Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote:

You cannot change others or their opinions, people have to come to a realization. You can only change yourself: rather than covering up the whole surface of the earth with leather, one can just cover up the soles of one’s feet by wearing leather sandals. Meditation is the only way to do that, through realization (which precludes 'trying').

If I take your seriously here, then yours is merely a counsel of quietism and resignation to futility. It's nothing more than amoral solipsism.

I say this not because I find it personally frightening or unsettling in some way (I would say "trivial" is a better adjective for it), but because your alleged "ethic" is useless for any society, or any situation at all in which two person are involved -- which is to say, useless for all the situations in which "ethics" are useful at all. For there is no ethical question in a one-person world; ethics comes online only when there is some other person or people in view, and thus we can ask about what we might "owe" them and they might "owe" us to do.

In other words, you haven't "solved" the problems of ethics: you've simply run from them all by trying to deny that they exist. And that "trying" is truly, as you say, "neurotic."

You have come to realizations by reading someone else's opinions and then adopted them as your own. Use your own introspection, otherwise your views mean nothing to me.

You do not deny anything in meditation. According to Buddhism neurosis is the human condition but not our nature. To put that in religious terms our nature is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

You have come to realizations by reading someone else's opinions and then adopted them as your own. Use your own introspection, otherwise your views mean nothing to me.

That's pretty funny.

Really, Jeff, you haven't the foggiest.

Lesseee...which is the funniest remark. Could it be the idea that you know what a person has or has not done in forming their views, without even knowing them, or is it what would happen if you had any idea what I actually knew on the topic...nope, those things are funny, but not funny enough.

Was it the idea that I ought to be all desperate and earnest to "mean something" to someone whom I've obviously never met? Nope, funnier, but still not quite the best.

Or is it the idea that what you call "Buddhism" is some kind of invention of your personal creativity, some expression of singular independence of thought and wisdom on your part? Wow...super funny. Honestly, I was completely unaware I was speaking to such an august personage as the very inventor of Buddhism himself!

Yet funnier than all those is your take on the Doctrine of the Trinity. That's the real thigh-slapper.

Classic. There are no words...I really can't begin to fix what's wrong with all that. I'm afraid you're on your own.

Now, back to prof's claims.

Did we get an authority for those ethics yet? Or how about a grounds for arbitration among the competing decisions of conventional ethical frameworks?

Immanuel Can wrote:

You have come to realizations by reading someone else's opinions and then adopted them as your own. Use your own introspection, otherwise your views mean nothing to me.

That's pretty funny.

Really, Jeff, you haven't the foggiest.

Lesseee...which is the funniest remark. Could it be the idea that you know what a person has or has not done in forming their views, without even knowing them, or is it what would happen if you had any idea what I actually knew on the topic...nope, those things are funny, but not funny enough.

Was it the idea that I ought to be all desperate and earnest to "mean something" to someone whom I've obviously never met? Nope, funnier, but still not quite the best.

Or is it the idea that what you call "Buddhism" is some kind of invention of your personal creativity, some expression of singular independence of thought and wisdom on your part? Wow...super funny. Honestly, I was completely unaware I was speaking to such an august personage as the very inventor of Buddhism himself!

Yet funnier than all those is your take on the Doctrine of the Trinity. That's the real thigh-slapper.

Classic. There are no words...I really can't begin to fix what's wrong with all that. I'm afraid you're on your own.

This is why introspection is important. Instead of looking for the meaning behind someone's post on this board I've noticed you attempt to use logic for different aspects of a post. Anyone can do this; you think this makes you intelligent.

No, son...

But I wonder...if you are being "critical" of that, what language are you trying to use in which to do it?

You're trying to use the language of logic to say that logic isn't necessary. That's self-contradiction, so it doesn't even need to be refuted for you to know it's wrong.

I've noticed you attempt to use logic for different aspects of a post. Anyone can do this; you think this makes you intelligent.

So go ahead...make your case without using logic yourself...

Hey, maybe you could peel off some kind of Buddhist paradox, like how "desire" is such a bad thing, and how much you desire enlightenment...or maybe you could zing me with one of those marvelous Zen koans about "one hand clapping," or something like that...

