Posted by Blain on June 19, 19101 at 22:22:55:
In Reply to: Re: Morals are objective? posted by Ishmael on July 09, 19100 at 09:12:11:
Well, I'm not going to say that you sound bitter, but . . . Your diction seems pretty evocative.
But I should begin by admitting my vast ignorance on this and other relative topics. If you have no time to waste on a layman, then, by all means, I apologize . . . just hit your back button.
I'm struggling here. Unless you substantiate those rather broad assumptions, they are going to start seeming like angry, out-of-hand contradictions.
>First "morals", now we have "rights"?
Well, yes, I know existentialists and such love to say that nothing really exists and that we (humans) are all just a vague bundle of sensory perceptions, but I really think things work a lot better when we recognize patterns in order to predict future sensory perceptions. It's too bad that Socrates isn't around anymore to give us a nine-thousand page debate on the meanings of these words, but I think we all have a pretty good idea of what is meant.
>"Happiness"?
Angry savage-garden philosophers think of this as a pleasing stimulation of nerve-endings, excretion of "happy" chemicals in the brain, etc . . .
>Do I also have the right to be unhappy?
Hey, whatever makes you happy.
>to be a slave?
I suppose if your "cowardice" inhibits you from utilizing your ability to make decisions.
>Which is better cheap happiness or exalted suffering?
That is a dam . . (jeez, excuse me mister senator!) a _darn_ good question. By cheap do you mean superficial or easily-obtained? I'm getting pretty mundane here (Sorry, I'm no philosopher), but I think most people agree that suffering is bad (They find it agreeable when it results in disproportionate amounts of positive things - they never actually delight in the suffering itself. "Yay, crown of thorns!")
>"Liberty"?
"I" "Don't" "Guess" "You" "Could" "Look" "It" "Up" "?"
(Sorry . . . rude of me. Couldn't resist.)
>Just give us more independence, untie the hands of any one of us, widen the sphere of our activities, relax the discipline and we should immediately be begging for for the discipline to be reimposed on us.
Pardon? Would you mind explaining to the layman? I mean, yes, I understand that many people have, at some level, a desire to trade freedom for the safety of structure. "Cowardice" keeps them from making decisions, and they are too lazy to come up with their own structures when the general ones presented to them seem just as good. But intrinsic value of the "slavery" itself? I normally deal with absolutes, but there's a big difference between Socialism, Communism, and -SWISH!, CRACK!- this pyramid ain't gonna build itself, Hebrew boy!
>"Life"? You have mistaken your cowardice for common sense and have found comfort in that, deceiving yourself. We do not even know where we are to find real life, or what it is. Leave us alone without any books and we will at once become confused, lose ourselves in a maze and not know what to cling to, what to love and what to hate, what to respect and what to despise. We even find it hard to be men and women. We are ashamed of it. We think it a disgrace and we do our best to be some sort of theoretical "average men".
Your have baptised your prejudices and called them "morals".
Pardon my stupidity, but that is mostly unintelligible. It sounds like you are making a lot of arbitrary statements and speaking for the entire human race . . . normally this is all right, but I fail to sympathize with your "shame", etc. Take it easy. We are not the Roman Catholic Church. We are not trying to castrate your Id. Yes, morals are in many cases abused and perverted by religious authorities, but I think there is a reason why most societies arrive at the conclusion that "Murder is bad" and so forth. Certain truths are universal and irrefutable. These include, but are not limited to, "Killing me wouldn't be nice," and "Hey, don't take my stuff!" Which pretty much boils down to "Selfishness is bad"
Which kinda blows the whole existentialist position all to hell. I am temped to say that existentialism is selfish, but that would be wrong of me.
Please, don't be so serious. Okay, so you object to your idea of morals. But just remember that there is a difference between morality and the Republican party. Are you mounting an attack on morality, or on those who have abused the idea of conventional morality in order to subject others to their own perversions?
. . . that just about does it. Commence flaming, ripping, in 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . .