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Count Timothy von Icarus

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I've read a few critiques of neo-liberalism in the past few months. Mark Fisher's "Capitalist Realism" is excellent, and extremely accessible for a bo...
April 28, 2025 at 18:33
In: The Forms  — view comment
In considering Plato, we might ask: "In virtue of what are all just acts called 'just' or all round things called 'round?'" If there are facts about w...
April 27, 2025 at 12:23
"In order to be truly x, x must belong to category y." "In virtue of what can any x be y? What makes x a member of y?" "No clue. Membership in y is un...
April 26, 2025 at 19:12
Don't feel too bad, the connection between ends, the unity by which anything is any thing at all, and life's maintenance of its own form is the key th...
April 26, 2025 at 16:44
I don't see this. If someone suffers from weakness of will and cheats on their spouse we normally consider them blameworthy. So too if they inappropri...
April 26, 2025 at 13:04
In: The Forms  — view comment
The idea is also situated in a discussion of an ideal city as a model for the human soul. That's why the city is introduced in the first place, as an ...
April 26, 2025 at 03:34
I am referring to AmadeusD's contention that the "good" and "ought" of most ethics is not a true "moral good" or "moral ought" (which you seemed to be...
April 26, 2025 at 03:02
In: The Forms  — view comment
That's an excellent source. I will add another I like: The key thing here is "self-determination." But this can be taken to be "self-determination" in...
April 25, 2025 at 16:09
MacIntyre's thesis isn't that the old usages are arbitrarily to be preferred. They are to be preferred because the modern usages are incoherent and co...
April 25, 2025 at 16:00
Doesn't it seem problematic that your conception of "ought" makes it impossible to develop a single example of it? It's a strange definition of "ought...
April 25, 2025 at 15:18
The corrupted nous is often seen as "painting beauty/goodness" onto what lacks it (e.g. when Dante's vision "transforms" the putrid siren into an allu...
April 25, 2025 at 13:46
In one sense, this quite true. Evil doesn't have an essence; it is a privation. I think this understanding is pretty mainstream in the West (e.g. St. ...
April 25, 2025 at 13:29
Ok, that's fair. Now, I have been trying to present a largely Aristotlian ethics for the sake of simplicity, but I think it's worth noting that Aristo...
April 24, 2025 at 12:57
Partly, this is less of a problem for the older theology because modality was dealt with quite differently. Modality was primarily conceived of in ter...
April 23, 2025 at 18:27
Marriage is also "until death do we part," an oath to stay faithful to an imperfect human being within set bounds of responsibility. I don't think thi...
April 23, 2025 at 17:56
This is true, but they had other institutions to do what the state has increasingly become responsible for: collegia, guilds, churches, families, exte...
April 23, 2025 at 14:36
Some good posts here. I think they bring out a difficulty for classical theodicy, which is that it must either adapt itself to changes in modern conce...
April 23, 2025 at 14:01
Blame Yaldy-Baddy, the ol' Demiurge. Or, even on the more mainstream view: "Satan is the God of this world" (II Corinthians 4:4; see also John 12:31)....
April 23, 2025 at 09:25
The post you are replying to specifically addresses this vis-á-vis the question of ultimate ends/ends that are sought for their own sake. Ends are ord...
April 22, 2025 at 21:45
But this analogy is not comparable because presumably your child is capable of later recognizing that broccoli is better for him (perhaps from the con...
April 22, 2025 at 20:22
Explain how "unending torment with no possibility of improvement," could ever be in "someone's best interest?" Look at it this way: Is God is capable ...
April 22, 2025 at 17:05
Right, the human good is a particular instance of the more general principle. Harris allows this too, expanding well-being to "all conscious creatures...
April 22, 2025 at 13:34
I was speaking to his denial of a strong self. However, it is directly relevant to his view of reason in context. Sense experience is where we discove...
April 22, 2025 at 12:54
I am skeptical of the "absolute" realization of principles, particularly one that is so specific. From a public policy perspective, it seems to make s...
April 22, 2025 at 12:37
IDK, current law in the developed world and international law is based on the natural law tradition. The ethics of the academy does not trickle down m...