But what you cannot do, and still be a Buddhist, is offer any propositions, evidence or logic, obviously.

So no, I don't think that using logic makes me smart...I think failure to use it makes you irrational, and any attempt at it yourself, to advance the proposition you've stated, makes you inconsistent.

Any preference?

Immanuel Can wrote:
Where's the court that says which one of the deontologists, the consequentialists, the virtue ethicists, the pragmatists or any one of the innumerable, incommensurable religious and ideological ethics should be the master system that dictates to the rest?

There isn't one and that's the whole idea. That idea being a distinction that can, and should exist between ethics and law.

Courts that made judgement on moral issues were usually known as the Inquisitions during the Middle Ages.

Courts that made judgement on moral issues were usually known as the Inquisitions during the Middle Ages.

Actually, all courts ever do is make judgments on moral issues.

Whether or not we're allowed to kill each other is a moral issue, as is what should be done to us when we do it. Who provides health care is a moral issue, as is who has a right to access it. What is good education is a moral issue, and what education is for is a moral issue. Can roads be paved over farmland is a moral issue, and why we should or should not subsidize farms is a moral issue...and so on.

There's just no avoiding our need for ethics/morals.

Immanuel Can wrote:

Courts that made judgement on moral issues were usually known as the Inquisitions during the Middle Ages.

Actually, all courts ever do is make judgments on moral issues.

Whether or not we're allowed to kill each other is a moral issue, as is what should be done to us when we do it. Who provides health care is a moral issue, as is who has a right to access it. What is good education is a moral issue, and what education is for is a moral issue. Can roads be paved over farmland is a moral issue, and why we should or should not subsidize farms is a moral issue...and so on.

There's just no avoiding our need for ethics/morals.

I'm not saying we can avoid ethics I am saying that judgements can be both moral and legal. Yes, you are right, not killing each other is a moral issue, but it is also a legal issue. To use your first example. Some states interpreted the Eight Amendment to mean there is legal right to impose the death penalty. In other words, there exists a legal argument as to whether the death penalty violates the Eight.

It is both a legal and a moral issue because we can make the distinction if necessary. Courts sometime make that distinction.

I'm still waiting on prof to tell us how to do that.

Gosh, it's sure been quiet.

Immanuel Can wrote:I'm still waiting on prof to tell us how to do that.

Gosh, it's sure been quiet.

I assume you are talking about a distinction on moral grounds as opposed to legal grounds.

It's not that difficult.

No, I'm not really interested in the legal/moral distinction, because it's a moot point if there is no way to make progress in ethics. If that were true, then all our laws might well be immoral...or amoral, at the very least, and we'd have no way of knowing...so there'd be nothing to debate about the morality of legality. The first job is not to make laws (which would then be arbitrary) but to decide on what basis, and with respect to what "rights" and "duties" good laws ought to be made. And for the moment, we can leave that question unsolved. In fact, we have to, until the first one is solved: whence our authority for good/bad?

So I just want to see what prof thinks he has by way of addressing the challenges to ethics I put forth.

So far, nothing. But he may get back to me yet.

Immanuel Can wrote:No, I'm not really interested in the legal/moral distinction, because it's a moot point if there is no way to make progress in ethics. If that were true, then all our laws might well be immoral...or amoral, at the very least, and we'd have no way of knowing...so there'd be nothing to debate about the morality of legality. The first job is not to make laws (which would then be arbitrary) but to decide on what basis, and with respect to what "rights" and "duties" good laws ought to be made. And for the moment, we can leave that question unsolved. In fact, we have to, until the first one is solved: whence our authority for good/bad?

So I just want to see what prof thinks he has by way of addressing the challenges to ethics I put forth.

So far, nothing. But he may get back to me yet.

Solving the first one destroys the second. It leads to an Inquisition type of approach to law and ethics. I already made mention of the dangers associated with this. The whole idea is that there should not be one ethical system that dictates to the rest.

It leads to an Inquisition type of approach to law and ethics.

Absurd.

Immanuel Can wrote:

It leads to an Inquisition type of approach to law and ethics.

Absurd.

It isn't absurd if the following is true:

Immanuel Can wrote: Actually, all courts do is make judgements on moral issues.