Do you have a morality?

[gwen]

A few questions:

• What is it that they are free to become? They aren't free to become essentially 'antisocial elements' which is understandable enough, but what is the social body supposed to become?
• The worst evils are indeed done by those who are able to morally justify their actions, but can't the reverse also be said? Can't it be said that acts of benevolence and humanity are also justified upon moral grounds?

My personal view is also that comprehensive moral systems are foolish, though I look at it that there are 'nodes' of virtue, or 'archetypes' of it. These different points don't necessarily agree - a Prince and Pauper may have their virtues but overlap they do not and this will produce conflict eventually and there can't be any logical discourse to reconcile these views since to both they are doing what is right, really and truly and not merely seemingly.

• i don't know, obviously. ultimately it's up to god or nature, however you want to think of it. the *imposition* of an abstract moral vision by people of limited understanding will not end well. whatever comes must come naturally. trying to control people, beyond the personal confines of your own behavior and relationships, is hubris. the antidote to hubris is humility: moral reasoning based on speculation and abstractions gives you no right to decide for other people, or to constrain their ability to decide for themselves. they are their own birthright.
• absolutist moral ideas are not necessary for common benevolence. on the other hand, it seems to me they are necessary for enormities like the inquisition or the holocaust: without the distortion that comes from having ideas you're not allowed to reflect on, no one would be able to convince themselves that such destructive actions were justified; their natural moral faculty would simply rebel. is it possible that insane morality based on rules and abstractions could produce "higher highs" than the sane kind, as well as lower lows? i guess that's conceivable, but it can't be expected to do so reliably, and intuitively i would expect actions undertaken on rotten foundations to come out bad in the end.

imo the only reliable guide to what's right and wrong is ultimately your own heart. i know that's a cliche but it's true: our values come from our feelings, and ideas about morality come from our values. why is it wrong to hurt a person, all else being equal? because as people, we know that feeling pain is bad. this isn't incompatible with right and wrong as objectively existing realities: it's the material form, or the implementation so to speak, of those realities.

but hearing and heeding the voice of your heart takes constant effort and attention, and a perpetual willingness to weigh your preconceptions against the reality in front of you. it's much easier to say: "this book or that book has the answers; conviction, or the performance of conviction, is the essence of right; compromise and growth are nihilistic degeneracy!" that lessens the burden on the individual, and then also other people, who are also confused and overwhelmed by the responsibility of constantly having to seek goodness, find that confidence attractive, and will praise you and agree with you, and suddenly you have a religion or comprehensive ideology that thinks its abstractions are more important than life, and starts beheading infidels or setting up labor camps for dissidents.

Seven deadly sins
-Lust
-Gluttony
-Greed
-Sloth
-Wrath
-Envy
-Pride
Seven cardinal virtues
-Chastity
-Temperance
-Charity
-Diligence
-Patience
-Kindness
-Humility

What do you guys think of these? A lot of people know the sins these days but do not know the virtues.

that's edifying. i like the list from galatians: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

on that note @Outer Heaven i'm sorry for trolling you because of your religion. i'd like to understand why you think having "convictions" as you call them is intrinsically better than not.

 

[Taleisin]

I can't tell you what specific morality you should follow, that would be disingenuous and logically inconsistent with my own stance. But perhaps you might find this useful in discovering your own moral framework.

To copypaste from the thread you ignored when making this one ("ethics of the road"):

a good way to find presuppositions to base your logic off, is to attempt to understand reality from as many different systems of belief and presuppositions as possible first. then, eventually you'll discover conclusions that you cannot avoid no matter the presuppositions you choose. then, you can take those conclusions as your presuppositions to re-evaluate the evidence of your experience to construct beliefs.

From there, you can form a moral system that fits with your understanding of reality. Personal morals can never be "true", they are merely a reflection of our perspective. outside morals can never be better than our own, as morality is a concept exclusively within subjective existence. Theism is one possible presupposition, it's not more or less valid as a substrate for morality than any other- value judgments are inherently subjective as well.

