remember that moral relativism has two ingredients: there is the denial of any objective moral truth, and the assertion of some other kind of moral truth.

On the other hand, I do not myself argue that, in fact, there is no objective morality. Derived either from God or No God fonts. I simply note that "here and now" I don't believe that there is. And all I can do is to challenge those who do believe in an essential/universal morality to defend that given a particular moral conflagration and given a particular set of circumstances.

As for "some other kind of moral truth", what on Earth "for all practical purposes" does that mean?

Suppose that moral disagreement does raise doubts about the objective truth of any moral code. Does it follow that moral codes are true in some other sense? No, for perhaps it means that no moral statements are true in any sense. Perhaps people disagree here because they have been acculturated in different moral cultures, but all the moral beliefs or standards of all cultures are simply false. So the argument from disagreement might be an argument for moral nihilism rather than for moral relativism.

Here of course the distinction revolves around those who believe in objective morality but argue in turn that it changes from culture to culture. As opposed to those like me who suggest that in a No God world, there exist no "transcending font" that any particular culture has access to in order to establish that their own value judgments are true objectively. Instead, there are those who fall back on science or philosophy. Or on biological imperatives. Or on folkways and mores and customs and traditions.

Okay, fine. The same thing. An issue and a context please. Note how your own culture's assessment of abortion or gun control or homosexuality or gender roles or social justice etc., reflects the objective truth. And, of course, in today's world, cultures are hardly isolated from each other.

What then? You travel around the world interacting with those from many different cultures. You encounter all of these different rules of behaviors...different laws prescribing and proscribing this or that conduct. And, let's face it, even within most cultures themselves in the "modern world", there is not a general consensus from all citizens regarding right and wrong behavior.

The American culture, for example.

Moral Relativism Is Unintelligible
Julien Beillard argues that it makes no sense to say that morality is relatively true.

How do relativists hope to establish their positive thesis, that moral statements are sometimes true without being objectively true?

Well, this moral relativist is waiting for examples of morally true statements for one culture that are not universally objective for all cultures? Is that where he is going here?

I am not aware of any compelling arguments for that idea. On the contrary, relativists tend instead to argue in great detail for the negative thesis, that morality is not objectively true, as if that alone were sufficient for their relativistic conclusion.

Here, I basically agree. There is no way for any particular mere mortal to demonstrate that a God, the God does not exist. None that I'm aware of. Same with the scientists and the philosophers. Someday a deontological foundation might be established. Or, perhaps, the most rational assessment revolves around one or another of the "biological imperative" dogmas.

But the moral relativists arguments alone can only really be used to anchor words to yet more words still.

Thus Prinz says that “moral judgments are based on emotions”, that “reason cannot tell us which values to adopt”, and that even if there is such a thing as human nature, that would be of no use, since the mere fact that we have a certain nature leaves it an open question whether what is natural is morally good.

Now all we need is a context. Though it sure seems rather convoluted given all the variables involved.

Right, Benjamin?

But, instead, back up into the theoretical clouds...

Let us grant all of this, and grant for the sake of argument that it does raise a real doubt about the objective truth of moral beliefs. In the absence of any account of the special kind of truth that is supposed to lie somewhere between mere belief and accurate representation of objective reality, why then should we think of moral judgments as truths of any kind? Why not simply say that all moral codes are false? It would seem reasonable for a philosopher who thinks of moral reasoning in this way to view moral beliefs in the same way that atheists view religious ones – as false.

What particular moral belief given what particular set of circumstances? One way or another, a community must enact and then enforce one or another set of rules regarding behaviors either prescribed or proscribed.

And from my frame of mind, it's less that all moral codes are false and more that all moral codes seem rooted historically and culturally out in particular worlds that individuals often come to construe in very different way with respect to morality.

Moral Relativism Is Unintelligible
Julien Beillard argues that it makes no sense to say that morality is relatively true.

I suspect the reason few philosophers have been willing to draw this nihilistic conclusion is simply that, like most people, they have some strongly-held moral beliefs of their own.

