Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:46 pm Did you find anything that was more fun than philosophizing?

I've had my moments. The online world is full of people just begging to be offended, and one tries to do one's bit.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:52 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:46 pm Did you find anything that was more fun than philosophizing?

I've had my moments. The online world is full of people just begging to be offended, and one tries to do one's bit.

Civilization won't maybe be the better for it, but at least there will be amusement.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 8:11 pm
Civilization won't maybe be the better for it, but at least there will be amusement.

You are right, people will not relinquish their absurd, and often harmful, views by being ridiculed. The best one can hope for is that those witnessing it will be deterred from adopting such views themselves.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:14 pm It's Spencer, explaining Darwin, it's true: but Darwin approved of it. Darwin personally wrote, "The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient" However, Darwin was so taken with Spencer's catchy phrase that he did, in fact, use it in a later (1869) edition of his "The Origin of Species".

That's fine and news to me, so thanks. But people get so confused by 'fittest'. Lions are vastly more in danger than cockroaches. As long as we understand that it doesn't mean the species is the most like Charles Atlas, if you old enough to get the reference, and that all sorts of strategies for surviving on the beach - including eating poop, hiding, moving slowly, and even being extremely weak but having some other skill or quality that helps you survive is included in this term 'fittest'. Closer to fitting in, that being in great shape. Further it's really an odd phrase because it's a superlative. It's not just the fittest that survive in a species, though they will. And which is the fittest species?

but this idea/interpretation has tended to be more appealing to the right.

Well, maybe to the Darwinians on the right, but certainly not the whole right. The religious right, for example, declare it an appalling idea.

Not just formal darwinians, but people who focus on strength, etc., in their image of who has more value. Yes, the religious right is appalled by Darwinianism in total, but that doesn't mean that they automatically reject the underlying idea of social darwinism. Many obviously do reject that and I think any read of the four gospels, if these are made central, should put you off social darwinism (by any other name), but other religous people focus on other parts of the Bible or other scriptures.

But why it would be "wrong," per se, in a secular, Evolutionary world is not clear. Why would survival of the fittest (or whatever next-best thing we want to call it) be the rule for all evolution, including human evolution up to recent, modern humans, and then quit there? That would need some explaining -- particularly if humans are simply evolved mammals like all the rest.

I am not arguing they are simply evolved mammals. That said, social mammals had a new idea, which works fairly well, it seems. Yes, they take care of each other, even weak members of the pack, allowing genes to move forward that might not have if the species was individualistic only. This has all sorts of side benefits...but then in evolutionary terms, the jury is still out. And one social mammal - we are social and our females have mammary glands even if we are qualititatitvely different - may destroy things for themselves and many other species.

So, social mammals have some broad things in common. Often both parents have something to do with protecting the young and raising them. Social mammals also develop interpersonal communication and support, though this varies wildly. There are groups. You can think of wolves or elephants as a couple of examples with similarities and differences. Primates also. They tend to function in groups and help each other. This gives them advantages. Other animals are loners and have different strategies.

All true; and yet a survival focus and instinct governs them all. Chimps, for example, are more sophisitcated in their methods than "lower" animals, but not a stitch less brutal. They steal, chew up the young, rape and rip their rivals limb from limb. And their cooperation is often exercised for no higher purpose than gaining the advantage to do just those very things. They live in groups, yes.

Humans can beat any animal atrocities.

But they aren't anything like "civil" or "moral" in their conduct.

Elephants certainly are. And interestingly when matriarchs were killed by poachers and others, young males got out of control and started raping, even other species. Yes, chimps are capable of all sorts of things, there are other less violent primates. But even chimps help, console and take care of each other. But sure, primates and humans are capable of all sorts of abusive intraspecies behavior. We are not the role models in the social mammal world as far as avoid things like sexual abuse, war, murder, rape and given our technological skills plus ability to abstract into things like racism and classism we've managed to do things like coldly wipe out huge numbers of other people based on concepts.

And the billions of years we are assured they have had to "evolve" have failed to produce even one chimp work of art, one gorilla law code, or one bonobo sage...they have, in fact, nothing like a "civilization" at all.

