You are viewing the historical archive of The Philosophy Forum.
For current discussions, visit the live forum.
Go to live forum

baker

Comments

*sigh* Hold your Rocinante! I myself realized, unfortunately rather late in my life and much to my regret, that the pessimism I used to be so fond of ...
April 12, 2021 at 14:39
Provided they do the same for you, first. Besudes, what you're describing is known by the name "obsession".
April 12, 2021 at 14:28
Living off a cozy trust fund has it upsides, such as one being able to afford decadent pessimist views. Too bad it doesn't work the other way around: ...
April 12, 2021 at 14:17
That would hold under the condition that humans created God.
April 12, 2021 at 14:15
It's tough to be enlightened, innit? And Galileo, the Recanter, as a role model? Sheesh.
April 12, 2021 at 14:12
That's not the first noble truth ... The Buddha didn't say that life is just suffering and nothing else.
April 11, 2021 at 09:52
Different theories of morality saliently differ precisely on this one point: the issue of the motivation/justification for acting morally. Each such t...
April 10, 2021 at 11:42
*sigh*
April 10, 2021 at 11:19
And whose failing is that lack of trust? The person who lacks trust, or the person who hasn't earned others' trust?
April 10, 2021 at 10:01
If he's stuck, then he can't sacrifice himself. He has no choice in the matter, he literally can't do anything. And how exactly would you do that? He'...
April 10, 2021 at 09:59
You're the one implying that they're wrong.
April 09, 2021 at 13:32
Likewise. But he doesn't seem to care whether his theory of morality actually has the potential for ever being applied by humans.
April 09, 2021 at 13:20
The dilemma is spurious. Fat men (fat like they can block a tunnel) don't go hiking to begin with. Note to self: Don't follow fat people.
April 09, 2021 at 13:18
Right back atcha!
April 09, 2021 at 13:15
But the real question for assessing moral reasoning is _why_ we should do something and not do some other thing. For example, five people can say that...
April 09, 2021 at 13:01
To get a context on the matter. You said earlier: This view is far from universal. For some people, for example, morality is all about laws and rules:...
April 09, 2021 at 12:49
? You'll need to say more.
April 09, 2021 at 12:42
Yes, and this is a considerable part of the problem. Once a law is passed, it's like boarding a plane: one is stuck with it / on it for a duration of ...
April 09, 2021 at 12:39
I mean that it is people's belief (the fact that people believe) that might makes right that is the mechanism that ties the law to morality, or, rathe...
April 09, 2021 at 12:28
When discussing the dog-eat-dog nature of life, only a simpleton would be indiscriminately charitable, or goodwilled. IOW, the topics of philosophical...
April 08, 2021 at 10:57
That assumes that there exists a "larger meaning" and that one only needs to "decipher" it. Based on what should one assume that (or better yet: take ...
April 08, 2021 at 10:51
In order for people to take the law seriously, they must assume that the law is somehow a reflection of objective reality, objective morality, of "thi...
April 08, 2021 at 10:49
I think it's an urban myth that this is so. But it can certainly happen that a person who has expertise in one field takes for granted that said field...
April 08, 2021 at 10:32
No. If anything, the deciding factors are 1. a person's socio-economic class, 2. that classes don't mix well. Simply put: rich people (or those aspiri...
April 08, 2021 at 10:28
This _is_ interpreting them.
April 08, 2021 at 08:16
On which level of moral reasoning, according to Kohlberg's theory, would you place the OP's arguments?
April 07, 2021 at 18:27
Yes, and "hedonism" can mean so many things, to the point that the term becomes useless. There are Buddhist and Hindu dharma teachers who looking at p...
April 07, 2021 at 18:16
Define "suffering".
April 07, 2021 at 18:06
Philosophy is supposed to be love of wisdom. Wisdom should have something vitally to do with how one goes about one's daily life, 24/7.
April 07, 2021 at 17:47
But there is a justification, namely, one to the effect of, "It is worth it to commit to an ideology that promises salvation, even when the situation ...
April 07, 2021 at 17:39
Indeed, but they can still be relevant, because often in life, it's about what is at stake, not what the stakes are. For example, believing it's worth...
April 07, 2021 at 17:27
Could you sketch out how it does that? I can't think of an unequivocal way to interpret "morality is a social construction".
April 07, 2021 at 17:15
No, stay and fight!
April 07, 2021 at 17:13
If the good is, as you said earlier, neither definable nor analyzable, then a great many moral philosophers have been merely spinning their wheels. Ho...
April 07, 2021 at 17:08
It's the philosophical position of pessmism that makes one hate life and wishing one would never have been.
April 06, 2021 at 14:23
Tolkien's elves are an alternative idea to this.
April 06, 2021 at 13:47
At the end of the day, one lives alone and dies alone. A theory of morality has to account for this somehow. Even more so when we're living in a socie...
April 06, 2021 at 13:39
A useful theory of morality would offer principles for dealing with precisely such individual, personal situations.
April 06, 2021 at 13:31
You said earlier: and I requested a clarification: because your formulation doesn't exclude a position like "Whatever enhances my wellbeing and dimini...
April 06, 2021 at 13:27
Yeah, no wonder one hates life and wishes to never have been ...
April 06, 2021 at 13:16
That's going gently into that bad night.
April 06, 2021 at 12:58
It seems that one cannot not attempt to rationalize one's existence, so it's moot as to whether it's worth to rationalize one's existence or not. Who ...
April 06, 2021 at 12:49
When someone else considered you such.
April 06, 2021 at 12:42
In that case, the prospects for a theory of morality are rather hopeless, if we have to wait for "nature" to deliver the verdict. (We'll possibly be d...
April 06, 2021 at 12:40
As far as the Pali suttas go, the Buddha taught nibbana, kamma, and rebirth. Yes, the standard passage when one is looking for a thought-terminating c...
April 06, 2021 at 12:31
If the solution to the problems of good and bad is as simple as you outlined earlier: then one has to wonder what all those moral philosophers have be...
April 06, 2021 at 12:23
Sounds like the standard approach in religious apologetics. Agreed. For only such a person would take up that burden.
April 05, 2021 at 15:48
What use is, for example, Buddhism without nirvana, karma, and rebirth (as the non-religious secular Buddhists would have it)? It's like a car without...
April 05, 2021 at 15:41
Yes, the resentment festers. There is a point of no return. When one ventures on the path of resignating oneself to a shitty situation, there comes a ...
April 05, 2021 at 15:35
But who decides what being right is? No, just that since everyone is subject to death anyway, death is nothing special, not a sign of failure. Becomin...
April 05, 2021 at 14:56