If anything is, then it is itself. our representational and relational understanding of reality is always false, illusory. However, it's no less valuable than any other domain of reality- subjectivity is not good or bad, it similarly just is. We have to decide how to act, including the choice of how consciously we want to make that decision.

 

[zalaz alaza]

I can't tell you what specific morality you should follow, that would be disingenuous and logically inconsistent with my own stance. But perhaps you might find this useful in discovering your own moral framework.

To copypaste from the thread you ignored when making this one ("ethics of the road"):

a good way to find presuppositions to base your logic off, is to attempt to understand reality from as many different systems of belief and presuppositions as possible first. then, eventually you'll discover conclusions that you cannot avoid no matter the presuppositions you choose. then, you can take those conclusions as your presuppositions to re-evaluate the evidence of your experience to construct beliefs.

From there, you can form a moral system that fits with your understanding of reality. Personal morals can never be "true", they are merely a reflection of our perspective. outside morals can never be better than our own, as morality is a concept exclusively within subjective existence. Theism is one possible presupposition, it's not more or less valid as a substrate for morality than any other- value judgments are inherently subjective as well.

If anything is, then it is itself. our representational and relational understanding of reality is always false, illusory. However, it's no less valuable than any other domain of reality- subjectivity is not good or bad, it similarly just is. We have to decide how to act, including the choice of how consciously we want to make that decision.

not to really nitpick too much but i think the thread youve cited specifically as being ignored is different enough to be a separate thread. I made this specifically to ask the question between "default setting" and "intentional morality" as highlighted in DFWs commencement speech, and then to elaborate on that.

 

[Taleisin]

not to really nitpick too much but i think the thread youve cited specifically as being ignored is different enough to be a separate thread. I made this specifically to ask the question between "default setting" and "intentional morality" as highlighted in DFWs commencement speech, and then to elaborate on that.

I'd make the point that default setting is just societally determined moral consensus, which is essentially the same point of discussion as the thread I referred to. Idk it just seems like we have 3 or more identical threads for the same thing sometimes

 

[zalaz alaza]

I'd make the point that default setting is just societally determined moral consensus, which is essentially the same point of discussion as the thread I referred to. Idk it just seems like we have 3 or more identical threads for the same thing sometimes

Yeah I donno if agree that this is necessarily what a default setting needs to be. Maybe that's what's it boils down to but the specifics of that experience of society are an interesting bit that maybe we should not gloss over

 

[Caspar]

• i don't know, obviously. ultimately it's up to god or nature, however you want to think of it. the *imposition* of an abstract moral vision by people of limited understanding will not end well. whatever comes must come naturally. trying to control people, beyond the personal confines of your own behavior and relationships, is hubris. the antidote to hubris is humility: moral reasoning based on speculation and abstractions gives you no right to decide for other people, or to constrain their ability to decide for themselves. they are their own birthright.
• absolutist moral ideas are not necessary for common benevolence. on the other hand, it seems to me they are necessary for enormities like the inquisition or the holocaust: without the distortion that comes from having ideas you're not allowed to reflect on, no one would be able to convince themselves that such destructive actions were justified; their natural moral faculty would simply rebel. is it possible that insane morality based on rules and abstractions could produce "higher highs" than the sane kind, as well as lower lows? i guess that's conceivable, but it can't be expected to do so reliably, and intuitively i would expect actions undertaken on rotten foundations to come out bad in the end.

imo the only reliable guide to what's right and wrong is ultimately your own heart. i know that's a cliche but it's true: our values come from our feelings, and ideas about morality come from our values. why is it wrong to hurt a person, all else being equal? because as people, we know that feeling pain is bad. this isn't incompatible with right and wrong as objectively existing realities: it's the material form, or the implementation so to speak, of those realities.

but hearing and heeding the voice of your heart takes constant effort and attention, and a perpetual willingness to weigh your preconceptions against the reality in front of you. it's much easier to say: "this book or that book has the answers; conviction, or the performance of conviction, is the essence of right; compromise and growth are nihilistic degeneracy!" that lessens the burden on the individual, and then also other people, who are also confused and overwhelmed by the responsibility of constantly having to seek goodness, find that confidence attractive, and will praise you and agree with you, and suddenly you have a religion or comprehensive ideology that thinks its abstractions are more important than life, and starts beheading infidels or setting up labor camps for dissidents.


that's edifying. i like the list from galatians: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

on that note @Outer Heaven i'm sorry for trolling you because of your religion. i'd like to understand why you think having "convictions" as you call them is intrinsically better than not.