Who said anything about a civilization? They haven't been around for billions of years so I don't what that meant. But THEY would no longer be that species if they could do those things. Evolution would have led to something else, that likely had a larger prefrontal cortex. And even then it might go the way of the Neanderthals.

My response was to...

They often say that "survival of the fittest" is how we became the lovely, evolved things we are; but then they argue that Social Darwnism is immoral. How they manage both is a mystery to me.

First, everything is 'evolved'. My point was that unlike other species social mammals intraspecies and even to varying degrees between species do NOT simply go on individual power and domination. They value cooperation in different ways, they show sympathy for those weaker, injured, missing food. They have a different strategy that komodo dragons.

What worked with social mammals are strategies that are not the same as natural selection. Just because you believe in mutation/natural selection processes having led to diversity of species and successful adaption, does not mean one is morally beholden to intraspecies social darwinism. Cooperation, collaboration, group living and support work. Does it work better? Hard to know. Humans have generally when it comes to interspecies relations continued to simply compete, except with domesticate animals. ONly recently have humans started to consider the bad effects of indiscriminate killing of other species. Often the bad effects on humans, sometimes even moral postions giving value to the animals (and plants) in and of themselves.

But there is no inherent contradiction in seeing evolutionary processes as developing what they think it has and being against social darwinism. And we are not alone in having more complicated relationships with other members of our group. And we have also, since Darwin or later Darwinians one could say have also realized that even between species there is symbiosis, commensualism, and even merging of species into more complicated forms.

But if you think that if one believes in evolutionary theory one must be a social darwinist mount an argument that one must entail the other.

I find it odd you are focusing on this in the thread. PK is saying that the right has no morals, basically. YOu only work with is, never ought. Which is absolutely absurd.

I was going to point this out, but he doesn't respond to me. Not taking it personally. He doesn't seem to respond to most people, or if he does, it is obliquely.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 9:28 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 7:14 pm It's Spencer, explaining Darwin, it's true: but Darwin approved of it. Darwin personally wrote, "The expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer of the Survival of the Fittest is more accurate, and is sometimes equally convenient" However, Darwin was so taken with Spencer's catchy phrase that he did, in fact, use it in a later (1869) edition of his "The Origin of Species".

That's fine and news to me, so thanks. But people get so confused by 'fittest'. Lions are vastly more in danger than cockroaches. As long as we understand that it doesn't mean the species is the most like Charles Atlas, if you old enough to get the reference, and that all sorts of strategies for surviving on the beach - including eating poop, hiding, moving slowly, and even being extremely weak but having some other skill or quality that helps you survive is included in this term 'fittest'. Closer to fitting in, that being in great shape. Further it's really an odd phrase because it's a superlative. It's not just the fittest that survive in a species, though they will. And which is the fittest species?

I think maybe you don't understand...it's survival within each species, not necessarily the survival of different species relative to one another. Lions continue to survive as lions, if they're good lions; and cockroaches continue to survive as cockroaches, if they're good cockroaches. But I agree there's a confusion there: cockroaches don't turn into lions, no matter how many years one posits.

So it's not "the fittest species," but rather, "the fittest specimens within a species."

Yes, the religious right is appalled by Darwinianism in total, but that doesn't mean that they automatically reject the underlying idea of social darwinism.

Actually, it does. They reject the idea in total. It's absolutely contrary to respect for the poor and weak, and thus to the spirit of mercy and charity.

...other religous people focus on other parts of the Bible or other scriptures.

So you would mean Jews and Muslims are Social Darwinists, then?

I have my doubts, but I'd let them speak to that.

But why it would be "wrong," per se, in a secular, Evolutionary world is not clear. Why would survival of the fittest (or whatever next-best thing we want to call it) be the rule for all evolution, including human evolution up to recent, modern humans, and then quit there? That would need some explaining -- particularly if humans are simply evolved mammals like all the rest.

I am not arguing they are simply evolved mammals.

Darwinists decidedly would argue that. In fact, the whole payoff for the application of Darwinism to human beings is to get any thought of God out of the universe. It's to posit that human beings came into being without any Creator, as a result of purely material processes, through the path of evolution over time.

