Augie

Simon Paynton wrote:

Unseen wrote:
You’re like a spider and people who fly into your web end up being enmeshed.

If there’s a web, it’s not of my making. I’m just asking straightforward questions, that can be answered straightforwardly. You and Davis experienced an enmeshing web: Reg barely got sticky. Ask yourself why is that.

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(formatting struggles)

Unseen wrote:
You’re like a spider and people who fly into your web end up being enmeshed.

If there’s a web, it’s not of my making.  I’m just asking straightforward questions, that can be answered straightforwardly.  You and Davis experienced an enmeshing web: Reg barely got sticky.  Ask yourself why is that.

morality is fiendishly intricate and interesting.  That’s why so many people spend their time puzzling over it.

And that is the absolute perfectly evasive Chopra like response. Unseen is right…at some point, time to give it a rest. Should have days ago. And………scene.

@unseen – morality is fiendishly intricate and interesting.  That’s why so many people spend their time puzzling over it.

Simon, you’ve become something akin to a Deepak Chopra woo generator. That’s why I’m limiting my participation in this discussion. You’re like a spider and people who fly into your web end up being enmeshed.

Not me.

They’re all good points.  Can you refute them?

Yes Simon, clearly I am just stubborn in my old ways. I am just afraid of your revolutionary, internally consistent, clear and intelligible system that will smash the same ole shit and harbour in a completely new way of doing things. I am simply just afraid of such Earth shattering ideas such as:

• Morality isn’t one thing and can’t be sliced up…

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Davis wrote:
Jesus bloody donkey crackers. What happened to you Simon? Where did you go wrong?

Apparently, studying philosophy, and philosophers, makes people dogmatic and closed-minded towards doing new philosophy.  People are allowed to do new philosophy.  It’s interesting.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
people do act in selfish ways … the Problem of Evil

Evil or moral badness is defined as people acting selfishly at the needless expense of others.  If they needed to be selfish, it wouldn’t be seen as bad.

We could say that evil is the worst of this: when someone deliberately hurts others for the enjoyment of it.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
The word “needlessly” is not necessary because people do act in selfish ways. By that I mean they act to achieve their own interests first. They do not act to “ideal standards” to achieve “optimum outcomes”.

There’s nothing wrong in putting one’s own interests first.  In fact, evolutionary ethics is based on inc…[Read more]

Davis wrote:

In the case of morality, the job in hand is to collaborate to thrive and survive together

Yikes.

In the case of morality, the job in hand is to collaborate to thrive and survive together

Yikes.

@davis – so the answer is “just because”.  I’ve identified a weakness that you yourself have agreed with.  I’m sure a moral philosophy professor would not be so dogmatic.

Jesus bloody donkey crackers. What happened to you Simon? Where did you go wrong?

When people behave in a needlessly selfish way: when they are greedy, dominant, cruel etc. then this results in a less than optimum outcome.

Or it results in the optimum outcome achievable given the circumstances.

The word “needlessly” is not necessary because people do act in selfish ways. By that I mean they act to achieve their own int…[Read more]

@davis – so the answer is “just because”.  I’ve identified a weakness that you yourself have agreed with.  I’m sure a moral philosophy professor would not be so dogmatic.

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:
In the mundane routine of everyday life most people carry out tasks to serve their own personal interest or the interests of people they share their lives with. Those people in turn reciprocate with acts of their own. I admit at times their actions may reach some zenith of excellence but never when they realise it is…

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Simon…do you want me to write to every philosopher, political scientist, dictionary, encyclopedia, intellectual and publishing house and try to get them to change the definition and character of “utilitariansim” and “deontological moral systems”? Because if you do…you will have to give me a good reason to other than the fact that some guy, who…[Read more]

Ideal standards are virtuous performance of one’s work in carrying out the task.

Yes, Simon but only in an ideal world. In the mundane routine of everyday life most people carry out tasks to serve their own personal interest or the interests of people they share their lives with. Those people in turn reciprocate with acts of their own. I admit a…[Read more]

@davis – explain why it’s not silly, pointless and dogmatic: “just because”.  Give some actual reasons based on real life or facts of some kind.

In my opinion, this is an example of where conventional moral philosophy is unhinged from everyday life.  If the study of morality is a science of everyday life – something’s wrong if someone can’t g…[Read more]