[quote]nephorm wrote:
If I understand Headhunter correctly, his point is that human beings always substitute one sort of worship for another, so we should pick the best idol available. For him, this would be the rational self.[/quote]
Yes, that’s what I understood too. I simply think that ‘worship’ and ‘rational’ are somewhat at odds with one another, as true worship might (should?) defy attempts to explain it using reasonable arguments.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
The problem with Pookie’s answer is that it boils down to a Thrasymachan argument that justice is the interest of the stronger. The group or community is simply used instead of a powerful individual.[/quote]
I’ll have to look up “Thrasymachan”, but isn’t the distinction between an individual and the group a pretty important one?
[quote]Further, this argument leads to the idea that justice and ethics are all matters of convention, or relative, rather than absolute or based on the nature of man.
Let me qualify: any people will have its own needs as a people, will have its own particular circumstances which require laws and ethics particular to them. But this is not to say that all morality is relative, but that there are certain minor things in which we may differ.
If Pookie’s argument holds, then the interest of the group may conflict with my own interests so completely that it is no longer to my benefit to adhere to the rules; that is, I will dissolve the social contract.
Because pookie’s argument really is about a social contract - one without natural restriction, and one that has no well-defined point of termination or abuse. Rousseau is too complicated to go into right now; but suffice it to say that he understood that for this kind of arrangement to be legitimate, there were a number of conditions that would need to be satisfied first.
And further, the social contract was not a method of determining ethics or morality, but rather of determining law and living together without being shackled and oppressed.
Certainly, morality implies that there is some community; that is, ethical violations occur interpersonally rather than inside oneself, or when they do occur inside oneself, it is with relation to an external object.
But arguing that ethics is dependent upon consent and convention immediately introduces the problem that those born into such a society are incapable of consent, and yet are held to those standards. Certain situations preclude any reasonable notion of consent. So we are left with convention.
There is an alternative, however, which is that there is a best way for human beings to live, and that this way is based on what human beings are and how they are made.[/quote]
Doesn’t that come back, in a roundabout way, to saying the same thing I was? Unless the best way to live for human beings doesn’t involve a society at all, I fail to see much of a difference. The main difference being that your ‘best way to live’ is currently unknown and my ‘societal contract’ is the best approximation of that ideal a community has currently managed to attain.
Another question that comes to mind is: is there even a ‘best way to live’ with which every human would agree? If not, you’ll end up with multiple variations supported by different societies and you’ll pretty much be back to the situation I was describing.
[quote]pookie wrote:
Yes, that’s what I understood too. I simply think that ‘worship’ and ‘rational’ are somewhat at odds with one another, as true worship might (should?) defy attempts to explain it using reasonable arguments.
[/quote]
Not necessarily. We can attempt to be rational while admitting to irrational elements in our makeup.
Worship doesn’t come ex nihilo… it is natural to human beings and its object is learned throughout life. I think we can make rational arguments that reason is the highest human faculty, and the one most evident to our senses. Meditating upon this may produce the same sorts of feelings of reverence that one feels toward one’s god.
On the other hand, we may end up fighting an advanced race of otters over whose logic is more correct…
[quote]pookie wrote:
Doesn’t that come back, in a roundabout way, to saying the same thing I was? Unless the best way to live for human beings doesn’t involve a society at all, I fail to see much of a difference. The main difference being that your ‘best way to live’ is currently unknown and my ‘societal contract’ is the best approximation of that ideal a community has currently managed to attain.
Another question that comes to mind is: is there even a ‘best way to live’ with which every human would agree? If not, you’ll end up with multiple variations supported by different societies and you’ll pretty much be back to the situation I was describing.
[/quote]
To paraphrase Aristotle, a man who lives outside of society is either a beast or a god.
The short response to you is that there is a qualitative difference in belief between thinking that morality is conventional and thinking that it is absolute.
And more to the point, yes, there is a large difference between believing that justice is the interests of the stronger and believing that justice is objective. In the first scenario, for example, the ‘society’ may believe that it is best to kill me or take my possessions because of some trivial reason. If justice is only the interest of the stronger, then this is right action. But if justice is objective, then the right actions of the society are not determined by whim, caprice, or simple interest. Rather, right action is knowable through objective reflection.
As far as your final question, I think that certainly some ways of living are objectively better than others. I will not claim to know the best way.
Neph — brilliant even when sick! Get well VERY soon!
The big problem I see is the suppression of violence. Suppose we have a society where no one may initiate violence against another. Then, government MUST possess the ability to control and suppress those who DO initiate violence. This must lead to governments have increasing ability to develop smashing power, a sort of ‘arms race’ with a minority of its citizenry. We can see where this might lead.
So, for this reason, I think we need to somehow find a morality that would be as powerful as physical laws. Break them only at the price of disaster to yourself. Religion and going to hell is simply no longer a restraint on individuals.
[quote]nephorm wrote:
On the other hand, we may end up fighting an advanced race of otters over whose logic is more correct…[/quote]
You write a lot of interesting stuff neph. The Southpark plug though is brilliant:
“Allied Athiest Alliance, it is the most logical! It has 3 A’s!”
[quote]nephorm wrote:
In the first scenario, for example, the ‘society’ may believe that it is best to kill me or take my possessions because of some trivial reason.[/quote]
I don’t see how that could be considered ‘justice’ by any stretch of the imagination.
The simple mental exercise of scaling the same fate to all member of the society shows that it doesn’t hold up. If you kill members for trivial reasons, you’ll soon be without a society, hence that behavior is neither just nor ethical.
A few notes
The most literal definition (note: this is a synthesis of several sociological aspects as to opposed to the primarily ethnographical approach common to anthropology) of a society is 'a collection of like-minded individuals thus, to an extent, Pookie’s point is sound insofar as it logically extends that like-minded groups of individuals will construct social patterns of behaviour tha tbest represent their ‘likemindedness’.
Foucault extended this notion when he talked about the ‘processes of normalisation’, which essentially posits that a societal form has a defined centre and about this centre, extending ever-outward by degrees of differentiation are societal forms which, although legitimised by the societal norm, act in oppositon to it. However, as the society develops, the defined centre essentially acts to legitimise and centralise various opposition forms in order to retain its control of the centre.
To an extent, this is what Nieztsche meant (in my opinion) when he said that God was dead, that is, the conception of ‘God,’ per the original societal norm has been so chopped up, reinterpreted adn reinvented by the everchanging dynamic of the mutable social system that the concept of what constitutes ‘God’ is no longer recognisable vis-a-vis the orginal societal conception.
Personal plea
Can we not get morality and ethics used as interchangeable terms - it makes me very grumpy >:)
The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
[quote]texasguy wrote:
The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine
[/quote]
My only problem with people quoting Thomas Paine for atheism is he one of my ancestors.
If he wasn’t so interesting I think I would be ashamed of his view point as I am sure he would mine.
[b]“God is dead”[/b] – Nietzsche
[b]“Nietzsche is dead”[/b] – God
[quote]lixy wrote:
[b]“God is dead”[/b] – Nietzsche
[b]“Nietzsche is dead”[/b] – God[/quote]
Haha! Made me chuckle.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
What is the basis for our ethics? If we reject religion and its pronouncements, what’s left?
Nietszche did not mean a literal death but the death of a unifying idea. Muslims have this through their belief in the Q’uran. If we are to keep western culture alive as a functioning idea in the mind of man, we need some ethics that most can agree on, to replace the fading Christian conception.[/quote]
Forget “ethics”, I can give you the basis for all human action, as it stands today and as it has stood throughout history and forever will stand.
Self interest.
Conscious or unconscious. Rational or irrational. Self interest lies at the heart of every saint and every sinner.
I’d tell you to replace Christianity with Egoism. But it’s already been done. The former never existed. It is a spook.