Philosophy Now Forum

we can see the questions from the
Descartes to Kant being about the
nature of Knowledge.. Descartes trying to create
certainty in knowledge within the entire
episode of ''Cognito ergo sum''... what can we
know with certainty? ''I think therefore I am"
is an entire process of epistemology... to gain knowledge...

the Age of Enlightenment was about the seeking out of
reason... why reason? and people would answer that the
Enlightenment was about ''discovering human reasoning could
discover truths about the world, religion, and politics and could
be used to improve the lives of humankind"

the next age of philosophy was German idealism...
where the point was about reason itself... note the title
of Kant's book, "Critique of Pure Reason" the question of
the German idealism was about the nature of reason itself...
what it is and what it does... the next age of philosophy was
Romanticism....an age that had, for the most part, rejected
reasoning as a tool to achieve understanding and accepting
feelings, emotions, subjectivism as the tools to understanding
what it means to be human...

and we reach our own age.. and what is the question of the
"Modern era?" Given the last 120 years of history being the
history of World Wars, the Holocaust, the My Lai massacre in
Vietnam....the immoral rise of politics leading to the poster
child of immoral politics, IQ45...

But we are lead to this question about the problem of
our age... and the answer seems to be morals and ethics...
we have no idea what is moral or ethical today.. in our world today,
we have mass shootings killing dozens every week and half
the U.S population couldn't care less.. they would rather
keep their guns then save other peoples lives... to my mind,
that is due to a complete lack of a moral/ethical system meant
to give us guidance for our actions...

so the question of our age, as has been the question for 120 years
is, what does it mean to be ethical/moral? We see in Nietzsche,
the attempt to create a moral/ethical system by noting
the loss of god in our world.. what is ethical/moral given
our no-god world?

for upon that lays much of our ethical/moral understanding..
ethics/morals is, in a god-world, driven by ethics/morality being
given by god/religions... thou shall not..... and we base our
actions, our ethics on the "thou shall not...." but as we no longer
believe in god or religion, what is left to base our morals/ethics on?

every single philosopher since Nietzsche has attempted that question...
from Wittenstein to Rawls.. has been concerned as to what does
it mean to be ethical/moral?

and we note that after 120 years, we are no closer to understanding
what it means to be ethical/moral then we were 120 years ago...

so, sports fans, what does it mean to be ethical/moral?

Kropotkin

And I can hear some saying, oh, there goes Kropotkin
beating a dead horse... but I ask you, do we have
a universal, absolute morals/ethics? and the answer is
clearly no... now one might say, we have different countries
having different morals/ethics... the Russians for example
have a different ethics/moral than Americans but that
means we don't have a universal ethical/moral theory...
if morals/ethics is subjective, not universal/objective,
then on what rock do we stand on in regard to ethics/morals?

and one might say, we have an ethics/moral based on god,
a Christian god, but that negates all other religions morals/ethics....
by denying a Muslim god or a Jewish god or a Hindu god..
but only admitting a Christian god, we severely limit
what is possible for us...

we deny other gods at our risks... but Kropotkin,
morals/ethics.. really, who cares? and it clearly isn't
the most important question of our age? I say it is..
again, look back at the last 120 years.... the GOP/MAGA crowd
clearly wants to bring back jailing the ''enemy'' based on
skin color, religious beliefs, political beliefs, sexual identity...
how is that different from the Holocaust.. which started
as Jailing those who were "different" than the 'Aryan" code
of ethics... who went to jail in Nazi Germany...
Jews, communist, Anarchist, Gays, trans people...
isn't that exactly the same group of people that the
current GOP/MAGA crowd want to jail today?
and on what moral/ethical basis does the current group
of neo-Nazis' want to jail its enemy's?

and that is why we need to work out ethics/morality in our times...
to decide if, if the actions of the Neo-Nazi's-conservatives
are based on morals or ethics or is simply based on the need to
to act based on anger, hate, lust, fear... as it appears to be....
the neo-conservatives/nazi's reason for trying to punish those who
are not "Pure" is based on what standards? what ethical/moral standards?
for they certainly don't appear to be based on anything universal/absolute...
but subjective/ personal standards... and is that supposed to be our
ethical/moral standards, whatever floats your boat?