The part I derive existentially from dasein, but what still remains of fundamental importance, however, whatever its origins might actually be, is that these strongly-held moral convictions are found all up and down the ideological spectrum. In other words, if objective morality was within the reach of mere mortals in a No God world, why on Earth have philosophers and scientists [after thousands of years] been unable to arrive at a...deontological consensus?

They think that it is morally wrong to rape children, for example, and so they do not want to say that that belief is false. For how could they continue to believe it, while also believing that what they believe is not true? This unhappy compromise is not tenable. If there is no objective moral truth, there can’t be some other kind of moral truth.

We'll need a context of course.

In the interim, philosophically, I'm back to this myself...

People tap me on the shoulder and ask "can you seriously believe that the Holocaust or abusing children or cold-blooded murder is not inherently, necessarily immoral?"

And, sure, the part of me that would never, could never imagine my own participation in things of this sort has a hard time accepting that, yes, in a No God world they are still behaviors able to be rationalized by others as either moral or, for the sociopaths, justified given their belief that everything revolves around their own "me, myself and I" self-gratification.

And what is the No God philosophical -- scientific? -- argument that establishes certain behaviors as in fact objectively right or objectively wrong? Isn't it true that philosophers down through the ages who did embrace one or another rendition of deontology always included one or another rendition of the transcending font -- God -- to back it all up?

For all I know, had my own life been different...for any number of reasons...I would myself be here defending the Holocaust. Or engaging in what most construe to be morally depraved behaviors.

After all, do not the pro-life folks insist that abortion itself is no less a Holocaust inflicted on the unborn? And do not the pro-choice folks rationalize this behavior with their own subjective sets of assumptions.

Though, okay, if someone here is convinced they have in fact discovered the optimal reason why we should behave one way and not any other, let's explore that in a No God world.

What would be argued when confronting the Adolph Hitlers and the Ted Bundys and the 9/11 religious fanatics and the sociopaths among us. Arguments such that they would be convinced that the behaviors they choose are indeed inherently, necessarily immoral.

How would you reason with them?

Russell’s Moral Quandary
David Berman holds key oppositions in tension, including concerning morality.

The 1948 BBC radio debate between Bertrand Russell and Frederick Copleston on the existence of God is justly famous as a notable moment in the history of twentieth century philosophy. For one thing, it seems to have been the first time that two respected philosophers – one highly and widely respected – debated publicly, in the mass media, on the existence of God. Before 1948, there had been many public debates on the subject, but between popular atheists, like Charles Bradlaugh, and clergymen of various religious denominations, where neither debater had any real standing in philosophy.

The part where theology configures into philosophy? Or the other way around? What can philosophers, using the technical tools at their disposal, possibly pin down for us in regard to moral commandments on this side of the grave? And then all that unfolds or does not unfold at all on the other side of the grave? Me, I'm still rather insistent that whatever is claimed to be true -- believed -- from either camp, they attempt to back it up with actual substantive and substantial evidence.

Arguably, the crucial point in the original discussion concerned the relation of morality and the existence of God.

My own conjecture then being that in the absence of God, we are confronted with mere mortals who are anything but either omniscient or omnipotent. And the fact that neither scientists nor philosophers have been able to establish a deontological moral philosophy going back now thousands of years. That speaks volumes "for all practical purposes".

For, according to Copleston, “when [Russell] saw from the surviving parts of the original discussion that he had admitted to finding himself in a quandary – something like ‘I certainly would want to say that polishing off Jews at Auschwitz was absolutely wrong, even if it could be shown that at some future date the human race would be benefited, but my ethical theory does not allow me to say this, and I cannot provide a satisfactory solution; I find myself in a quandary’ – he then added to me, ‘I cannot say this in public’ and modified what he had said.”

This is just another rendition of my own conundrum:

People tap me on the shoulder and ask "can you seriously believe that the Holocaust or abusing children or cold-blooded murder is not inherently, necessarily immoral?"

And, sure, the part of me that would never, could never imagine my own participation in things of this sort has a hard time accepting that, yes, in a No God world they are still behaviors able to be rationalized by others as either moral or, for the sociopaths, justified given their belief that everything revolves around their own "me, myself and I" self-gratification.

