10k Philosophy challenge

[Immanuel Can]

In a democracy, the law tends to reflect the attitude of its members,...

Correction: in a two-party democracy, it reflects SOME of the attitudes of the majority of people who show up to vote, and SOME of it is just stuff they're prepared to tolerate in order to get something else. And in a three-or-more party democracy, the law reflects only the will of a minority, even among those willing to show up to vote and accept the package of whatever their party is offering.

For example, only 60% voted in the last two elections in England. Of those, presumably around half voted for the other party. That means that the will of only 30% of the population is reflected in the laws, even if every voter were totally happy with everything the winning party offered -- which is highly unlikely to have been true, you'd have to admit.

Which is to say, regardless of what laws get made, we have no way of saying that the majority will is being reflected. Rather, the maths suggest it's a vast minority that ever gets the laws it thinks it wants.

For if we say that there can be any "immoral laws" in the history of the world, including such things as Sharia, or slave laws, or laws the keep despots in power, then "moral" must be transcendent relative to "law" -- it must be, in some way, bigger, better, more important, more decisive, more telling of something than "law" can be.

What is it, then, that "morality" is, that is above "law"?

Ideally, ethics and morality should be in the foundations of law, which tend to be below, rather than above.

But that's just religion,..

So you say. God says it's universal truth, regardless of one's "religion."

But that's just religion.

I don't really think it is morally problematic when conducted within the rules and conditions that have been set out for it.

Now you're talking contradictions. Is it, or is it not "morally problematic"?

If abortion is performed within a certain time limit, I don't find it morally problematic,[/quote]
Exactly what is that time limit, and why is it unproblematic before, but suddenly problematic ten seconds after that line?

I can, however, see how it could be considered morally problematic by those who hold certain beliefs; like the belief that all human life is sacred, for example.

So you don't regard life as sacred?

Define sacred,

Let's say, "Deserving of our respect, preservation and defense." That's a simple and secular definition.

Do you even regard it as valuable?

Valuable in what way?

You tell me.

People sometimes find they are pregnant...

"Oh, mysterious process! How did this happen? Suddenly, I am afflicted with baby, and know not how this miracle has been wrought upon me!"

When people engage in sex without taking precautions

So you suddenly discovered how it happens? Well done, you.

In 99% of the cases, they did it. They chose it. Now they want to murder in order to get out of what they chose.

I have no sympathy with those people.

So you have "no sympathy" with 99% of abortions, then?

[Age]

I agree with you about the unlikelihood of gods, but not about anything to do with morality being baked into the fabric of reality. It might be baked into the human psyche, but, in reality, I don't think morality extends beyond human sentiment.

I don't think it's baked into the human psyche at all. I think we have a kind of proto-morality as the result of our evolutionary history, but the way of getting beyond that is through reasoned analysis, rather than looking deep inside ourselves for answers.

Well it seems to me that we come into the world with a capacity for having moral attitudes; we are hard wired for it, you might say, but the attitudes themselves are not hard wired. We seem to accumulate those as we go through life, but I disagree that reasoned analysis has much, if anything, to do with the process. We pick up our moral attitudes from our parents, and from our society in general, without even questioning them, although we may well do that later in life. I'm pretty old, and way back when I was young, sex outside marriage and homosexually were morally wrong as far as my society was concerned, but that is no longer the case.

Why?

Who, exactly, is saying what is morally Right, or Wrong, in Life, here?

And, what has that one, or those ones, basing their changeable moral views on exactly?

I wouldn't say that is because we subjected the matter to rational analysis, but quite the opposite; we just came to realise that there was no rational basis for that attitude towards those things.

What has 'sex', itself, even got to do what with 'morality', itself, that is; with 'what 'should' be done'?

And think of things like incest, where there is a rational reason for inhibiting it. Most of us avoid it because we have an emotional aversion to it, not at all because of any rational reason not to engage in it.

Does an 'emotional aversion' to incest exist because it was an also learned from society 'morally wrong' as well?

If yes, then incest might also become so-called 'morally right', as far as a particular society is concerned. Just like you say sex before marriage and homosexuality became, and are only 'now', in the days when this is being written, 'morally right', well in some societies anyway.

Maybe I'm overlooking something, and you can explain the part that reasoned analysis plays in morality.

[Dubious]

Nietzsche failed to be as thorough, consistent and hard-headed about morality as he intended to be.

Coming from you who believes without question in the bible or that one must believe in Jesus to be saved, the challenges and questions which Nietzsche presents are to be held against him by a theist who remains constant, consistent, virtually frozen in his beliefs employing every kind of lie and absurdity to defend.

Here's a quote from someone - one of the very few - Nietzsche held in reverence

Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds - Emerson

Welcome to the hobgoblin club!