So then, they have the problem: why not "dance with the partner that brung ya." If survival of the fittest made us the top of the food chain, why would we suddenly abandon that? Or rather, why would we have to? Wouldn't it rather be the case that the same forces that made us the top mammal would be our friends in keeping us going on our evolutionary path? And would it even be possible to resist such an irresistible force as survival of the fittest, even if we thought we wanted to try?

Even to imagine we could puts human beings in a category different from all animals, invites the question, "Why us?" and ushers back in the possibility of a Creator...all ruining the Evolutionist's party.

That said, social mammals had a new idea, which works fairly well, it seems. Yes, they take care of each other, even weak members of the pack, allowing genes to move forward that might not have if the species was individualistic only.

No, that's not at all how it works. Ants are very "social" creatures, but each worker is totally disposable, individually. It's the hive that continues, while the individual worker is killed off. And chimps -- alleged to be "closest" to us -- hang out in troops, but kill each other viciously in order to get the privileges of reproduction or dominance.

These are not approximations of human morality at all. They're survival of the fittest. Period.

And the billions of years we are assured they have had to "evolve" have failed to produce even one chimp work of art, one gorilla law code, or one bonobo sage...they have, in fact, nothing like a "civilization" at all.

Who said anything about a civilization? They haven't been around for billions of years so I don't what that meant. [/quote]
Evolutionary theory says they've had, at the very least, millions of years to evolve into something "higher." But they never have. And given the vast (and always increasing timespans posited for them, then if they even had a 1,000 th of the potential of human beings, we should be seeing all kinds of evidence of chimp civilizations developing.

They have no culture. None. Just the usual rules of survival, albeit in an animal that lives in groups.
y response was to...

They often say that "survival of the fittest" is how we became the lovely, evolved things we are; but then they argue that Social Darwnism is immoral. How they manage both is a mystery to me.

First, everything is 'evolved'. My point was that unlike other species social mammals intraspecies and even to varying degrees between species do NOT simply go on individual power and domination.

Group "survival of the fittest isn't a moral stroke better than individual survival of the fittest. And drill down on all those group scenarious, and you find that survival still depends on the rising to the top of the dominant animals.

Yes, Darwinism entails survival of the fittest. It's the only mechanism posited for evolution. In groups or singly, that's the agency that's supposed to do all the work. So why shouldn't we practice it in human affairs?

In fact, there are those who, like Nietzsche, suppose we actually do. For him, morality was nothing but "will to power," disguised under another name. And what does "will to power" mean, but that the most powerful survive, reproduce, dominate, and control where human evolution goes? It's essentially the same game.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 1:46 am So it's not "the fittest species," but rather, "the fittest specimens within a species."

It's used to cover both species and individuals within species. I use the cockroach vs. lion to highlight the problems with a term like 'fit'. The other main problem with the term is it is less nuanced than natural selection.

Actually, it does. They reject the idea in total. It's absolutely contrary to respect for the poor and weak, and thus to the spirit of mercy and charity

I don't accept the generalization that the religious right is concerned with caring for the weak and the spirit of mercy.

...other religous people focus on other parts of the Bible or other scriptures.

So you would mean Jews and Muslims are Social Darwinists, then?

I would not class them as primarily social darwinists. I was saying that within the religious right of other religions there are also those who are defact social darwinists, even if they would immediately reject any label with the word 'darwin' in there somewhere.

But why it would be "wrong," per se, in a secular, Evolutionary world is not clear. Why would survival of the fittest (or whatever next-best thing we want to call it) be the rule for all evolution, including human evolution up to recent, modern humans, and then quit there? That would need some explaining -- particularly if humans are simply evolved mammals like all the rest.

I am not arguing they are simply evolved mammals.

Darwinists decidedly would argue that.

Yes, they do. I wasn't arguing it.

So then, they have the problem: why not "dance with the partner that brung ya." If survival of the fittest made us the top of the food chain, why would we suddenly abandon that?

But it didn't. Social mammals take care of the weak, share food, coorperation. They are not ubermenshes competing as isolated individuals, seeing every other member of their own species as competitors. So, evolution led to a lot of apex predators and certainly high up in the food chain species that do not behave intra-species along survival of the fittest individual terms.