Kropotkin

I suppose you're right. Can we do a Raymond Tallis?

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Sun May 07, 2023 3:22 pm
the Age of Enlightenment was about the seeking out of
reason... why reason?

I don't know why; it just doesn't make sense, does it?

Every age has its philosophical questions...because always when or where there is the sense of separate autonomous self, self awareness, there will always be the temptation to seek out the source of that sense of self-awareness.

It's a common human mental activity ..and is why only humans are philosophers, as soon as we become aware we are aware, the questions are inevitable....where did I come from, why am I here, or how did I get here, and why, for what reason am I here existing, is there a purpose?

Once the self-inquiry is settled and known to itself alone, no further inquiry is necessary and life just then goes on the same as it ever was. Change happens and nothing ever changes.

every single problem we face today, from climate change
to income inequality to pollution, stems from an
ethical/moral aspect.... the other day, the wife and I went
to a coastal town called Half Moon Bay...and while we were there,
we saw a line of cars waiting at some sort of structure...
we asked another couple walking around, (as we were)
what the cars were waiting for.. and the said it was the weekly
food bank give away... the cars were lined up for several blocks...
how could a country as rich as ours, in an area as rich as
the San Francisco Bay area, have a dire need for food banks...
and the answer stems directly from a moral/ethical problem...
is it ethically or morally right to have a country where 500 people
have more wealth than half the world? People are starving, with
with severe food shortages and we have people worth hundreds of
billions of dollars? How is that right? How is that moral?

Name any other problem facing any given country, and at its
heart will be an ethical/moral problem...the Ukranian war,
war is a fundamental ethical problem.. population crisis,
that is at its heart a moral/ethical problem...abortion is
a moral ethical problem...the coming wars over resources,
water, food, oil are ethical/moral issues... should we
hogged our resources to save ourselves, or should we share
our resources.. that is an ethical/moral dilemma that we are
all going to face, shortly...

name a problem, any problem and it is an ethical/moral problem...
and that is why we must get an understanding of what is the
ethics/moral aspect of who we are, individually and collectively...

Kropotkin

in fact, I might go even further...
the human questions we face, who are we and what
does it mean to be human, comes down to our ethics/morals...

the fundamental question of being human is this: what is
morality? Ethics and moral are what make us human,
and become the fundamental question of human existence...

we cannot define ourselves today, because we lack an overall,
universal moral/ethical system.... and even lacking a universal
ethical system, as I maintain that a universal ethical system is
not possible, how do we define ourselves today in terms
of ethics/morals?

that is the primary question of the modern age......

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2023 2:30 pm in fact, I might go even further...

Don't feel that you need to hurry back.

questions of existence for human beings are really
just questions of morality/ethics... take a problem
and seek the fundamental aspect of that question..
and that fundamental aspect will turn out to be
a moral/ethical question....

the only questions for us human beings are questions
of morality and ethics...

Kropotkin

let us look at one such ethical/moral problem today,
the epidemic of mass shootings... let us look at
the solutions as offered by the two parties...
democrats have asked for gun control, removing guns
from mentally ill people or those who have committed violence...
guns courses that teach people proper gun ethics...

and what are the GOP/MAGA crowd solutions to gun violence?
umm, thoughts and prayers? when asked, the GOP/MAGA crowd
says, the gun violence is caused by mentally ill people, and yet,
the GOP/MAGA crowd won't spend a dime on increased mental health
support....

they don't have a single solution to gun violence because
for the GOP/MAGA conservatives, gun violence isn't morally wrong...
for if it was morally wrong, they would have offered us
some solution of some kind to end our rampant gun violence...
in fact, the GOP/MAGA conservative won't even denounce
gun violence as being wrong..... we cannot solve a problem
that isn't even considered to be a problem by half the country....

is killing people immoral, unethical.. the conservatives will not
even admit to this if, if the violence is done with a gun...
and they will not even consider any type of solution to the
gun violence outside of their failed answer of "god" as a solution
to gun violence...

to a conservative.. gun violence isn't morally wrong.. killing
people isn't morally wrong.... because if it was morally wrong,
they would offer us some solutions to the gun violence plaguing
America today...

Kropotkin

think about ART... what is ART?