"Transvaluation of values." If you'd read Nietzsche, you'd have seen that phrase often, and wouldn't make that mistake. And by "life affirming" he only meant "the will to power." As he wrote,

"[Anything which] is a living and not a dying body... will have to be an incarnate will to power, it will strive to grow, spread, seize, become predominant - not from any morality or immorality but because it is living and because life simply is will to power... 'Exploitation'... belongs to the essence of what lives, as a basic organic function; it is a consequence of the will to power, which is after all the will to life."

(from Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil, s.259, Walter Kaufmann transl.)

Indeed, let's examine this statement! Every word in this quote - contrary to the way you maliciously interpret it - is absolutely true. Life in both its naked simplicity and complexity...and not from any morality or immorality perspective, is precisely a will to power which in nature qualifies as will to life. The will to survive, to spread, is what drives evolution forward, regardless of whatever morality is mandated by the civilization one inherits. This was already well understood by a host of thinkers at the time Nietzsche wrote it.

It's so ironic and beyond hypocrisy that the will to power which is after all the will to life is condemned by you who hopes for eternal life by believing in something as inane that one must believe in Jesus to qualify.

Would you negate this as the ultimate will to life on your part? I'm sure you would but only by the most artifical separation in justification of your own Will to Life after your life is over.

More down to earth, that you, who so denigrated Biden because he stumbled a few times would, if you could, vote for Trump who is the very epitome or, better said, a disgusting distortion of any human striving...who in his lust for power declares openly that if elected, elections won't be necessary any more; this makes him guilty of intended treason and you as being the leading Führer of all hypocrits on the site.

That's his new dogma, his new arbitrary "morality," imposed on everybody as if it were nothing but the blunt truth.

Again, the ONLY reason you read Nietzsche is to distort him. Only through your own sheer dishonesty do you attempt to reinterpret him. One thing Nietzsche categorically did not believe in is anything named or qualified as a blunt truth. For him truth is, was and remained perspectival; not fixed or anchored to any single, silly volume which forces truth to become absolute or objective, meaning impervious to any further examination; such would be sacrilege of the first order!

Your assertion is once again, a complete lie which if collected, would be equivalent to at least half the size of the bible you profess to unconditionally believe in.

It's nothing like what you call "Perspectivism." It has no place for rivals.

That's correct, it has no rivals or easily yield to them. Why is that? Because N's perspectivism on morals is based on its morphology as denoted by its genealogy, The Genealogy of Morals to be exact of the people and civilization which developed it; in that sense it becomes the organic expression of a people developed through time, which has no place for rivals or critique of any kind, as so magisterially stated and made precedent - certainly so in the West - by being listed as the First of the Ten Commandments...

I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

[Immanuel Can]

Life in both its naked simplicity and complexity...and not from any morality or immorality perspective, is precisely a will to power which in nature qualifies as will to life. The will to survive, to spread, is what drives evolution forward, regardless of whatever morality is mandated by the civilization one inherits.

And there's no imperative that human beings should "drive evolution," and no "forward" for it to go. Because evolution is supposed to do its own "driving" and "forward" is a value judgment. So not even in that would pseudo-Nietzscheanism of your kind be consistent.

For him truth is, was and remained perspectival;

You're incorrectly imagining Nietzsche as the sort of relativist you'd prefer to be, I suppose. But he wasn't that. If you'd read him, you'd know he was not okay with some "perspectives," and all on board with others. He was happy, for example, to invoke things like occult, Buddhist and Nordic mythological themes, but dead against what he called "Judeo-Christianity." Not a very open-minded position, perhaps; but not hard to verify.

As for the rest of the nonsense and rhetoric, sorry: can't be bothered. Life is too short. I've left in only what was worthy of notice.

[Harbal]

So you don't regard life as sacred?

Define sacred,

Let's say, "Deserving of our respect, preservation and defense." That's a simple and secular definition.

The question still isn't specific enough to answer.

When people engage in sex without taking precautions

So you suddenly discovered how it happens? Well done, you.

It seems so obvious that I assumed we were taking it for granted. I don't see what difference it makes.

So you have "no sympathy" with 99% of abortions, then?

Shouldn't you be asking if I have no sympathy with 99% of murders?

[Immanuel Can]

Define sacred,

Let's say, "Deserving of our respect, preservation and defense." That's a simple and secular definition.

The question still isn't specific enough to answer.

You'll have to explain why not. It's not obvious to me.

When people engage in sex without taking precautions

So you suddenly discovered how it happens? Well done, you.

It seems so obvious that I assumed we were taking it for granted. I don't see what difference it makes.

It's a choice. People know exactly what they are doing, and exactly what the results are. They just want to escape the responsibility of the choice, and are prepared to kill in order to do it. So "choice" is not at issue: responsibility is.

