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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On March 25 2009 03:00 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +It's a good thing that no one was assuming such a thing. Slavery is no more alien to human nature than is murder. So are you going to attempt to justify murder and genocide now? 1) If you accept that slavery is not alien to human nature, then you accept a) Slavery is not evil b) Human nature encompasses both good and evil 2) Assuming your position is b), where does the individual obtain his knowledge of good and evil? There are three possible positions: a) Authority b) Experience or feeling, intuition c) Reason I have already covered a) in the previous post; authority is arbitrary, and an authority which prescribes slavery is moral has equal validity as one which pronounces against it. b) Depends on whether you hold evil as self-conscious. If it is self-conscious, then we come back to question 2), and ad infinitum. If it is not self-conscious, then it is impossible for us to experience innately, knowledge of right and wrong on the basis of our natural reactions, given 1). c) without b) is worthless, since reason cannot construct conclusions without valid premises, and there are no premises, since neither a) nor b) have been validated, we have not agreed upon what good and evil mean, there's nothing to reason. Hence we arrive at a dead end.
this is a very old philosophical argument that abuses the logical flaw that good and evil are things intrinsic in nature. good and evil are descriptions of things, not actual regularities.
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how is ethics possible without any hint of empathy
It's not. However, treating empathy as an anthropological phenomenon alone leads to no rational conclusions about ethics. Of course my last post was largely nonsense. In daily experience, people make leaps of faith all the time, basing their actions and opinions on things which cannot be validated even in the courts of their friends' opinions. I believe it was Chesterton who said that "when a person calls himself an Atheist it does not mean that he will believe in nothing, on the contrary- he will believe anything."
This is largely true of all people who call themselves unorthodox thinkers.
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good and evil are descriptions of things, not actual regularities.
An Aristotilean ethic alone does not support the notion of natural rights either. Based on this metaphysical outlook, slavery too, is merely a descriptive institution, and has no separate existance apart from its manifestations. Therefore it's silly to attribute any ethical value to slavery as a whole.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On March 25 2009 02:41 MoltkeWarding wrote:Of course. I presume that we are defining ethics on a level of reality independent of natural human phenomena such as empathy, since empathy itself produces no moral argument. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the notion of a person owning another person, if I am not violating that other person's rights. In the framework of a commonwealth, a person's legal rights can obviously be defined by the constitution and legislation of that commonwealth- say; no born freeman may be coercively enslaved by another, but the basis of an ethical framework on legal rights makes your ethical constitution a creature of political convenience. I assume that we are discussing ethics not in the term of contextuality (slavery is acceptable in certain social circumstances, and not in others) but the notion that a universal right of man is being violated when he is the property of another, irrespective of his circumstances.
how can you honestly say empathy doesn't provide any moral argument? do you realize most the biggest philosophical movements today heavily encourage the study of both science combined with art (ranging from liturature, poetry, all forums of music and visual art as well)? because art is a representation of human emotion and studying it in combination with the evidence we gather from science can help us better understand the human condition and thus help us make better decisions on how we progress as a race.
What is your actual history with philosophy/religion anyways?
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On March 25 2009 03:19 MoltkeWarding wrote:An Aristotilean ethic alone does not support the notion of natural rights either. Based on this metaphysical outlook, slavery too, is merely a descriptive institution, and has no separate existance apart from its manifestations. Therefore it's silly to attribute any ethical value to slavery as a whole.
are you actually using Aristotelian ethics to defend this? this is intro to philosophy stuff that they teach you before they debunk it in the higher level classes so you can see the progression of human thought.
try using philosophers that aren't well over 1000 years old.
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On March 25 2009 02:21 ilj.psa wrote:No, didn't read all but this is all I see Christian: "I believe in God I also believe there is a heaven" Idra: "heaven and god are imaginary, so you fail"
pretty much the definition of stomping noobs right there
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And further more christian theology does NOT embrace the entire lexicon of western philosophy. in fact over the last few hundred years most of the western philosophical movement has been quite damning of religion and the roles it's played in society. Have you ever heard of Nietzsche? Cart? Camus? Wittgenstein? even more recent philosophers like Ricard Rorty who died only a few years ago and was the leading American philosopher in Pragmatism and then Neo-Pragmatism. These guys are not too found of religion nor do they see any incredible utility in it either.
My post was intended to emphasize the evolutionary nature of Christianity, which has absorbed pagan and secular movements it was often diametrically opposed to at the outset. The patristic, scholastic, reformation, counter-reformation were all absorptive in nature, and the Church is now toying with absorbing elements of Darwinism. Even Nietzsche and Camus have been absorbed against their wills by Christian literature.
i can definitely say, as someone who grew up VERY catholic and ultimately switched over to atheism, knowing every little bit about theology isn't 100 percent necessary.
