Which I acknowledge a few times in that post.
I just happened to have derived my own particular prejudices given the life I lived as a left-wing political activist. Nearly 25 years.
Can we really relegate that to the past? (noting the past tense in the description)
But again if objectivism is a problem and a kind of fanaticism, then clearly indicating that there are objectivisms on all sides and not switching between posts that are like leftist/liberal objectivist post and posts decrying any form of objectivism would be clearer.
But I would certainly not argue today that moral nihilism reflects the most rational ethical assessment.
Well, that wouldn't make any sense. It would contradict itself as a position. So, I can understand why most moral nihilists wouldn't argue that.
Instead, I am far more intrigued with those here who espouse a No God frame of mind but still manage to embrace one of another objective morality themselves. How, given a particular set of circumstances, are they not "fractured and fragmented" in turn?
Thus...
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 7:55 am I do know that you do this sometimes. That you point out that people on 'your side' are also objectivists. But that's what I was responding to here. It seemed like, in that previous post, the objectivists were on one team. Again, I know that is not your overriding position, however if you have any tendency to focus on the objectivists with positions you like less while leaving out the objectivists whose positions fit with your preferences, then you are undermining your point.
Does that work for you in, what, exposing me? Fine.
I was pointing out what I think undermines your message elsewhere with posts like that. Perhaps you agree, perhaps you disagree. I don't think of it as exposing. I suggested that if the point is what you said it was, it could be undermined by posting, on occasion, just like a member of one of the various objectivist teams.
You have your grasp of me and I have mine.
I don't think I posted anything that indicates a grasp of you. I pointed out what your posts were like. I acknowledged that you do post mentioned all objectivisms and your skepticisms about them. I pointed out that sometimes your posts are coming from what could be called one of the teams. I suggested this went against you making your the point that you told me was your point.
So, far you haven't responsed to that idea. And you are calling it me grasping you and exposing you.
Now, again, given an issue like abortion or capitalism or animal rights or gun control...how close do you come to believing that morality here is objective?
Not close at all.
For example, I was an objectivist for years myself. And even when I abandoned one [Christianity] for another [Unitarianism] for another [Marxism] for another [Democratic Socialism] I was still able to convince myself that morality itself could be grasped objectively...God or No God.
Well, you're certainly focusing on yourself. I was more interested in the point I made about...well, I said it above and in the post before.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 7:55 amYes, I am pretty sure you have mentioned this...let's say more than a hundred times.
Hey, you responded to my post here, Chuck.
Sure. But instead of responding to the point I made you wrote something you have mentioend...more than a hundred times...and not direclty connected.
No, really, if my repetitive points irk you then by all means, move on to others.
Generally I have.
Just as I've moved on from you here because from my own rooted existentially in dasein frame of mind you are basically just one more "serious philosopher": ever and always exchanging definitions and deductions up in the intellectual clouds. Even in regard to conflicting value judgments.
Now this is making me the issue. I did not do that in my previous posts. I made a suggestion about how posting the way you did undermined the point you said you had.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 7:55 amIOW can they come up with the right objectivist position?
What on Earth is that given all of the One True Paths there are to choose from:
That's why I asked the question.
And my point still revolves less around what one's moral system is and more around how one comes to acquire it given the historical, cultural and interpersonal parameters of their uniquely individual lives. Given that human interactions have managed [so far] to produce quite a few One True Paths:
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 7:55 am Then it seems to me it is much clearer if in any discussion of a specific moral issue, here whether homosexuality is bad or not, you should point out that objectivist positions can be on any side of an issue. If we look at the post I responded to it doesn't seem to reflect your point, but rather seems like a weighing in on the morality of homosexuality: those bad conservatives who have mean objectivist positions on homosexuals. I know you did not say this, but again if you just present one side's objectivism and seem critical of that and do not mention the positions that are objectivist but which you are more aligned with, it doesn't aid your point. The point you mention here.
Again and again and again...
Based on my own rooted existentially in dasein personal experiences and the political prejudices I have come to accept over the years, "I" think what I do about, say, same sex marriages. I support them. But that doesn't make them objectively moral. There are, after all, intelligent men and women who are able to offer arguments both for and against it:
https://www.google.com/search?q=arguemn ... s-wiz-serp
Yes, I made it clear that I understood that. I mentioned, more than once, precisely so we needn't go over this ground that you do state this and that it is your position.
My point was about whether posting as you often do ALSO, might undermine the point you are making.
Yes, and why is that? How is that not the embodiment of daseins living vast and varied lives interacting in a world bursting at the seams with contingency, chance and change? Historically, culturally, socially, politically and economically.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 7:55 am Precisely, so if your point as you say above it to reveal these kinds of things and how they lead to all objectivisms, pointing out one side's objectivisms is misleading. It's not a great way to make your point. It comes off as using your ideas of objectivism to hit the people who have positions you don't like, while remaining silent on the ones you do like. And again, I know that you do call out the objectivism of positions you are sympathetic with. But here you did not and this is not rare.
Precisely from your frame of mind...not even close to it from mine.