So you have "no sympathy" with 99% of abortions, then?

Shouldn't you be asking if I have no sympathy with 99% of murders?

Your wording is fine. But the 99% is the premeditated murders by women of their pre-born infants, not general murders, of course.

[Dubious]

Life in both its naked simplicity and complexity...and not from any morality or immorality perspective, is precisely a will to power which in nature qualifies as will to life. The will to survive, to spread, is what drives evolution forward, regardless of whatever morality is mandated by the civilization one inherits.

And there's no imperative that human beings should "drive evolution," and no "forward" for it to go. Because evolution is supposed to do its own "driving" and "forward" is a value judgment. So not even in that would pseudo-Nietzscheanism of your kind be consistent.

For him truth is, was and remained perspectival;

You're incorrectly imagining Nietzsche as the sort of relativist you'd prefer to be, I suppose. But he wasn't that. If you'd read him, you'd know he was not okay with some "perspectives," and all on board with others. He was happy, for example, to invoke things like occult, Buddhist and Nordic mythological themes, but dead against what he called "Judeo-Christianity." Not a very open-minded position, perhaps; but not hard to verify.

As for the rest of the nonsense and rhetoric, sorry: can't be bothered. Life is too short. I've left in only what was worthy of notice.

It's your modus operandi to resemble nothing more than a coward whenever it's in your interest not to reply using your perennial, self-righteous excuse that life is too short and the arguments made not worthy of your notice. This is not an ad hom however much you would like it to be; it's a statement of fact, evident in almost every post you make. Period!

Not least, you hate to be reminded that what you so often protest against is what you engage in yourself. Are you really so blind, stupid and ignorant as not to notice this persistent bad habit of yours consistently recurring?

Those who've made a philosophical investigation of Nietzsche have obviously scrutinized his writing in great detail; none of them - and I've read quite a few, including Safranski - agree with your intentionally distorted repugnant views. After all, you hate him, which you're also too cowardly to admit. But what can one expect from one as hateful as you who thinks of Nietzsche as a weasel and still qualifies him as anti-semitic though long debunked!

As much as you hate or attempt to denigrate him, whatever others assume to be right or wrong about him, his reputation as one of the most infuential of all modern thinkers is firmly established. For the likes of you attempting to draw against Nietzsche is akin to a blind man attempting to draw against a sharp-shooter. Actually, the comparison stands vis-à-vis anyone who can advance an argument against the kindergarten beliefs you so fervently endorse being not in the least hard to do.

He was happy, for example, to invoke things like occult, Buddhist and Nordic mythological themes.

No idea who you're referring to. Nietzsche was a self-proclaimed thorough-going materialist. Wagner presented some of these themes in his music dramas, but N as is well known, separated from him and criticized him severely for the rest of his life. But that's another long story.

Really! Where do you get this garbage because it sure as hell isn't Nietzsche...unless you can prove it's not just another gratuitous insertion of no merit - extremely unlikely. I doubt you would even try, though I invite you to go for it. That would be interesting!

If truth be told, the ones he invoked most often were the ancient Greeks of whom he had deep knowledge. His reputation as a brilliant philologist was indisputable.

To close. I can't think of anything more degradingly occult than believing that some Jew, who mostly travelled the back roads of Palestine, died for our sins and furthermore, is going to save your soul because you believed in him. If it sounds absurd it's only because it manifestly is!

The upshot, which never ceases to prove itself, is that you, without question, remain the most prejudiced, perverse thinker and liar on the entire forum. Can one believe such a person to even be a "thinker" based on what "thinking" actually denotes!

[promethean75]

U take that name out of your mouth, blue bottled priest!

Tell em, Dub.

[Harbal]

Let's say, "Deserving of our respect, preservation and defense." That's a simple and secular definition.

The question still isn't specific enough to answer.

You'll have to explain why not.

Only time will tell if you are right about that. We'll see.

It seems so obvious that I assumed we were taking it for granted. I don't see what difference it makes.

It's a choice.

Exactly, and all I am saying is that abortion should also be a choice.

Shouldn't you be asking if I have no sympathy with 99% of murders?

Your wording is fine. But the 99% is the premeditated murders by women of their pre-born infants, not general murders, of course.

Murder on the NHS is quite a progressive move, when you think about it.

[Immanuel Can]

As for the rest of the nonsense and rhetoric, sorry: can't be bothered. Life is too short. I've left in only what was worthy of notice.

This is not an ad hom however much you would like it to be; it's a statement of fact, evident in almost every post you make.

The above is not an ad hom...that much is right. It's about your content, which isn't philosophical, and isn't challenging on any level. I can't be bothered. If you ever up you game, maybe I'll talk to you. But this...it's not worth my time. Too much ranting, not enough thinking.