"We modern men, very tender, very easily hurt, and offering as well as receiving consideration a hundredfold, really have the conceit that this tender humanity which we represent, this attained unanimity in sympathetic regard, in readiness to help, in mutual trust, represents positive progress; and that in this respect we are far above the men of the Renaissance. But that is how every age thinks, how it must think. What is certain is that we may not place ourselves in renaissance conditions, not even by an act of thought: our nerves would not endure that reality, not to speak of our muscles. But such incapacity does not prove progress, only another, later constitution, one which is weaker, frailer, more easily hurt, and which necessarily generates a morality rich in consideration. Were we to think away our frailty and lateness, our physiological senescence, then our morality of "humanization" would immediately lose its value too (in itself, no morality has any value) — it would even arouse disdain. On the other hand, let us not doubt that we moderns, with our thickly padded humanity, which at all costs wants to avoid bumping into a stone, would have provided Cesare Borgia's contemporaries with a comedy at which they could have laughed themselves to death. Indeed, we are unwittingly funny beyond all measure with our modern "virtues."

The decrease in instincts which are hostile and arouse mistrust — and that is all our "progress" amounts to — represents but one of the consequences attending the general decrease in vitality: it requires a hundred times more trouble and caution to make so conditional and late an existence prevail. Hence each helps the other; hence everyone is to a certain extent sick, and everyone is a nurse for the sick. And that is called "virtue." Among men who still knew life differently — fuller, more squandering, more overflowing — it would have been called by another name: "cowardice" perhaps, "wretchedness," "old ladies' morality." ...

Strong ages, noble cultures, all consider pity, "neighbor-love," and the lack of self and self-assurance as something contemptible. Ages must be measured by their positive strength — and then that lavishly squandering and fatal age of the Renaissance appears as the last great age; and we moderns, with our anxious self-solicitude and neighbor-love, with our virtues of work, modesty, legality, and scientism — accumulating, economic, machinelike — appear as a weak age. Our virtues are conditional on, are provoked by, our weaknesses. "Equality" as a certain factual increase in similarity, which merely finds expression in the theory of "equal rights," is an essential feature of decline. The cleavage between man and man, status and status, the plurality of types, the will to be oneself, to stand out — what I call the pathos of distance, that is characteristic of every strong age. The strength to withstand tension, the width of the tensions between extremes, becomes ever smaller today; finally, the extremes themselves become blurred to the point of similarity. ..."

 

[gwen]

"We modern men, very tender, very easily hurt, and offering as well as receiving consideration a hundredfold, really have the conceit that this tender humanity which we represent, this attained unanimity in sympathetic regard, in readiness to help, in mutual trust, represents positive progress; and that in this respect we are far above the men of the Renaissance. But that is how every age thinks, how it must think. What is certain is that we may not place ourselves in renaissance conditions, not even by an act of thought: our nerves would not endure that reality, not to speak of our muscles. But such incapacity does not prove progress, only another, later constitution, one which is weaker, frailer, more easily hurt, and which necessarily generates a morality rich in consideration. Were we to think away our frailty and lateness, our physiological senescence, then our morality of "humanization" would immediately lose its value too (in itself, no morality has any value) — it would even arouse disdain. On the other hand, let us not doubt that we moderns, with our thickly padded humanity, which at all costs wants to avoid bumping into a stone, would have provided Cesare Borgia's contemporaries with a comedy at which they could have laughed themselves to death. Indeed, we are unwittingly funny beyond all measure with our modern "virtues."