Necessary to what? It depends on the purposes of your knowledge. If your religious orientation is at stake, no one can tell you what is necessary to your peace of mind. Believe it or not, there are some people who have no agendas to push, whose purposes are understanding for its own sake.
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are you actually using Aristotelian ethics to defend this?
This is your essential argument, not mine. It's curious that you don't recognize the origins of your own arguments:
this is a very old philosophical argument that abuses the logical flaw that good and evil are things intrinsic in nature. good and evil are descriptions of things, not actual regularities.
Whether this has in your view been debunked in the last 1000 years is more than I know.
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On March 25 2009 03:17 MoltkeWarding wrote:It's not. However, treating empathy as an anthropological phenomenon alone leads to no rational conclusions about ethics. Of course my last post was largely nonsense. In daily experience, people make leaps of faith all the time, basing their actions and opinions on things which cannot be validated even in the courts of their friends' opinions. I believe it was Chesterton who said that "when a person calls himself an Atheist it does not mean that he will believe in nothing, on the contrary- he will believe anything." This is largely true of all people who call themselves unorthodox thinkers.
Yes but without these irrational, discursive, temporal, cultured phenomena of empathy or human understanding, society simply wouldn't be possible. Man has to take some kind of step to define human nature. I don't believe that our understanding of ourselves is cumulative/progressive but it's inevitably required for our societies to function.
As for the case of slavery, I will avoid discussing the fictitious ground of human rights and say that in the modern capitalist society, granting equal rights is simply more economically profitable than continuing slavery.
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Yes but without these irrational, discursive, temporal, cultured phenomena of empathy or human understanding, society simply wouldn't be possible. Man has to take some kind of step to define human nature. I don't believe that our understanding of ourselves is cumulative/progressive but it's inevitably required for our societies to function.
The same adjectives you apply to empathy also apply to values generally, I wager. You obviously don't accept the notion of natural rights as an argument on the issue of slavery, but the issue is, of course, much larger than a question of economic pragmatism too.
I have never used my own convictions to criticize anyone else's here. I am merely waiting to hear a satisfactory answer to the question of why slavery is so self-evidently wrong to us, and so self-evidently not to the Ancient World.
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LOL..
Jesus is.. Jesus is.. SoYu.
I'm so good at this #.
And obviously god doesn't regenerate amputees cuz they desecrated their own bodies/temple and cut off an arm. If I gave you a body as a temple and you cut off the west wing or an arm, ya imma be pissed you fuck with ma temple.
Ya dig? Me and god on same level yo.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On March 25 2009 03:40 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +And further more christian theology does NOT embrace the entire lexicon of western philosophy. in fact over the last few hundred years most of the western philosophical movement has been quite damning of religion and the roles it's played in society. Have you ever heard of Nietzsche? Cart? Camus? Wittgenstein? even more recent philosophers like Ricard Rorty who died only a few years ago and was the leading American philosopher in Pragmatism and then Neo-Pragmatism. These guys are not too found of religion nor do they see any incredible utility in it either. My post was intended to emphasize the evolutionary nature of Christianity, which has absorbed pagan and secular movements it was often diametrically opposed to at the outset. The patristic, scholastic, reformation, counter-reformation were all absorptive in nature, and the Church is now toying with absorbing elements of Darwinism. Even Nietzsche and Camus have been absorbed against their wills by Christian literature. Show nested quote + i can definitely say, as someone who grew up VERY catholic and ultimately switched over to atheism, knowing every little bit about theology isn't 100 percent necessary. Necessary to what? It depends on the purposes of your knowledge. If your religious orientation is at stake, no one can tell you what is necessary to your peace of mind. Believe it or not, there are some people who have no agendas to push, whose purposes are understanding for its own sake.
huge chunks of christianity are hardly evolutionary. the catholic church may be the closest thing to an evolving religious entity but even they're backwards as hell. the catholics and except evolution while many other christian organizations do not. religious organizations aren't toying with the idea so much, most of them have picked their sides a while ago. hardly any parts of Nietzsche and Camus have actually been absorbed into ANY modern Christianity, what on earth are you talking about.
i don't know why you're quoting only part of what i'm saying when you respond. i answer you're 2nd paragraph in the next sentence of my post.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On March 25 2009 03:41 MoltkeWarding wrote:This is your essential argument, not mine. It's curious that you don't recognize the origins of your own arguments: Show nested quote +this is a very old philosophical argument that abuses the logical flaw that good and evil are things intrinsic in nature. good and evil are descriptions of things, not actual regularities. Whether this has in your view been debunked in the last 1000 years is more than I know.
what on earth are you talking about? what is essential to your argument is what has already been deconstructed by western philosophers everywhere. obviously i recognize the origins of my own argument but you seem to be glaringly ignorant of all the philosophical debate and conclusions that followed it up until now. that was the whole point of me referencing "descriptions versus regularities."
don't brush this off as my personal view. I'm under the impression you know little if anything about any modern philosophy whatsoever. especially when you're talking about how much Christianity in general has absorbed Nietzsche and Camus influence for instance.