[Dubious]

As for the rest of the nonsense and rhetoric, sorry: can't be bothered. Life is too short. I've left in only what was worthy of notice.

This is not an ad hom however much you would like it to be; it's a statement of fact, evident in almost every post you make.

The above is not an ad hom...that much is right. It's about your content, which isn't philosophical, and isn't challenging on any level. I can't be bothered. If you ever up you game, maybe I'll talk to you. But this...it's not worth my time. Too much ranting, not enough thinking.

You're as effective in thinking and noticing your own contradictions as a rancid can of spam. Not once have you come up with a contextually derived quote by Nietzsche proving your point, which invariably is meant only to denigrate and distort...the one thing you're consistently outstanding at and provably true whether in relation to him or anything else the bible compels you to nullify by whatever duplicitous means available.

Let the others decide on their own in whatever way they like who's most guilty of not doing enough thinking or best in thinking up means to avoid responding to any inconvenient argument made against your mostly absurd and malicious presuppositions.

Your thorough lack of logic replaced by all your extreme prejudices and lies precludes any kind of intelligent conversation with you.

[attofishpi]

Beautiful, you're still my favourite atheist dubious.

[promethean75]

Our atheists are too pious. So. I'm gonna need Dubs to curse the lord and commit some kind of abomination so i can be sure.

And no, arguing with veg doesn't count.

[Dubious]

Beautiful, you're still my favourite atheist dubious.

Muchas gracias!

I figure being 3/4 atheist doesn't exclude me from being lovable. I'm just a big, old sentimental teddy bear at heart. Sob!

You have no idea how many boxes of face wipes I go through in a week just listening to this song...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EHVi1Rk_Tc

Double Sob!

[Age]

Well, empathy clearly isn't reliable, either. It can go wrong very easily. So you'd have to conclude, then, that there really is no such "way to evaluate."

I don't really know what "reliable" and "go wrong" mean in reference to empathy,

I think you do. You know, for example, that the women empathetic to a Charles Manson, or the people who have empathy for Che Guevera and run around wearing t-shirts of a man who shot Cuban dissidents into ditches, you know that empathy has gone wrong.

you appear to not understand what the 'empathy' word actually means, and actually refers to, exactly.

Sure. But I can. Because I believe we can evaluate that by "Thou shalt not murder."

In which case you have lost the element of rationality, because abortion isn't murder when carried out legally.

It's never "legal" in an ultimate sense.[/quote]

The word 'legal' refers to what you human beings make and decide is 'lawful', or 'unlawful'. So, in the 'ultimate sense' abortion is legal if you human beings make it legal, and lawful, obviously.

It's always against the Law of God, even among those who refuse to recognize that Law.[/quote]

Is the ending of life through an electric chair or an execution against some so-called 'law of God' as well, to you?

Also, where are you getting 'your version' of some so-called 'law of God' from, exactly?

Obviously 'your source' is different to 'others sources', so what makes you believe that you have the 'actual True and Right source'?

And it's against conscience, too...as the abortionists own rhetoric so often makes clear, when they wince at being told the details of what they're doing, or when they claim it needs to be "safe, legal and rare." Why "rare," if it's such a wonderful thing? And why do abortionists never want women to see the baby they're considering killing?

Do you consider "executionists" more or less the same as the newly formed name and label "abortionists"?

If no, then why not?

And, why can you not back up and support your personal beliefs here?

After all, the doctor will show you an x-ray of your cancerous kidney or your broken kneebone, but never a picture of your own preborn child. But they know what it really is. We all know. As Jay Budziszewski the ethicist has put it, "those who pretend not to are merely playing pretend, and doing it badly."

Human laws can't make evil good.

And, you cannot make your own personal perception of 'evil' reasoned, logical, ration, nor valid here. As you will continue to show and prove.

That's only to make an evil law...of which there are many and well known instances.

That's exactly what happens. That's just description.

But a description chosen specifically for its emotive quality,

No; just for its accuracy and clarity. There's a lot of smoke plown around the topic to hide what it is. I'm just calling a spade a spade, to use the old poker term.

I can't speak for you. What would move some people, though, is a belief in justice and fairness. But behind that would have to be more, of course.

But if you could even conceive of things like justice and fairness without having a sense of empathy in the first place, and I'm not sure that one could, why would you actually care about them?

Maybe you wouldn't. Many people don't. But they know they're wrong, too. We all know what fairness and justice look like: a toddler, deprived of her toy, will scream "No fair!" And toddlers are notoriously unempathetic creatures, as you'll know from raising a child.

If absolutely anyone has this sort of view, then they do not know what 'empathy' actually is, nor actually has empathy here either.

What this one has just said and claimed here is a prime example of one who has been indoctrinated into , and with, a specific set of beliefs, from one very specific theology, which, contradictory, goes, exactly, against God, Itself.