The decrease in instincts which are hostile and arouse mistrust — and that is all our "progress" amounts to — represents but one of the consequences attending the general decrease in vitality: it requires a hundred times more trouble and caution to make so conditional and late an existence prevail. Hence each helps the other; hence everyone is to a certain extent sick, and everyone is a nurse for the sick. And that is called "virtue." Among men who still knew life differently — fuller, more squandering, more overflowing — it would have been called by another name: "cowardice" perhaps, "wretchedness," "old ladies' morality." ...

Strong ages, noble cultures, all consider pity, "neighbor-love," and the lack of self and self-assurance as something contemptible. Ages must be measured by their positive strength — and then that lavishly squandering and fatal age of the Renaissance appears as the last great age; and we moderns, with our anxious self-solicitude and neighbor-love, with our virtues of work, modesty, legality, and scientism — accumulating, economic, machinelike — appear as a weak age. Our virtues are conditional on, are provoked by, our weaknesses. "Equality" as a certain factual increase in similarity, which merely finds expression in the theory of "equal rights," is an essential feature of decline. The cleavage between man and man, status and status, the plurality of types, the will to be oneself, to stand out — what I call the pathos of distance, that is characteristic of every strong age. The strength to withstand tension, the width of the tensions between extremes, becomes ever smaller today; finally, the extremes themselves become blurred to the point of similarity. ..."

Yep, that's a long quote. Didn't Nietzshe eventually break down in the street sobbing with his arms wrapped around a poor horse who was being cruelly whipped by its master? After his strength and will to power were sapped by syphillis.

I don't worship power, and i appreciate the morality of old ladies. Ymmv i guess

 

[Caspar]

Yep, that's a long quote. Didn't Nietzshe eventually break down in the street sobbing with his arms wrapped around a poor horse who was being cruelly whipped by its master? After his strength and will to power were sapped by syphillis.

I don't worship power, and i appreciate the morality of old ladies. Ymmv i guess

I guess I want syphilis and to break down protecting a horse.

 

[gwen]

I mean i get it's raw and edgy to be like "mercy is gay, might makes right", but do you really want to live in that world?

 

[Caspar]

I mean i get it's raw and edgy to be like "mercy is gay, might makes right", but do you really want to live in that world?

You know, by the end of the novel he kills himself, and this is the kind of person I would model my morality around. Most certainly, I know this is a kind of folly; because in wishing pain like this, the first person to get it will be the one who wishes. The gods do like to deliver just rewards. There's a sort of irony to it, too, because I only ever feel at my best - my most creative, my most hardworking when I am doing things in such a way that I take on undue risk, not just necessary risk.

The rawness of it is a plus, but that's not the impetus. I don't know if there's a general principle that guides people this way, probably their heredity, but I know that I've always liked danger, always liked getting into fights, and I liked debating ideas with others. As I watched my peers get more and more mellow over time, I had no choice but to adjust myself, but it seems quite natural that these are the kinds of answers you'd get if you go looking with that mindset at hand.

As for 'might makes right' (also pretty raw, brah), ah I don't really feel that to be true in totality either - though there are certain situations where it does apply. I would say that innocence ranks very highly in terms of 'rights', speaking of those who are living rightly - being true to themselves, as they are, and to those who are young and only know to be as they are. In that sense, children and dogs are quite alike.

 

[gwen]

View attachment 36420
You know, by the end of the novel he kills himself, and this is the kind of person I would model my morality around. Most certainly, I know this is a kind of folly; because in wishing pain like this, the first person to get it will be the one who wishes. The gods do like to deliver just rewards. There's a sort of irony to it, too, because I only ever feel at my best - my most creative, my most hardworking when I am doing things in such a way that I take on undue risk, not just necessary risk.

The rawness of it is a plus, but that's not the impetus. I don't know if there's a general principle that guides people this way, probably their heredity, but I know that I've always liked danger, always liked getting into fights, and I liked debating ideas with others. As I watched my peers get more and more mellow over time, I had no choice but to adjust myself, but it seems quite natural that these are the kinds of answers you'd get if you go looking with that mindset at hand.