And I already said that. So, any person believing in evolution can base their morals on that, if they need to. They can go, hey look how smart and powerful we are and we (and dolphins and elephants and wolves) tend not to kill same group members, some even avoid things like intergroup war altogether and they are doing great) If anything looking at different species approaches to thriving would allow choice. Give that social mammals tend to live a long time and the predators amongst them can fend off pretty much anything but other social mammals, it seems like cooperating, taking care of each other to varying degrees is a good thing.

Or rather, why would we have to? Wouldn't it rather be the case that the same forces that made us the top mammal would be our friends in keeping us going on our evolutionary path?

Well, it looks like we evolved from social mammals.

And would it even be possible to resist such an irresistible force as survival of the fittest, even if we thought we wanted to try?

Elephants do. Why not us? And since, as I have pointed out above, that is not the way social mammals interact intraspecies, certainly at the intra-group level, then why would we change????

Further if you are arguing that natural selection is somehow pressuring all our choices and we would have to fight against the tendencies, you are confused about causation. Natural selection leads to species and individuals with characterists that either benefit their adaption OR have a neutral effect on it. Perhaps being kind and empathetic is merely neutral.

But we have that as a part of our makeup also. So, it affects the way we interact with each other.

No contradiction with evolutionary theory.

Now some people could argue, and they have, that we should be more like komodo dragons, to make the best individuals and so on. How they would KNOW it would be better evolution-wise, I don't know.

But there is absolutely no reason to go against our nature, which includes the desire for community, connections to people and not just for mating, empathy, cooperative tendencies (like other social mammals). No reason in the sense that it somehow makes a darwinist scientist a hypocrite.

Even to imagine we could puts human beings in a category different from all animals, invites the question, "Why us?" and ushers back in the possibility of a Creator...all ruining the Evolutionist's party.

That's your beef with the darwinists.

That said, social mammals had a new idea, which works fairly well, it seems. Yes, they take care of each other, even weak members of the pack, allowing genes to move forward that might not have if the species was individualistic only.

No, that's not at all how it works. Ants are very "social" creatures, but each worker is totally disposable, individually. It's the hive that continues, while the individual worker is killed off.

So, I talk about social mammals and to counter the idea I have you mention ants. Ask a darwinist if we are closer to ants or social mammals.

These are not approximations of human morality at all. They're survival of the fittest. Period.

Actually I would say that the larger state communisms absolutely have insect like moralities.

Evolutionary theory says they've had, at the very least, millions of years to evolve into something "higher."

Natural selection entails that species may very well continue if what they are doing and what they are is working. It is possible that a species that is doing find will lead to a new species or will change its characteristics. But there is no inherent pressure to evolve to a higher species, as you call it, a term that I think is not in favor in current darwinism. It may happen that a species gains greater brain function and amongst the primates this happened in a number of species. With humans it hit a critical level where we could control our environments AND adapt to many. This gave us incredible advantages. Perhaps it will happen to another species, perhaps not. We would likely stand in the way of them doing that, and primates have not been around that long.

Group "survival of the fittest isn't a moral stroke better than individual survival of the fittest.

I think it is better, but it's certainly not enough for me. And look how Christians dealt with members of other groups throughout its history. The religion was used, often, to justify all sorts of intergroup killing, even between different parts of Christianity. The possibility of conversion ran a kind of internal countercurrent to this, so there were mixed approaches to other groups.

Yes, Darwinism entails survival of the fittest. It's the only mechanism posited for evolution. In groups or singly, that's the agency that's supposed to do all the work. So why shouldn't we practice it in human affairs?

Because we would be spitting in the face of the traits that evolution gave us and to other social mammals, as argued above. Also.....there are scientific reasons to not use that phrase....

Interpreted as expressing a biological theory
The phrase can also be interpreted to express a theory or hypothesis: that "fit" as opposed to "unfit" individuals or species, in some sense of "fit", will survive some test. Nevertheless, when extended to individuals it is a conceptual mistake, the phrase is a reference to the transgenerational survival of the heritable attributes; particular individuals are quite irrelevant. This becomes more clear when referring to Viral quasispecies, in survival of the flattest, which makes it clear to survive makes no reference to the question of even being alive itself; rather the functional capacity of proteins to carry out work.