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On March 25 2009 03:57 MoltkeWarding wrote:Show nested quote +Yes but without these irrational, discursive, temporal, cultured phenomena of empathy or human understanding, society simply wouldn't be possible. Man has to take some kind of step to define human nature. I don't believe that our understanding of ourselves is cumulative/progressive but it's inevitably required for our societies to function. The same adjectives you apply to empathy also apply to values generally, I wager. You obviously don't accept the notion of natural rights as an argument on the issue of slavery, but the issue is, of course, much larger than a question of economic pragmatism too. I have never used my own convictions to criticize anyone else's here. I am merely waiting to hear a satisfactory answer to the question of why slavery is so self-evidently wrong to us, and so self-evidently not to the Ancient World.
Economic pragmatism is certainly just a part of it. I'm not in a position to give anything resembling a satisfactory answer. But I would guess that, on one side, it has to do with our changing notion of the "other." In the past, those who were enemies were enslaved, war's defeated, etc. In the 17th century (I think) Europe began confining or enslaving the previously ostracized insane and mentally ill largely because of new economic theories on the value of labor. In the case of the blacks, I would guess that during their slow assimilation within American society there came a point when the whites began recognizing them as a "same." Of course it had to be given that the economic structure would not crumble without slaves.
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what on earth are you talking about? what is essential to your argument is what has already been deconstructed by western philosophers everywhere.
Yes, beginning with Aristotle, on the basis of:
good and evil are descriptions of things, not actual regularities.
This goes no deeper than Aristotilean thought, and every modern variation of this line of thinking is an expounding of Aristotilean metaphysics. If you can show me where post-aristotileanism has contributed to this line independent of its intellectual debts, you may have a point. Natural law largely associated with Aristotileanism through Scholasticism. Aristotle himself believed slavery to be a natural condition of many men.
I'm under the impression you know little if anything about any modern philosophy whatsoever. especially when you're talking about how much Christianity in general has absorbed Nietzsche and Camus influence for instance.
Christianity in general? I only mentioned Chesterton's use of Nietzsche and Camus in the sense of The Lord using the devil for his own purposes. You're right about Nietzsche and Camus, I've only read Also Sprach Zarathustra, the Case of Wagner, Beyond Good and Evil, The Geneology of Morals, Birth of a Tragedy, Myth of Sisyphus, The Crisis of Man, The Stranger.... I guess without sparknotes those texts went right over my head.
i don't know why you're quoting only part of what i'm saying when you respond. i answer you're 2nd paragraph in the next sentence of my post.
I respond to the most substantial part of a response, usually that which directly relates to the topic. Other statements including OT ones, common sense, ad hominems, and vague and overreaching claims, I generally leave alone. Insinuations of what I don't know, rather than showing what you do know for example, I usually ignore, but forgive me this one discrepency.
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I haven't made any assertions in general. If you can pin me down to one assertion, it is this: slavery cannot be held to be an evil institution on any basis other than natural law. If there is an alternative explaination of its evil nature, I would be glad to hear it.
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On March 25 2009 03:29 Zurles wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 02:21 ilj.psa wrote:On March 23 2009 22:37 Zurles wrote:
Idra is stomping noobs No, didn't read all but this is all I see Christian: "I believe in God I also believe there is a heaven" Idra: "heaven and god are imaginary, so you fail" pretty much the definition of stomping noobs right there
No again.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
On March 25 2009 05:39 MoltkeWarding wrote:
I haven't made any assertions in general. If you can pin me down to one assertion, it is this: slavery cannot be held to be an evil institution on any basis other than natural law. If there is an alternative explaination of its evil nature, I would be glad to hear it.
i have to catch a plane ride in a little bit, i will cover this later. your actual argument has been debunked by several hundred years of philosophy (morality aligning with nature) which you are uneducated about (you admitted you were unawear of this) and seem to dance around. you're all over the place in your arguments and still only answering fractions of the questions being posed to you.
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On March 25 2009 05:52 ilj.psa wrote:Show nested quote +On March 25 2009 03:29 Zurles wrote:On March 25 2009 02:21 ilj.psa wrote:On March 23 2009 22:37 Zurles wrote:
Idra is stomping noobs No, didn't read all but this is all I see Christian: "I believe in God I also believe there is a heaven" Idra: "heaven and god are imaginary, so you fail" pretty much the definition of stomping noobs right there No again.
life is pretty boring if you don't have faith in the absurd. On top of that it's just plain douchbaggie to insult others for having faith.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
by the way moletrap what is your background with religion and philosophy
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EPT
