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Mere Atheism- Indeterminacy and Morals Goto Page: [] [<] 1 2

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whynaut

PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2009 2:32 pm


From a point of view Niniva you are right, and from another point of view you are also right. And there in lies my problem.

I must explain, that to an extent, I am an existentialist. Though the word has many connotations it basically means that I believe in how things exist. When I see a woman pulling a child away from a speeding car, that is the beginning and end of its innate existence for me. What others may attribute to that act has been called essentialism, meaning that they believe that there is something essential or inherent to that act. They might say that it was morality that caused the woman to save the child, or that she was the child's mother and her maternal instinct took over, or that this act was not merely staged by two actors for my amusement, or that these two people existed outside of my perceptionally flawed mind at all. However, all I can be sure of is that I saw a a woman pulling a child away from a speeding car.

The problem I have with essentialism is that there is no universal agreement about what truly is essential. If an idea was truly innate, then everyone would innately know it. Instead we have people who insist that their ideas are innate and all who disagree have a flawed view of what is "essential truth". It makes much more sense to me that people see how things exist, and then wrap a story around it (something Baudrillard refers to as "sign value" and Discordianism refers to as "the grid"). People rarely just see things and merely accept what they see as the complete truth of the matter (or the most truth anyone is ever going to get), and insist that there are innate levels underneath mere perceptions. My example for proof of this is to attempt not to do this: try watching something (this works more obviously if it is something you have never before) and then not making a judgment about it. If it is something new and unfamiliar then you really have no frame of reference to make that judgment, and yet we make one anyway.

I remember reading a comic called newuniversal where a man used his super powers to create steps out of energy and walk up into the sky. Witnesses later testified that the man had been airlifted away by a helicopter. Because the characters in the book had no frame of reference, so they created one anyway. They claimed that this image that they fabricated was innate truth because they could not understand the real truth. This is how I see the world, and the real innate truth is a Chaos that we cannot understand, but only make judgments about.

So, I guess, when I say that God and morality are too indeterminate, it is not that they do not exist, but that their existence is as equally valid as their non existence. Both as "right" as they are "wrong".
PostPosted: Fri Feb 27, 2009 5:45 am


Quote:
The problem I have with essentialism is that there is no universal agreement about what truly is essential


This is a troubling thought as well. You could get around it by saying that ALL of an object's properties are essential to it being the "same" thing.

In this case all of it's properties are in fact essential. I don't like this idea at all though as it promotes a strict determinism that prevents any sort of moral ideas at all....even socially speaking....and certainly denies your chaos.

But there is one other possibility I've been working on rescently as I have been studying Saul Kripke's Naming and Necessity. He wants to claim Essentialism but then not give any sort of idea as to what is essential. I hate that, but his philosophy is incredibly fun to read so I continue on.

But it occured to me as I am reading it that the one property that is essential to an object or thing is it's property of being an individual....It's Haecceitical property. Or it's "thisness". In other words, or put simply, it's property of being "THAT" thing.

As far as I can tell this is a principal that is totally unarguable but even if thats it's only property that is essential, it doesn't necessarily help us with anything.

Niniva


whynaut

PostPosted: Sun Mar 08, 2009 10:39 pm


I am not sure what this means, but I will submit a little something in the interest of adding a small bit of order to the indeterminacy of morals. It is something I've read about called the "categorical imperative" from where which morals are supposed to derive.

It is the idea of treating people as ends and not means.

Without saying this is necessarily true, I will say that this is a standard and simple definition of morals that I will personally agree with in all situations across the board. Again, I cannot say that this is true for everyone or even without its own set of flaws, but I certainly like the sound of it and if it does to turn out to be true I would be a very happy man. I feel that this is a start anyway.
PostPosted: Mon Mar 09, 2009 6:31 am


whynaut
I am not sure what this means, but I will submit a little something in the interest of adding a small bit of order to the indeterminacy of morals. It is something I've read about called the "categorical imperative" from where which morals are supposed to derive.

It is the idea of treating people as ends and not means.

Without saying this is necessarily true, I will say that this is a standard and simple definition of morals that I will personally agree with in all situations across the board. Again, I cannot say that this is true for everyone or even without its own set of flaws, but I certainly like the sound of it and if it does to turn out to be true I would be a very happy man. I feel that this is a start anyway.


Honestly.....in all of the ethical arguements I have ever read (and thats quite a few really), the categorical imparitive is the leading philosophy of ethics in my opinion.

No one has ever tried to leave everything out of the equation save for man accept for Kant. I have my own points of view on wheather or not everything was ACTUALLY left out but in my opinion this is the moral philosophy that wins out in all cases.

Provided that we first have two things of course.....

1. The free will to act and

2. Causality is actually true


Of course one has to do with two, and vice versa but thats ok.

Niniva

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