Interpretations of the phrase as expressing a theory are in danger of being tautological, meaning roughly "those with a propensity to survive have a propensity to survive"; to have content the theory must use a concept of fitness that is independent of that of survival.[6][17]

Interpreted as a theory of species survival, the theory that the fittest species survive is undermined by evidence that while direct competition is observed between individuals, populations and species, there is little evidence that competition has been the driving force in the evolution of large groups such as, for example, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals. Instead, these groups have evolved by expanding into empty ecological niches.[18] In the punctuated equilibrium model of environmental and biological change, the factor determining survival is often not superiority over another in competition but ability to survive dramatic changes in environmental conditions, such as after a meteor impact energetic enough to greatly change the environment globally. The main land dwelling animals to survive the K-Pg impact 66 million years ago had the ability to live in tunnels, for example.[citation needed]

In 2010 Sahney et al. argued that there is little evidence that intrinsic, biological factors such as competition have been the driving force in the evolution of large groups. Instead, they cited extrinsic, abiotic factors such as expansion as the driving factor on a large evolutionary scale. The rise of dominant groups such as amphibians, reptiles, mammals and birds occurred by opportunistic expansion into empty ecological niches and the extinction of groups happened due to large shifts in the abiotic environment.[18]

While the phrase "survival of the fittest" is often used to mean "natural selection", it is avoided by modern biologists, because the phrase can be misleading. For example, survival is only one aspect of selection, and not always the most important. Another problem is that the word "fit" is frequently confused with a state of physical fitness. In the evolutionary meaning "fitness" is the rate of reproductive output among a class of genetic variants

In fact, there are those who, like Nietzsche, suppose we actually do. For him, morality was nothing but "will to power," disguised under another name. And what does "will to power" mean, but that the most powerful survive, reproduce, dominate, and control where human evolution goes? It's essentially the same game.

I think that's a poor reading of N, but that's beside the point. If I was arguing that no one believes in survival of the fittest or no one is a social darwinist then bringing up N would be at least a potential argument.

I know there are social darwinists. I can't see where I have given any other impression. I am sure there are some scientists who are, perhaps even some evolutionary biologists. If you find one here, I'll be happy to point out their faulty reasoning if they are arguing that survival of the fittest entails that we should not be merciful and help the weak. It would be ignoring what we know about a number of species to claim that it would enhance our species to state denying/suppressing inherited traits we have that contributed to all sorts of skills that lead to our domination of the world.

Communication gets vastly more complex where there is cooperation. They's want to deny our social and cooperative tendencies that led to incredibly nuanced language use, that led to ways to store and relay knowledge, the very kinds of knowledge those evolutionary biologists needed for all their studies.

They'd be being laughably idiotic and denying darwinism as far as our species and a number of others.

They'd look silly.

It's kinda outdated also. In the US it had it's heyday with the 'great' industrialists in the late 19th century. At least, formally it kind of outdated. You will hear poeple put forward such ideas, but generally not backing it with evolution. I mean, you get people chopping up ideas and coming to forums like this one, but someone out in the world having much effect promoting social darwinism? I don't see it.

I do think it is implicit in some forms of capitalism and coming back. I mean Bezos in practical terms is shoving things back toward late 19th century labor conditions. They are trying to isolate us and the destruction of the commons has had similar ideas behind it.

Anyway, feel free to PM me if someone tries to justify not caring for the weak because we should follow evolutionary practice (????) because it worked so well for us. It's a category error. Natural selection led to some very successful species, so far, that have inherited traits that include mercy and cooperation and not dog eat dog. If they can't see that, I'll do my best to help them.

Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 2:53 pm I don't accept the generalization that the religious right is concerned with caring for the weak and the spirit of mercy.

Well "the religious right" is basically a figment of Leftist collectivist imagination, not a real entity. You can tell that, because they group Islamists and Hassidim, Catholics and Quakers, Survivalists and Skinheads, Mormons and JW's, and everything else they don't like, and which has a vaguely "religious" flavour, into one group, and use one name to try to tar them all.