As for 'might makes right' (also pretty raw, brah), ah I don't really feel that to be true in totality either - though there are certain situations where it does apply. I would say that innocence ranks very highly in terms of 'rights', speaking of those who are living rightly - being true to themselves, as they are, and to those who are young and only know to be as they are. In that sense, children and dogs are quite alike.

Well as i said, i don't favor totalizing systems, and i do favor letting nature take its course over trying to control things from the top down. So i think i would align more with the savage too, over the world controller, if i had to pick one. At the same time, i'd much rather have an attitude of love than hostility, and i have no preference for competition, although obviously i enjoy discussing ideas, same as you. I don't think it's weak or decadent to feel that way: yes, competition and conflict are inherent to nature, but compassion and cooperation are also present, especially in *human* nature. That's part of what has always set us apart from other animals. And it's hardly a purely modern idea that peace is better than war, ease is preferable to struggle, and pain is something to be minimized.

I know it's a fairly common point of view, especially among people who feel disaffected from prevailing liberal social mores, that struggle and suffering are ennobling, salutary, or even necessary. That may be true to some extent, but if life were *only* or even primarily about struggle, it would not be worth living for me: imo the end of struggle is to reach a point of peace. Even if the cycle is truly indispensable, then peaceful struggle within ourselves is much better than violent struggle against each other. So i think Nietzsche is kind of wrongheaded in a lot of his writing, and it's reasonable to pursue peace, gentleness, and other "weak" virtues. Maybe i have the wrong idea about what he actually believed though.

Thanks for taking the time to share your point of view.

 

[LostintheCycle]

I mean i get it's raw and edgy to be like "mercy is gay, might makes right", but do you really want to live in that world?

I don't think I've known that phrase the way you know it. To me, 'might makes right' is if I want to have what I love and what I believe in, I must be able to defend it. If I am in a situation where I am about to be mugged, the law or repercussions or whatever should be the last thing on my mind, because they sure as hell aren't protecting me right now. They are not real, unlike the ice addict with the shank in his hand, and the only barrier between him and me now is my clothes. Am I up to the task? Living around notoriously dodgy areas where you see drug addicts on every corner, I do think a lot about when it'll be my turn to be robbed... so I remind myself that might makes right, and I can attain that might. I have learned martial arts for years, I'm working on bulking up my muscle and getting larger.
To me, 'might makes right' is a warning that we cannot control the world, so if you truly care about what you have, you ought to be able to protect it. Choose not to, if you want to accept that risk. That's not edgy to me, that's just knowing that something terrible could happen to you and change your life forever. Of course, that's how I've interpreted it and I'm sure it can be interpreted other ways... I can already picture the Internet Nazis sloganizing it... actually, I get the feeling that's already happened.

 

[Caspar]

Well as i said, i don't favor totalizing systems, and i do favor letting nature take its course over trying to control things from the top down. So i think i would align more with the savage too, over the world controller, if i had to pick one. At the same time, i'd much rather have an attitude of love than hostility, and i have no preference for competition, although obviously i enjoy discussing ideas, same as you. I don't think it's weak or decadent to feel that way: yes, competition and conflict are inherent to nature, but compassion and cooperation are also present, especially in *human* nature. That's part of what has always set us apart from other animals. And it's hardly a purely modern idea that peace is better than war, ease is preferable to struggle, and pain is something to be minimized.

I know it's a fairly common point of view, especially among people who feel disaffected from prevailing liberal social mores, that struggle and suffering are ennobling, salutary, or even necessary. That may be true to some extent, but if life were *only* or even primarily about struggle, it would not be worth living for me: imo the end of struggle is to reach a point of peace. Even if the cycle is truly indispensable, then peaceful struggle within ourselves is much better than violent struggle against each other. So i think Nietzsche is kind of wrongheaded in a lot of his writing, and it's reasonable to pursue peace, gentleness, and other "weak" virtues. Maybe i have the wrong idea about what he actually believed though.

Thanks for taking the time to share your point of view.

