Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Sep 01, 2018 3:21 pm
Veritas Aequitas wrote: ↑Sat Sep 01, 2018 3:51 am
Do you want to be used as a means fundamentally by anyone?
"Want"? "Want"?
"Want" has nothing to do with it. What we
want, and what we're going to
get are two very different things, if we have no grounds for morality.
I don't think you would, so is any other human who is conscious of this normal expectation. [except perverts].
Thus the Golden Rules applies.
You mean, "Because you want not to be used as a means, therefore you owe it to do to your neighbour what you would want done to you?" Is that really the logic you are advocating? Because that's what you just said, taken literally. And pretty obviously, it's not logical.
There's nothing about the fact that I don't like being used that makes it obligatory for me to be kind to my neighbour. If I'm strong and he's weak, and it suits me to do anything at all to him, who is there to say I cannot?
So the GR needs grounding. You can't just take it for granted. And it's certainly not grounded in my "wants," or self-evident from my dislike of being "used."
I have stated before, the GR needs grounding.
Wanting as different from we get is off topic in this case.
I asked, do you [personally] want to be used as a mean by others?
Since you do not get the point and deflected, here is what the point is;
Do you want to be say, a prostitute for a pimp?
Do you want to be a suicide bomber for a a group of evil prone Muslims?
Your answer to the above?
Naturally there will be perverts who will answer yes to the above question but the majority will likely to answer no.
The question is why should the very obvious maxim 'Humans should Not to be used as a mean but is an end to itself' be a universal. That in principle I agree should be supported by some grounding. But I am not going int the details.
As I had stated I do not want to go into the details.
I know why. As the saying goes, "The devil is in the details."
Note I agree in Principle [a hypothesis at present] we need grounding for any universal maxim.
Why? Why are Darwin, Nietzsche, Huxley and Rand all wrong? How do we ground this claim that all human beings are owed "dignity," whatever that is?
Kant went into great depth on this.
He did not. He never grounded that version of the CI in anything.
Have you read Kant fully and thoroughly to make the above judgment?
Kant did ground his CI on a deistic [btw not theistic] God and his extensive arguments are sufficient for the purpose. I am using other fields of knowledge to add reinforcement to Kant's model.
You can't "insult" a thing that hasn't been established by being grounded. And in point of fact, if Darwin et al. are correct, then I maximize my dignity -- to borrow Nietzsche's words, I act like one of the "übermensch" -- when I disregard the moral whining of the weak and act on my "will to power," which is the real source of my "dignity," and that of the human race in general, according to him.
Why are these guys wrong?
It goes something like this, all humans has basic and generic qualities, i.e. basic human nature.
Thus if you do not the basic respect for human nature which is the same for every human, then you are insulting yourself.
No, you're not. You're insulting
them.
But even if you were "insulting yourself," by some sort of vague implication, who says that's wrong to do? It's not obvious why you couldn't.
Equality isn't a self-evident thing either. What's evident is differences. And that's why things like discrimination are such hot topics today -- because everybody can see differences, not equality, but a whole bunch of us want equality anyway. So we have to argue for it, because it's not at all obvious.
In way, if you think basic human nature is shit [or whatever negative or derogatory], then you are accepting you are shit. No normal person would think would accept that.
No. All you're saying is that you think you're better than they are. And lots of people think such things.
This is why the concept of 'dehumanizing' others is such a serious moral issue that can end up with catastrophic consequences.
It can. But rarely do those consequences fall on everyone equally. Usually, there are winners and losers in that game, which is why the "winners" like it and the "losers" don't. But Darwin, Rand, Nietzsche et al. think that's just a fact of nature. There are winners and losers in the game of "survival of the fittest" too -- and in their view, there's nothing more natural than that.
If you do not recognize your own basic human dignity, then you are accepting yourself and others as equivalent animal, thus human beasts.
This is how humans are driven to commit terrible evils from minor to the most extreme of genocides.
Why should it be a universal maxim, that would require proper grounding abstracted from empirical evidences so that it is objective.
You cannot deny both theists and non-theists contribute to charity in varying circumstances.
But to wildly different degrees and quantities. Having lived in the so-called "Developing World," (which is still suffering, more than "developing," I can tell you), I can also tell you that if we relied on Atheist charitable work for foreign aid, NGOs, medical initiatives, water projects, food programs or educational and business development, there would be none in a very short time. Almost all the charitable work is done by religions organizations or religious individuals. Atheists, with a few laudable exceptions, are generally not massive givers.
And why should they be? After all, in their view it's survival of the fittest. So charity is quite optional. Some do it -- and some are even very generous -- but the vast majority simply do not, and think themselves none the worse for not doing it.
The relevant point here is both theists and non-theists do contribute to charity.
You admit to being obviously bias as confining your data to the 'developing world'. Surely you could be more intellect responsible to do some intellectual exploration.
There is one group of non-theists, i.e. Buddhists who are very active into charity in the East.
Even then what you have missed out in the West is that non-theists are only about 1-10% of the population in the West. That is why you hear mostly of religious doing charity work. Again your thinking competence is frail. This is not ad hominen but relevant to whatever views you contribute in this forum.
Note this counter,
https://ieet.org/index.php/IEET2/more/p ... er20111125
Atheist Charities Are More Generous than Religious Charities ...
Charitable behavior gets big perks in the afterlife, according to Christian and Islamic theology. Philanthropy, in these creeds, is a highly profitable long-term investment, a down payment on ecstatic immortality. Quite the bargain!
But atheists? No heaven awaits them. No pearly gates, eager virgins, harping angels, fluffy clouds, or succulent oasis. No reward whatsoever. Atheists have no faith, no expectation of benefit from a deity. So, atheists are probably selfish, right? Pitiless, parsimonious. Totally stingy misers, not passing a penny off to the poor…correct?
WRONG! Atheists, non-believers, secular humanists, skeptics—the whole gamut of the godless have emerged in recent years as inarguably the most generous benefactors on the globe. That’s right. Hordes of heretics are the world’s biggest damned philanthropists. Both individually and in groups, heathen infidels are topping the fundraising charts.
The above mentioned Bill Gates whom I believe is a non-theists whilst his wife in involved with the Catholics.
A Big List of Atheist Charities
http://thaumaturgical.com/a-big-list-of ... charities/#
One point is theists contribute to Charity in a very conditional circumstances, i.e. under a degree of compulsion, peer pressure and a threat of hell and to gain merit to go the heaven with eternal life.