They're terribly unsubtle, these Leftists -- they use big labels for everything, regardless of the facts.

I was saying that within the religious right of other religions there are also those who are defact social darwinists,

"Defacto"?

Well, you'd better identify which ones you mean. It's certainly not at all true of Christians and Jews. And Islamists, Quakers, Mennonites, JW's, Mormons, many Catholics, and so on, don't believe in Darwnianism at all...so I can't really figure out who you're trying to pillory there. None of them has any affinity at all with the idea that society should be run by survival of the fittest.

I think you've just got your facts badly, badly wrong there.

But why it would be "wrong," per se, in a secular, Evolutionary world is not clear. Why would survival of the fittest (or whatever next-best thing we want to call it) be the rule for all evolution, including human evolution up to recent, modern humans, and then quit there? That would need some explaining -- particularly if humans are simply evolved mammals like all the rest.

I am not arguing they are simply evolved mammals.

Darwinists decidedly would argue that.

Yes, they do. I wasn't arguing it.

Well, there's your Social Darwnists. They're the Randians, the Spencerians, the Materialists, the Evolutionists, the secular Libertarian set, perhaps....none of them is even remotely "religious" by conventional definition of that term...although I would suggest they are actually "religious" in some very weird ways.

You'd do better to call them "the secular right," such as they are. I still have no idea who, among the putatively "religious" you could be talking about.

So then, they have the problem: why not "dance with the partner that brung ya." If survival of the fittest made us the top of the food chain, why would we suddenly abandon that?

But it didn't. Social mammals take care of the weak, share food, coorperation.

Ummm...no, no they don't. Do you know anything about animals?

The weak die. Nor do they "cooperate" or "share." Those are value terms, and animals know no values. They just do what their instincts compel them to do, whether it's for the hive or for themselves. They don't have a stitch of morality about it.

... any person believing in evolution can base their morals on that, if they need to.

Any person who bases their "morals" on chimp instincts would be a totally blackguard.

And would it even be possible to resist such an irresistible force as survival of the fittest, even if we thought we wanted to try?

Elephants do.

They don't. They take care of their own, in herds. To all comers, they are quite vicious and dangerous. They'll even kill other animals just "for fun" or out of any perceived threat, whether real or not. And if they think you're a threat, they'll stop your car flat.

Have you ever actually been in the wild, with elephants? I have.

Natural selection leads to species and individuals with characterists that either benefit their adaption OR have a neutral effect on it.

No, Darwin was quite explicit on that point: if any adaptation does not immediately produce a definite survival advantage for the organism, evolution is "blind" to that feature, he said. And that's his wording.

So evolution cannot "select" for any feature that is not a definite survival advantage. It cannot even "see" anything that is not, so cannot "select" for it or "prefer" it to an entity without that mutation.

But there is absolutely no reason to go against our nature,

Why is our "nature" not every bit as vicious as that of the chimps or elephants, then? By all rights, it ought to be.

Even to imagine we could puts human beings in a category different from all animals, invites the question, "Why us?" and ushers back in the possibility of a Creator...all ruining the Evolutionist's party.

That's your beef with the darwinists.

No, that's my pointing to the incoherencies in the Theory of Evolution. And that's only one of many.

These are not approximations of human morality at all. They're survival of the fittest. Period.

Actually I would say that the larger state communisms absolutely have insect like moralities.

Well, that's a real condemnation on them. Because ants, or bees, or termites are not "moral" in any sense at all. To them, if they think about it at all, "workers" are utterly disposable to the survival of the queen...who is only instrumental to a survival of the species of which they are not even conceptually aware.

If that's all the moral values underlying Communism, then it is extremely debased, immoral thinking that is driving them. They're ants, bees or termites, morally speaking.

... there is no inherent pressure to evolve to a higher species

Actually, the whole theory requires that there is.

Unless pond-scum are somehow mysteriously compelled to transform into fish and amphibians, and fish and amphibians are moved on into becoming birds and human beings, the whole theory's defunct.