April 22, 2025 at 11:59
"I'm not going to read your posts past the first sentence or actually engage with any arguments at all. But my position is very strong. No, I can't po...
April 22, 2025 at 11:24
Really? I think "hodgepodge stew" might be guilty of not going far enough. A stew is, after all, a whole, and fairly inseparable. For Hume, we're a "b...
April 22, 2025 at 01:47
So you cannot critique the Islamic State because you don't live in a Muslim nation? You cannot call out the abhorrent practice of American chattel sla...
April 22, 2025 at 01:17
That's a neat typology. Sorry you didn't get any interest in this I tend to see these sort of issues as indictive of the fact that "justified true bel...
April 21, 2025 at 18:01
That seems like the state putting the rights of one group over another (and also something it does quite broadly and not in any special relation to co...
April 21, 2025 at 16:50
Yes, that's a very good point. I think that's something like what Robert Wallace would say of his version of Hegel.
April 21, 2025 at 14:26
He has a point to some extent, but this misses the (now much more well-known) fact that dynamic systems can also hit tipping points and totally break ...
April 21, 2025 at 13:04
Obviously, the target here is Marxism, but it's interesting here to considered Adorno's differences with Hegel and how they might spring from early un...
April 21, 2025 at 12:16
I think that's a fair way to frame it. But I would put it that: "you're free to practice any religion you want, so long as you practice it as an indiv...
April 21, 2025 at 11:22
Such a sentiment could be used to justify practically anything though, right? For instance, the people picked Trump, and they picked him despite his o...
April 21, 2025 at 10:54
It's easy to dismiss an argument if you refuse to read it and just dishonestly misrepresent it over and over I suppose. I assume your reading comprehe...
April 21, 2025 at 09:55
Do you mean specifically religious teleology or just teleology in general? There is definitely a thread in modern thought that declares all teleology ...
April 20, 2025 at 00:33
But they cannot be total non-choices, right? Otherwise it wouldn't make sense to punish people for most assault cases where they lost their temper or ...
April 19, 2025 at 22:36
Brooks sometimes makes good points, particularly on the way our "meritocracy" has all sorts of negative consequences, while failing to live up to its ...
April 19, 2025 at 17:14
Agreed. Plus, it also tends to generate an inappropriate tautology where "whatever one does" is "what gives one the most positive sentiment/pleasure."...
April 19, 2025 at 14:02
BTW, since your familiar with Taylor, I would say part of the difficulty is that liberalism, like secularism, tends to tell "subtraction narratives," ...
April 19, 2025 at 13:15
It's literally the main substance of the post and the summary you put in to the AI. I clarified this as well. You haven't responded to it at all, but ...
April 19, 2025 at 12:08
Quite so. But I don't think the options are: A. Accept and endorse liberalism wholeheartedly and ignore its tendency to erode all local cultural norms...
April 19, 2025 at 11:44
Maybe to some extent, but not to the same degree. Science polices itself to some extent. Pseudoscience is called out. People decry cigarette company f...
April 19, 2025 at 01:19
Yes, the OP mentions that. The problem is that the sentiment of parents, etc. is the only thing that is being violated here; killing infants becomes a...
April 19, 2025 at 00:52
Excellent summary, you did it better than I. Nope, perfect. Before I start, I'm curious since you seem knowledgeable about this: What does Singer have...
April 18, 2025 at 19:09
A society cannot survive an all encompassing campaign of infanticide as genocide though. But the scale of genocide probably obfuscates things. Just co...
April 18, 2025 at 15:02
I don't think this is at all unfair to Singer's premise, nor unfair to adopt the premise to see where it leads. Based on his rationale for denying tha...
April 18, 2025 at 13:58
Why don't you explain what you think makes a choice "rational?" Apparently it's something like "informed consent and discursive reasoning + some level...
April 18, 2025 at 13:50
Yes, that's true. That's C.S. Lewis' view in The Great Divorce. The damned are damned just in that they spread out into ever greater isolation and mul...
April 18, 2025 at 12:01