And what is the No God philosophical -- scientific? -- argument that establishes certain behaviors as in fact objectively right or objectively wrong? Isn't it true that philosophers down through the ages who did embrace one or another rendition of deontology always included one or another rendition of the transcending font -- God -- to back it all up?

For all I know, had my own life been different...for any number of reasons...I would myself be here defending the Holocaust. Or engaging in what most construe to be morally depraved behaviors.

Or, perhaps, in the vicinity of Richard Rorty's Ironism:

* She has radical and continuing doubts about the final vocabulary she currently uses, because she has been impressed by other vocabularies, vocabularies taken as final by people or books she has encountered;
*She realizes that argument phrased in her present vocabulary can neither underwrite nor dissolve these doubts;
*Insofar as she philosophizes about her situation, she does not think that her vocabulary is closer to reality than others, that it is in touch with a power not herself." Richard Rorty

Again, however, a vocabulary more applicable to the is/ought world of conflicting value judgments.

I believe that Copleston has here captured for us a telling moment in their debate, and even perhaps in the history of philosophy, i.e. Russell’s moment of acute and unhappy awareness of the non-satisfactory nature of his moral theory, which he felt he could not express in public, so needed to modify – which is what he did.

So, how do I go about modifying my own "fractured and fragmented" moral philosophy? After all, "non-satisfactory" is how most of us would describe an essentially meaningless and purposeless existence that tumbles over into the abyss that is oblivion.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 3:18 am So, how do I go about modifying my own "fractured and fragmented" moral philosophy? After all, "non-satisfactory" is how most of us would describe an essentially meaningless and purposeless existence that tumbles over into the abyss that is oblivion.

Well, for what it's worth, oblivion is oblivion. The alternative seems to be eternal hell for most of us unextraordinary, run-of-the-mill "sinners", according to the fire and brimstone crowd. I'll go with oblivion over that. Heaven is apparently a gated community in the VIP section of the afterlife. Oh well. Not being the snobby type, give me oblivion, in that case.

Russell’s Moral Quandary
David Berman holds key oppositions in tension, including concerning morality.

Combining Contrasting Judgements

Russell’s moral theory, at least as he describes it in the debate, was that our moral judgments come from a combination of our nurture and education, but primarily come from our feelings and their consequences.

Try this...

The next time you find yourself confronting someone who challenges your own moral convictions, challenge them instead to explore the extent to which historically, culturally and in regard to our own unique set of personal experiences and relationships, we came to think and to feel this instead of that. For most moral objectivists, they don't think one way about the morality of abortion or gun control or homosexuality and feel just the opposite. Emotions are no less the embodiment of dasein from my frame of mind.

[I explored this in depth with gib here: https://ilovephilosophy.com/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=197767 ]

Gib, like Maia and MagsJ, has, in my opinion, convinced himself that he is in possession of an intuitive/emotional Self -- an Intrinsic Self -- that "somehow" transcends all that "contingency, chance and change" stuff.

Hence they do not arise from any timeless, non-natural absolutes, for they are different in different times and places.

Maybe, but to a religious fanatic, a political ideologue, a deontologist or an advocate of one or another rendition of biological imperatives, their moral absolutes always prevail in discussions here. Either you agree with them or, quite simply, you are wrong.

Go ahead, ask them.

Russell puts this nicely in the published version of the debate, where he sums up his theory of moral judgments with the formula that they arise from ‘feelings as to effects’. But while that was his theory, he recognized, as a result of Copleston’s pointed questioning, that it did not enable him to hold that the Nazi policy of killing the Jews at Auschwitz was absolutely wrong ‘even if it could be shown that the effects at some future date on the human race would be beneficial’. And hence he conceded that his moral theory was not satisfactory.

Again, if both our thoughts and our feelings are in many crucial respects rooted existentially -- subjectively/subjunctively -- in dasein, how then are philosophers/ethicists able to establish a frame of mind that transcends this? And it's not for nothing in my view that the overwhelming preponderance of moral objectivists are sticking with a God, the God, their God.

Then this part:

However in his letter to me (and only in my letter) Copleston says that Russell went further and said that “I do not find my ethical theory satisfactory, but I find other people’s even less satisfactory.”

That works for me too. At least until the deontologists among us are willing to come down out of the "ethical theory" clouds long enough to illustrate their own texts.

Russell’s Moral Quandary
David Berman holds key oppositions in tension, including concerning morality.

Now I agree with Russell’s judgment [above], but I want to argue that while no one theory is satisfactory, there are two theories, which, when taken together, are satisfactory.

And, indeed, some here seem to focus on being theoretically satisfied in regard to human morality. They challenge others to a debate over whose definitions and deductions are the most...rational? logical? epistemologically sound?

To wit:

The idea, in short, is that the philosophical positions known as monism and dualism, widely assumed to be irreconcilable opposites, are both true as basic epistemic-ontological types. Hence they can be combined as contrary (not contradictory) ways of understanding the world. For simplicity, I call this the Dualist Monist Typology.

Same thing. The theoretical assessment of the Dualist, Monist Typology and the manner in which it is actually applicable pertaining to human interactions that come into conflict over value judgments.

Anyone want to go there? Bringing it all down out of the theoretical clouds?

When this move is taken into the moral realm the opposing positions are non-naturalism and naturalism, and as such are able, when combined, to provide a satisfactory moral theory, and so solve Russell’s quandary. Although here I need to add that every person individually must pursue either one or the other of the two opposing positions – naturalism or non-naturalism – depending on which type they are.

New thread perhaps? The non-naturalists and the naturalists examining an issue that existed back in Russell's time as well as our own [and there's not much that excludes] and taking their respective theoretical assumptions down out of the philosophical clouds and bringing them to bear regarding actual flesh and blood human interactions.

Russell’s Moral Quandary
David Berman holds key oppositions in tension, including concerning morality.

Of course, the natural question is: on what is my Dualist Monist Typology based? My answer is on the nature of philosophy as known through its history, and also on a theory of intuition which is most clearly expressed in Spinoza’s Ethics and Bergson’s Introduction to Metaphysics (1903). So it has two pillars, but the main pillar is the history of philosophy.

In other words, the gap between what scientists and philosophers have grappled with over the millennia in attempting to grasp the objective parameters of the "human condition" going all the way back to what they still do not grasp about how/why that fits into a comprehensive understanding of the existence of existence itself.

As for the "pillars" here...like there are not any number of "my way or the highways" autocrats among us who assure us that this is all taken care of. Then this or that Scripture or this or that Manifesto.

More specifically, what I think the history of philosophy shows is that because philosophy aims to answer ultimate questions, it accepts no assumptions. It is chiefly in this that philosophy differs from science, which does assume certain things.

On the other hand, when philosophy is exchanged up in the intellectual clouds, the main assumption is that everything comes down basically -- theoretically? -- to dueling definitions and deductions. In particular in regard to exchanges of analytical philosophy. There the focus often revolves technically around logic and epistemology. Around the correct use of language itself. But why on Earth was language invented? Was it in order to invent philosophy? Or was it to facilitate actual human social, political and economic interactions? Less "ultimate" questions and answers and more "what is to be done?" "for all practical purposes" given human relationships that revolve around actual consequences.

As William James nicely pointed out in the opening chapter of his Textbook of Psychology, 1892, physicists assume that independent of mind there are material things which have mass or weight. But they do not think this can be proven; nor do they believe it is axiomatically or intuitively evident.

And that is because even the "hard sciences" can only go back so far in examining and then explaining human consciousness, autonomy, conflicting goods, identity and so many other aspects of the "human condition" going all the way back to...what exactly?

Philosophers, by contrast, generally hold that their accounts of basic and ultimate matters are not just assumptions, but are true. This must mean that they think their understanding of them is itself self-evident or intuitively certain.

And yet...

So while they do often offer supporting arguments for their basic truths, these must rest finally on their to-them self-evident intuitions. Yet as the history of philosophy also shows, there has been no actual agreement amongst great philosophers about these ‘self-evident’ matters. What we find is that some great philosophers, such as Descartes, are dualists, believing the world is made of two basic sorts of substance, mind and matter; while others, such as Spinoza, are monists, believing that the world is composed of only one type of basic substance.

Now all we need is a context that encompasses both materialism and morality. And those here who imagine they grasp the crux of Russell's moral quandary pertaining to it.