And the fact that there is not even one example of observed "macro-evolution" from species to species doesn't deter them a bit. They just insist, "the timeframe's too long," and the complete absence of smooth progressions of "missing links" between the species is going to turn out to be explained by a later theory...they hope.

...look how Christians dealt with members of other groups throughout its history.

Say again...who?

How many Quaker massacres were there? Where are the Mennonite wars? How many Anabaptist pogroms?

In fact, there are those who, like Nietzsche, suppose we actually do. For him, morality was nothing but "will to power," disguised under another name. And what does "will to power" mean, but that the most powerful survive, reproduce, dominate, and control where human evolution goes? It's essentially the same game.

I think that's a poor reading of N,

Say why. Why can an "ubermensch" not win by letting "Devil take the hindmost," or even by active killing? Show me where Nietzsche guards us against such an interpretation.

I do think it is implicit in some forms of capitalism and coming back.

Social Darwinism, you mean? Perhaps, but I think the explanation is much simpler than that.

They're not ideologues, these guys: they only have an interest in ideas to the extent that they offer a chance to manipulate the masses and seize control of things. Bezos et al are simply greedy and power hungry, and are keen to use Global Socialism to gain monopolistic control of everybody. It's Socialism for everybody else, they say, but always raw profit-motive for them. So they pick up an drop ideologies as they serve their turn. And Socialist dopes follow them, blithely trusting that these super-rich megalomaniacs have finally "seen the Socialist light" and are joining their team.

They're going to be terribly surprised when they end up with their new caste of global Stalins. And that's coming, for sure.

I think that oughts only make sense as hypothetical imperatives, and that oughts stem from our values. For instance, if I value property, then I ought not to steal. Some of the hairiness comes in when we consider that our values come in hierarchies: I value property for instance, but I value life more. If a truly starving person were to steal some food, I'd probably look the other way despite it being true that I value property.

I think that some hard version of doxastic voluntarism is false: I don't think we consciously choose our values any more than we could consciously choose what we're convinced by. If someone were to tell me there's an invisible dragon in their garage, it's not up to my conscious decision whether I believe that claim or not: I'll find that I can't help but to either be convinced or, more likely in this case, feel skeptical about the claim no matter how much I consciously will myself to lean one direction or the other. Likewise, I don't think I'm capable of changing what I value by some sort of conscious decision: I can't just suddenly stop valuing what I value, or to start valuing something I don't.

So oughts make sense as hypothetical imperatives built on top of values. If we ask, "ought we to have that value?" we begin a regress that can go through several microcosms before hitting some value foundation that we didn't consciously choose: for instance, if I value life and altruism, then I ought to help make sure hungry people are fed. Well why ought I have those values? I think that I just do: some combination of evolutionary history (nature) and my upbringing and circumstances (nurture). I don't think we can say that we "ought" to have particular values unless we just make more hypothetical imperatives.

...in the irony void between Mr Can's ears:

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 4:49 pmThey're terribly unsubtle, these Leftists -- they use big labels for everything, regardless of the facts.

Astro Cat wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 1:42 amI think that some hard version of doxastic voluntarism is false: I don't think we consciously choose our values any more than we could consciously choose what we're convinced by.

Schopenhauer nailed it when in reference to free will he claimed that we can do as we please; we just can't choose what pleases us. Skipping forward a century, in some ways the most influential book of our time was Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Like most great works, it wasn't created in a vacuum; Kuhn cited Ludwik Fleck and Michael Polanyi for example. Pivotal in the shift from modernism to post-modernism, it was pretty much the nail in the coffin for any belief that theories, scientific or otherwise, are objective. This has emboldened nutjobs who take it to mean that all theories are equally valid; the irony being that they more often than not also want to insist that their pet fruitloopery is the (frequently capitalised) Truth. The data is what it is (are what they are, for purists) there isn't any ought about interpretation. If there is an imperative, it is that one ought at least to look at the data, and not take any conclusion too seriously, but we know there is a tendency to choose the data that supports what we are already convinced of.

Astro Cat wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 1:42 amWell why ought I have those values? I think that I just do: some combination of evolutionary history (nature) and my upbringing and circumstances (nurture).

You just have to look at a map to know that's true.