OK, so you don't see that the post I responded to, for example, just pointed out the objectivisms that you are less sympathetic with.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Wed Oct 25, 2023 4:29 amAnd since everything gets interpreted as 'revealing one's team', let me make it clear that I don't think homosexuality is morally wrong. Just pointing out that objectivism is held by pretty much anyone near a mike or computer these days on any side of these issues. The ones you like AND the ones you don't like.
Again, it's not what you think that fascinates me nearly as much as how existentially [re dasein] you came to think this instead of that.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 7:55 am I'm pretty clear on what you want to know and point out. And of course I have my own desires and goals.
Sure, argue that what you think is clear about me is more reasonable than what I think is clear myself. Only with me, my own "clarity" in and of itself is no less just another subjective manifestation of dasein.
Again, if you read the posts, I focus on the posts. I acknowledged what your position is, which you have reiterated here. I accepted and already knew what your position was, but pointed out how it might be undermined by posts like the one on the objectivisms of those against homosexuality. You keep framing it as me have an incorrect take on you, while it was a take on some of your posts in relation to what I thought (correctly, given what you write here) was your point.
Why, say, a liberal prejudice rather than a conservative prejudice? And since there are many, many others who think many, many very different things about human sexuality, what's a philosopher or an ethicist or a political scientist to do?
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 7:55 am I think that's an odd way to word this. But then you seem to be a subjectivist looking for a way to finally find an objectivist position that can be demonstrated to be the right one.
Not only that, but an objectivist truth I can embrace that will also result in immortality and salvation.
Great, OK, then I wasn't incorrect.
Look, if IC or any other religionist here is able to convince me that their God does in fact exist and that their God judges homosexuality to be a sin, then, well, what can I say, it's a sin. I'll be against it. At least if the alternative really is oblivion or eternal damnation.
I'm crankier than that. I wouldn't accept it even from God. I'm not sure why I have to assume that a deity is a good one or never confused or doesn't need to develop. For example, I think Abraham messed up being ready to kill his son. And I would hope any deity was disappointed with his robotic response to God's demand. But if God wasn't disappointed, I'm still not stabbing my son to death on command. I find it odd that people think that if God tells them to do something, they are relieved of any responsibility. How is that not like following the orders of an earthly dictator, like a Hitler, say. I mean there you are thinking it's horrible to do X, but you do it because an entity tells you, however powerful. But that's all tangential.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 7:55 am IOW you could be a subjectivist who isn't looking for what a philosopher (some abstract generalized figure or all philosophers political scientists, etc). need to do to find this.
No, I'll always be looking for objective morality if it does in fact exist.
Yes I got that. Clearly stated, great. Though you won't know if it exists until you find it. So, as it reads that conditional sentence implies that the fact of its existence leads to your always being in search of it. Which is an interested idea ontologically. I am guessing you meant by the if clause that you're not saying it does exist. But I thought the interesting ontological is worth pointing out, even if it was an accident of grammar.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 7:55 am Did you really think I didn't know this? That arguments could be made pro and con in regard to homosexuality? I mean, even just knowing I've been reading parts of this thread. Even having read my previous post it should be clear, given I talked about it, that there were objectivist position on various sides of the issue.
Come on, my arguments are aimed at the objectivists among us.
Oh, like other people reading posts that are directed at me.
OK, that would have been good to know long ago. I always assuming things said to me were responses to what I wrote at least also.
From either end of the moral and political spectrum. With you it's always in regard to my own "fractured and fragmented" frame of mind in the is/oughtworld. How are you not drawn and quartered yourself in regard to homosexuality. How are your own value judgments here not a manifestation of dasein?
And just to be clear the focus is on me again. Not my posts but me. That said I don't know why I am not drawn and quartered. It's hard to know what one is not experiencing what another person assumes one must experience, when I don't have that assumption, nor obviously the experience I lack (of feeling drawn and quartered). I certain have felt torn in many situations, where things I value would lead me to opposed decisions and I can only make one decision or already have. But that's not what you are focused on.
Okay, Mr. Moral Objectivist, sift through them all and come up with the optimal frame of mind.
Iwannaplato wrote: ↑Thu Oct 26, 2023 7:55 am What?! Man you make weird assumptions.
Huh? Conflicting arguments are made [morally, politically, philosophically, scientifically, etc.] and any number of objectivists assume that in fact there is an optimal frame of mind. There must be. Why? Because they've found it.
Sure, that wasn't the assumption or set of assumptions I was reacting to. But anyway, I understand better that your posts in response to me (and others) are aimed generally. IOW you write things for other readers, for objectivists, for example, even though that writing isn't really a response to what I and others have written.
Come on, my arguments are aimed at the objectivists among us.
As said I wish I'd known that long ago. That was your response to me wondering why you were saying something to me, I'm pretty sure you know I've read many times. And it clarifies a lot of past communication. I wish I'd known that in response to my and other people's posts, you include a lot of things aimed at third parties and not necessarily at all something you think we, those whose posts you are responding to, don't know and also not necessarily at all a response to what we wrote. That actually clarifies a lot. I think it's a bit confusing, but not anymore.
Anyway. I don't think you actually responded to the point I was making about how posting as you sometimes do undermines the 'point you are making'. But that's fine. It was actually interesting. And not too toxic (I hope for either one of us)
I'll leave it here.
It's more a description of secular democracy, I would say. 