ART itself is/becomes a question of morals/ethics...
or haven't you read ''Anna Kerenina' or ''War and Peace"
"The Brothers Karamazov" ... each of them a morality play..
or what about Picaso's "Guernica" which is a commentary
about the Germans/Italians bombing of the Spanish town of
Guernica... ART is an human expression of ethics/morals..
we can find all kinds of morals and ethical choices within ART...

what is moral/ethical is worked out in ART.. what choices are
a possibility and what choices sounds great but in reality, fail...

novels about say, adultery, give us a look at a possibility
of adultery.. and what happens when we commit adultery...
and that is nothing but morals and ethics....
I have never committed adultery but in reading about that
possibility, I see what that choice, that moral/ethical choice,
isn't for me....

and that is the beauty of ART... it lays out our moral, ethical possibilities....

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2023 5:12 pm
or haven't you read ''Anna Kerenina' or ''War and Peace"
"The Brothers Karamazov" ...

Of course not, what do you take me for?!

or what about Picaso's "Guernica" which is a commentary
about the Germans/Italians bombing of the Spanish town of
Guernica... ART is an human expression of ethics/morals..
we can find all kinds of morals and ethical choices within ART...

I totally agree. Just look at these three depraved pears, for example.
.

novels about say, adultery, give us a look at a possibility
of adultery..

Who would have guessed?

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Mon May 08, 2023 5:12 pm think about ART... what is ART?

It's not just morals and isn't always focused much at all on morals.

ART itself is/becomes a question of morals/ethics...

For some, and to some extent.

or haven't you read ''Anna Kerenina' or ''War and Peace"
"The Brothers Karamazov" ... each of them a morality play..

If they were morality plays they could have been written as morality plays. They are very complex novels, that, yes, raise moral issues, but they do many other things.

or what about Picaso's "Guernica" which is a commentary
about the Germans/Italians bombing of the Spanish town of
Guernica...

Well, sure, that's a specifically political work of art by an artist who often painted nothing of the kind.

ART is an human expression of ethics/morals..

It often, perhaps usually has moral aspects, but essays on morals are much more about morals. Acts that can be judged as moral or immoral are, well, an expression of human morals.

But we don't need to reduce are to morality plays, unless they are that.

we can find all kinds of morals and ethical choices within ART...

Sure an at supermarkets.

novels about say, adultery, give us a look at a possibility
of adultery.. and what happens when we commit adultery...
and that is nothing but morals and ethics....

whatever 'that' may be in that sentence may well be nothing but morals and ethics, but works of are just morals and ethics.

I have never committed adultery but in reading about that
possibility, I see what that choice, that moral/ethical choice,
isn't for me....

So, you didn't know before you real a novel about adultery that it wasn't for you? What novel was this and how old were you?

and that is the beauty of ART... it lays out our moral, ethical possibilities....

I think the beauty of art is, well, the beauty of art. True good beautiful. If you can bring in knowledge of the world and moral issues into beauty, great. But it would be odd to leave the aesthetic aspects of art out of beauty or toe reduce art to morality plays.

Kropotkin
[/quote]

in thinking about ethics/morals, (which to be fair,
very, very few actually think about) is to think about
what it means to be human.... but ethics/morals aren't
just possibilities that exists today... no, ethics/morals
have a history, indeed a pre-history...what we think about
ethics/morals, actually comes from a million years of
human evolution... we were not born yesterday, we have
a long history behind us... and that is an essential aspect
of morals/ethics..

we are not ethically inclined because of events today,
we are ethically inclined because of millions of years
of evolution,...

living in tribes (as with monkeys/apes) we have over
a million years, developed morals/ethics...if you want to
make sense of morals/ethics, think a small tribe of humans,
perhaps no more than 50 or so families.. perhaps 200 people...
and that those tribes were hunters/gatherers.. moving with
the food.. now that lifestyle has its own set of morals/ethics...
if one of the hunters were hurt or killed, you damaged the
tribe... thus we can see how that aspect of existence
came to extend over the entire tribe... people have functions
within a tribe or family... think of the mother or father having
functions involving the creation and raising of children...
and the function of children is to become the next generation
in which the human species is able to go on existing....
no children, no more human species... it's that simple....
thus the importance of children.. and even today, we
put children first... who get boarded first in a boat accident?
children and women... this simple explanation is the point
of ethics/morals... the guiding principles of ethics/morals is
to keep the species going.. that is the bottom line in virtually
everything we do... what will keep the human species going?

