Philosophy Now Forum

Love and Liberty
The folly of modern morality is in binary thinking, and supposing that Love and Liberty are the defining values of a moral society. Love is opposed to hate, and this is not a value, but a decision that everyone must make about what they apply it to. An ‘evil’ person may indeed love all manner of things that are obnoxious to altruism. Liberty in this context is merely used to justify a person’s folly. We have to define in a tripartite way, what values apply to love and liberty, to make them moral. If liberty is opposed to tyranny or similar, then the altruist will be on the side of liberty of some kind. But if liberty is defined by the ego and self-interest then all things are moral other than tyranny. If liberty is defined by social responsibility then the good of society and other people defines the scope of liberty. And finally, if social responsibility or duty and the ego are used to define morality these are opposed to liberty, and define tyranny and slavery. The authoritarian state is good at using selected but fine sounding values, like honour and patriotism. If society were substituted for state, then patriotism would have a different flavour perhaps.
The folly of today is also in thinking that a universal value, is the same as a globalised value. As if we live in one world society. It may be a universal value of altruism, for diverse and local cultures to be the universal value.

RWStanding wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:53 am Love and Liberty
The folly of modern morality is in binary thinking, and supposing that Love and Liberty are the defining values of a moral society. Love is opposed to hate, and this is not a value, but a decision that everyone must make about what they apply it to. An ‘evil’ person may indeed love all manner of things that are obnoxious to altruism. Liberty in this context is merely used to justify a person’s folly. We have to define in a tripartite way, what values apply to love and liberty, to make them moral. If liberty is opposed to tyranny or similar, then the altruist will be on the side of liberty of some kind. But if liberty is defined by the ego and self-interest then all things are moral other than tyranny. If liberty is defined by social responsibility then the good of society and other people defines the scope of liberty. And finally, if social responsibility or duty and the ego are used to define morality these are opposed to liberty, and define tyranny and slavery. The authoritarian state is good at using selected but fine sounding values, like honour and patriotism. If society were substituted for state, then patriotism would have a different flavour perhaps.
The folly of today is also in thinking that a universal value, is the same as a globalised value. As if we live in one world society. It may be a universal value of altruism, for diverse and local cultures to be the universal value.

Binary thought judges everything by the same level. It is void of both relativity and scale. It cannot see the forest for the trees. It is caught up in arguing good and bad trees.

Socrates remembers how Diotima explained the relativity of love to him.

https://www.thoughtco.com/platos-ladder-of-love-2670661

From her perspective, the love of philosophical wisdom (5) would be a useful moral value while the love for her behind (1) is not. Yet both are called love but without a sense of scale and relativity, the word becomes meaningless.

RWStanding wrote: ↑Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:53 am Love and Liberty
The folly of modern morality is in binary thinking, and supposing that Love and Liberty are the defining values of a moral society. Love is opposed to hate, and this is not a value, but a decision that everyone must make about what they apply it to. An ‘evil’ person may indeed love all manner of things that are obnoxious to altruism. Liberty in this context is merely used to justify a person’s folly. We have to define in a tripartite way, what values apply to love and liberty, to make them moral. If liberty is opposed to tyranny or similar, then the altruist will be on the side of liberty of some kind. But if liberty is defined by the ego and self-interest then all things are moral other than tyranny. If liberty is defined by social responsibility then the good of society and other people defines the scope of liberty. And finally, if social responsibility or duty and the ego are used to define morality these are opposed to liberty, and define tyranny and slavery. The authoritarian state is good at using selected but fine sounding values, like honour and patriotism. If society were substituted for state, then patriotism would have a different flavour perhaps.
The folly of today is also in thinking that a universal value, is the same as a globalised value. As if we live in one world society. It may be a universal value of altruism, for diverse and local cultures to be the universal value.

Love. Love is a place in you. Love is a place in me. When we both go there, we are in love together, at the same time. If you cause me to go there, I love you. If I cause you to go there, you love me. If we cause each other to go there, we love each other.

This makes obstacles to love apparent such as, one or both can’t get to the love place, or one or both don’t cause love, love don't last and sometimes a big boo-hoo over that because one or both vacate the love place.

Saints are always in the love place even if you’re not, so all their actions are actions of love, which is why it’s good to be around a saint at least once in your life, to put love in perspective by observing where the rubber meets the road.

Critics of self-interest wrongly assume that self-interest disregards others and causes harm to others. That’s simply not true. In society it’s not in one’s self-interest to disregard and harm others because in turn, one will be harmed.

Create a harmful product or service that disregards and harms the customer and you’re out of business … unless you’re the government that has set an especially low bar of equity that rips off everyone equally. If you need to walk around the streets physically attacking folks after you deduce that the purpose of doors and locks is to smash them down, then you will in turn be harmed. Folks old enough to smash locks and doors have knowledge of this cause and effect, and if they don’t then ignorance is no excuse before the law, although it might mitigate punishment.

The greatest act of altruism is to cause no harm, and because of unintended consequences the best way to accomplish that is to simply leave people alone, or at least mind your own business and keep the long nose of government out of people’s affairs, let the marketplace dictate the citizen’s options with only necessary safety oversight.

The government has pulled a fast one in equating itself with charity.

Charity is personal and government is not, thus the government equity of charity, equity until the more intelligent and less ethical learn how to game the government systems of charity.

But, government programs do allow folks to satisfy their personal charitable impulse, assuage the guilt of not being hungry, via paying taxes. Paying taxes allows folks to feel good about their civic, dutiful tax-paying selves which is in their self-interest … without actually getting personal, without rubbing shoulders with the distasteful, great unwashed need of the world out there.

Down at the market the computer on the self-checkout is always mooching for a handout, a buck for this, a buck for that, round your change up to the next dollar, for the children. Technology makes charity convenient but really, where does the money go.