Reading that Sapiens book by Harari, the little stories we make up about the future, how things could be, how things ought to be seems like a pretty potent capacity in humans. All those little stories do clash sometimes, like the narrative in the OP, that everyone ought to have roughly the same standard isnt the only one, and there are aplethoria of other objections than the social darwinism too. But one have to say, that the guys between Cromwell/Hobbes and Marx made an impact on the oughting that pretty much still holds.

uwot wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:13 am

Astro Cat wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 1:42 amI think that some hard version of doxastic voluntarism is false: I don't think we consciously choose our values any more than we could consciously choose what we're convinced by.

Schopenhauer nailed it when in reference to free will he claimed that we can do as we please; we just can't choose what pleases us.

Do you REALLY feel that TRAPPED in Life?

uwot wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:13 am Skipping forward a century, in some ways the most influential book of our time was Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

When you say, "in some ways the MOST influential book of our times was ...", are you referring to just "you", and some "others", or are you referring to EVERY one, and what does the phras or term, "in our times" actually refer to, EXACTLY?

uwot wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:13 am Like most great works, it wasn't created in a vacuum; Kuhn cited Ludwik Fleck and Michael Polanyi for example. Pivotal in the shift from modernism to post-modernism, it was pretty much the nail in the coffin for any belief that theories, scientific or otherwise, are objective.

Was there EVER a time when a human being BELIEVED that ANY 'theory', 'assumption', or 'guess' was 'objective'?

uwot wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:13 am This has emboldened nutjobs who take it to mean that all theories are equally valid;

Has absolutely ANY one EVER thought that absolutely ALL 'theories' are equally valid?

If yes, then WHO, EXACTLY?

uwot wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:13 am the irony being that they more often than not also want to insist that their pet fruitloopery is the (frequently capitalised) Truth.

What does this, (supposedly frequently capitalised) word 'Truth' mean or refer to, EXACTLY?

uwot wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:13 am The data is what it is (are what they are, for purists) there isn't any ought about interpretation. If there is an imperative, it is that one ought at least to look at the data, and not take any conclusion too seriously, but we know there is a tendency to choose the data that supports what we are already convinced of.

VERY, VERY True.

Just LOOK AT how many people CHOOSE to take the 'redshift data' to, LOL, MEAN that the Universe IS EXPANDING, and BEGAN.

Which, OBVIOUSLY, they think or BELIEVE 'backs up and supports ' what they were ALREADY 'convinced' of anyway. That is; The existence of the origins of the Universe.

uwot wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:13 am

Astro Cat wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 1:42 amWell why ought I have those values? I think that I just do: some combination of evolutionary history (nature) and my upbringing and circumstances (nurture).

You just have to look at a map to know that's true.

Age wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:49 am

uwot wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:13 am...we know there is a tendency to choose the data that supports what we are already convinced of.

VERY, VERY True.

Shit! Shit! Shit! Age agrees with something I wrote.

Age wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:49 amJust LOOK AT how many people CHOOSE to take the 'redshift data' to, LOL, MEAN that the Universe IS EXPANDING, and BEGAN.

Phew! Panic over.

uwot wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 11:43 am

Age wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:49 am

uwot wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:13 am...we know there is a tendency to choose the data that supports what we are already convinced of.

VERY, VERY True.

Shit! Shit! Shit! Age agrees with something I wrote.

Were you NOT AWARE of the other times?

uwot wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 11:43 am

Age wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 9:49 amJust LOOK AT how many people CHOOSE to take the 'redshift data' to, LOL, MEAN that the Universe IS EXPANDING, and BEGAN.

Phew! Panic over.

Harbal wrote: ↑Sun Jul 17, 2022 8:11 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Jul 16, 2022 12:48 am
Nietzsche was a weasel. There can be no "values" in a Nietzschean world, other than purely arbitrary ones. So there's no way to defend against an "attack on our values,"

I can't see how values can be anything other than arbitrary.

Hello, IC, btw.

Not necessarily arbitrary - they can be, and are personal, cultural, historical.
That is one reason why IC is wrong (again), Nietzsche was attacking a specific type of value, with HIS OWN set of values.
Nietzsche has values, else he could not attack other values.