so, we can follow moral rules/laws in terms of how it keep
the human species going.... how do human beings best function?
do we function best in chaos, anarchy, disorder? can we learn
to become better human beings in disorder and chaos? No,
the bottom line of childhood is that children function best
within order and discipline...that is a proven fact...
now on a secondary note, woman hate disorder and chaos
because on some level, they know that raising children
in chaos and disorder is much harder than raising children
within an orderly society/state... and simple common sense
tells us that....

one of the bottom-line things with most people, is that most
people are damaged in some way... as I was raised within
a disorderly family structure as was my wife and as millions
of people have been raised in disorderly/dysfunctional families...
and we have millions of damaged people out there...and one wonders
why we have drug/alcohol/mental disorders all over the world...
and the problem seems to be worse in America than other countries...

one has to think about what is the point of taking drugs, of
abusing alcohol, of living chaotic lives? they are symptoms of
our damaged lives... people think that taking drugs or abusing
booze is a cause, but that isn't true... they are simply symptoms
of our damaged lives.. the path to ending the drug/booze
problems of America lies in curing ourselves from our damaged
self... the rise in gun violence is not about anything more than
the damaged lives we lead...and how do we cure ourselves?
by seeing that we are damaged people....that actions have
consequences... that words matter... the fact of the matter is
that the GOP/MAGA culture wars is damaging America in ways
that we can't even see... the rise in violences stems from
more and more people being excluded from what it means
to be human... to deny someone their right to be gay or
to engage in trans behavior, is to damage those people and
America at large...what is the thing that human beings need most?
as Maslow put it, we have bodily needs, and we have psychological
needs.. among those psychological needs is the need to belong..
to be part of something.. and by denying gays/trans the right to
belong, we are damaging them...

or said another way, the path to curing ourselves begins with
toleration, acceptance of others for who they are...
for if we can we accept others for who they are, we
can then accept ourselves for who we are...

Personally, I have a mean streak a mile wide... but I constantly
keep check on that mean streak.. the path to curing myself is
to accept that fact and to know that it is always present...
I keep on constant guard against that mean streak...
and that is the path to curing oneself.. by becoming aware
of the personal damage each of us has....

and this is one of the ways we can become more moral/ethical...
by becoming aware of who we are... but also by knowing that
we are not solitary creatures that can go it alone... we are social creatures,
and our only means of surviving is by accepting that fact..
there is no way that any of us can survive by going it alone...
we need and depend on others for our basic survival..
and all morals/ethics depend on knowing that fact....

and thus we return to our survival is dependent on
others... just as it has been since the beginning of
human existence... and our morals/ethics depend
on us understanding that we are dependent on knowing that
our very survival is dependent on us, all of us, having
morals and ethics...

Ok, Kropotkin, you haven't talked about what ethics/morals
we should be following...no, no I haven't... but we must lay
down the groundwork for us in order for us
to think about specific morals/ethics...

so let us trace our steps.. that morals/ethics are
not of the moment, they have existed for millions of
years.. we learned about morals/ethics from our million
of years going from animal to animal/human (which we are today)
to becoming fully human....and as ethics/morals have changed
to adapt to our ever-changing environment, we see that morals/ethics
are not universal or absolute to everyone... morals/ethics are
subjective, not objective...but with a bottom line understanding
that the point of morals/ethics is to ensure the survival of
the human species... and how that is done changes from
one environment to another... what is moral/ethical in one place,
say the Arctic, changes in the desert of the Sahara desert...

but the morals/ethics of both places are geared towards the
survival of the species in both places... and different places
requires a different set of morals/ethics...

another point of ethics/morals is that they are historically
driven... they have changed and will continue to change as
our environment/needs change...

on further reflection, perhaps, perhaps that the objective
aspect of morals/ethics come from the fact that morals/ethics
are meant to allow the human species to survive/prosper... and the various
morals/ethics are different because the human species lives in
vastly different environments....food for thought...

Kropotkin

Peter Kropotkin wrote: ↑Tue May 09, 2023 6:48 pm we were not born yesterday

I'm sure somebody must have been born yesterday.