I have a friend who thinks like you do with regards to peace as the end of struggle. He and I have butted heads over the years arguing back and forth about it in different ways, but I don't think it's wrong that there's this difference. I think nature has made man such that there are natures better suited to those different worlds. Moreover, I think one hand often washes the other in a good society. As long as a person can attain inner equanimity with the path they've chosen, I think you can safely allow the die to be cast and let history be the judge. As for your impression of Nietzsche, he wrote in one of his books that (paraphrasing, since I can't recall which book at the moment), although he is vehemently hostile towards the current world-order which he considers essentially Christian, it is not the existence of his antipode that bothers him, it's that his antipode has made it an objective to see to it that the whole of the human race shares in this 'one race, the human race' sort of message; he believes there should be a variety of human types, and in his context he's speaking more about men's natures, value hierarchies and the like - naturally this idea is easy enough to translate into a racialist view of things.

Thank you, as well, thoroughly enjoyable.

 

[Outer Heaven]

on that note @Outer Heaven i'm sorry for trolling you because of your religion. i'd like to understand why you think having "convictions" as you call them is intrinsically better than not.

Don't worry about it. I know that you meant no harm anyway. You at least had a back and forth with me instead of just saying I'm demon spawn like some other people do. I'm sorry for my harsh tone.

My point about convictions is that a person's adherence to a belief that they follow through on is admirable in and of itself regardless of what it is because it demonstrates honesty and a devotion to something greater than the self. If you have a conviction you arnt just going through life doing what you want, you serve a higher purpose which ultimately brings up your moral character. In the same way one can admire the oratory skills of a dictator without endorsing them, one can appreciate a true and honest dedication to a cause because it is a virtue. Most people arnt like that anymore. People have beliefs but abandon them under any sort of pressure. You see this across the board even among the "religious" that say one thing but will never die for their beliefs or do the actions their faith teaches when alone. The problem is that this is ultra prevalent among the none religious because they lack any constant moral hill to die on. They have no real identity or set of values to anchor themselves to such that they change their beliefs as society adopts new frameworks. To put it simply conviction is the opposite of hypocrisy.

at the same time, the worst evils around me are done by people who are able to morally justify their actions, at least formally, at least to themselves and their peers. humility about the limits of one's understanding prevents a *mistaken* moral judgment, whether made in good faith or bad, from becoming license to act in a way that harms others.

The problem is that people will always justify their actions with anything at all times if not through moral authority then through "might makes right" or pragmatism. People doing bad things is a part of human nature and is not a reason to be iffy on your beliefs. The opposite is not true though. People don't do good without a belief that what they're doing is moral. All of the most moral actions have come from strongly held beliefs regarding what's right. People don't sacrifice themselves to save others unless they think they're doing good but people can do wrong and recognise they're bad people for it. Another thing you have to keep in mind is that people with strong conviction will simply win when they come into conflict with you if your remain this hesitant. If you want to preserve what you believe in you better have strong conviction.

a consequence of this attitude is that i'm reluctant to try and package my sense of morality into a comprehensive system: if i reduced it to a body of rules or a sacred text or whatever, it would no longer be itself. in order to operate at all, it's necessarily holistic and subjective, and the only universal rules it admits are specifically weak ones: *limit* the effect of your actions; hold your convictions as *weakly* as possible.

i'm not claiming one way or another about whether good and evil objectively exist. THAT is a deflection. i understand that you'd like to position yourself in brave opposition to a flimsy "spirit of the age" with no moral content or substance, but that's not where i'm coming from. i'm not a nihilist or a relativist. i believe in the good. i just don't think that i or any other human being has the full picture about what it is, and i think that people's misguided insistence that they *do* know is at the root of a lot of the bad in the world.

Nobody is telling you to package your morality into a system. Anyone who believes in such holistic systems typically attributes them to the divine because only a transcendent being can come up with something like that, at which point it ceases to be a political issue and becomes a theological argument to prove your religion. I agree that any system people make would be deficient.

The issue with saying that objective good and evil exist without anchoring them in the transcendent is it then becomes subjective to identify what they are. You may not be a relativist but its still flimsy to make moral claims when you yourself admit that no human could have the full picture. Anyone can make moral claims under this pretence and say its part of the good that you haven't grasped yet or say that your version of the good is misguided from the actual good.