|
hTx
(:



Registered: 03/27/13
Posts: 5,724
Loc: Space-time
|
|
Quote:
Repertoire89 said:
Quote:
Repertoire said:

Ethics is an artificial concept, it doesn't exist.
Quote:
You're wrong of course. Ethics is essential to the human condition.
Prove it.
As far as I can see humans live like any other pack animals.
Ethics isn't special towards humans alone. It seems very essential towards any species survival.
-------------------- zen by age ten times six hundred lifetimes Light up the darkness.
|
GreySatyr
Pagan-Psyche


Registered: 06/20/13
Posts: 3,376
Loc: North Carolina
Last seen: 9 years, 8 months
|
Re: Philosophy [Re: hTx]
#18970883 - 10/13/13 01:57 AM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Lol, my name should been Phil then Id teacher philosophy to college kids and bang the hot girls and teach them MY PHILosophy.
-------------------- ...also, go to hell, huh?
|
Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
|
Re: Philosophy [Re: hTx]
#18970959 - 10/13/13 02:40 AM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
hTx said:
Quote:
Repertoire89 said:
Quote:
Repertoire said:

Ethics is an artificial concept, it doesn't exist.
Quote:
You're wrong of course. Ethics is essential to the human condition.
Prove it.
As far as I can see humans live like any other pack animals.
Ethics isn't special towards humans alone. It seems very essential towards any species survival.
How about an example? Lets take eagles. How do they practice "ethics"?
|
Repertoire89
Cat



Registered: 11/15/12
Posts: 21,773
|
Re: Philosophy [Re: hTx]
#18971144 - 10/13/13 05:24 AM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
hTx said:
Ethics isn't special towards humans alone. It seems very essential towards any species survival.
If eating and fucking can be considered ethical behavior, rather it seems more likely their social behavior has a genetic basis. Like humans who's behavior can be studied down to a T. Are you familiar with Pavlov and his work?
Ethics and morality are based in culture, what is ethical in culture or subculture is not in another. Objectively speaking ethics does not exist.
|
MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
|
|
Culture derives from more intra-psychic determinants. Read Ken Wilber's AQAL (All Quadrants All Levels) description. You are fixated on the Lower Left (Cultural) Quadrant. As I said, Utilitarian ethics is rooted in both logic and in socio-cultural dynamics. But there are ethics that derive from "Vision-Logic," and this is a much deeper apprehension of the human condition arising from the experience of Compassion as a concomitant of enlightened mind. Moreover, ethics are codifications of moral development. Moral development does NOT derive from cultural determinants, but from psychologically invariant features. Lawrence Kohlberg's work was observed in 300 different cultures around the globe, and it developed the same way regardless of culture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohlberg%27s_stages_of_moral_development
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
|
Repertoire89
Cat



Registered: 11/15/12
Posts: 21,773
|
|
Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: Moral development does NOT derive from cultural determinants, but from psychologically invariant features.]
Morality is subjective, differing between societies and even within societies. An easy example would be to compare Spartans to Sanyasas. Sufis and Shiits. What fundamental is there which crosses all cultural boundaries? None.
|
deCypher



Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
|
|
Quote:
Repertoire89 said:
Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: Moral development does NOT derive from cultural determinants, but from psychologically invariant features.]
Morality is subjective, differing between societies and even within societies. An easy example would be to compare Spartans to Sanyasas. Sufis and Shiits. What fundamental is there which crosses all cultural boundaries? None.
I wouldn't be so sure of that. Sure, no system of ethics will be duplicated in its entirety across all cultures, but there still appear to be some commonalities that pop up in all cultures:
Quote:
Every human culture has some sort of moral code, and these overlap to a considerable extent. There is a common core of shared values such as trustworthiness, friendship, and courage, along with certain prohibitions, such as those against murder or incest. Some version of the golden rule—treat others as you would have them treat you—is also encountered in almost every society. The existence of these universal values is easy to explain: they enable societies to flourish, and their absence would jeopardize a society’s chances of survival.
The claim that every society must share these basic commitments thus links up with findings in evolutionary ethics. It is also supported, according to some, by the results of the “moral sense test,” a research project conducted by Harvard’s Primate and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory. The project is an internet-based study of the moral intuitions of people from all over the world. The responses are sufficiently uniform, according to the laboratory’s director, Mark Hauser, to support the idea that there is a “universally shared moral faculty” common to all human beings and rooted in our evolutionary heritage.
--Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on Moral Relativism: http://www.iep.utm.edu/moral-re/#SH3a
But even if a culture exists whose concept of morals were utterly different from our own, so what? Why couldn't their morals simply be incorrect? It seems to me as though such things as being nice to one another, the Golden Rule, and Compassion for others based on empathy must form the basis of any cross-cultural morality. Without empathy for others one is stuck living as an amoral sociopath.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
|
MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
|
|
Quote:
Repertoire89 said:
Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: Moral development does NOT derive from cultural determinants, but from psychologically invariant features.]
Morality is subjective, differing between societies and even within societies. An easy example would be to compare Spartans to Sanyasas. Sufis and Shiits. What fundamental is there which crosses all cultural boundaries? None.
This is not a valid or reliable means by which to prove relativity of moral development. The opposite has been amply documented. As Wilbeer might say, its all the same furniture, it's just arranged differently from culture to culture. As most everyone knows, human have the ability to counter natural human development on every level. People smoke cigarettes and the first time is met with a physiological rebellion of several mechanisms. They get sick but persevere until it becomes tolerated, enjoyed, and then, addicting. Germany produced some of the most important thinkers in philosophy, theology, and psychology at the same time as it produced Nazism. Again, contrary to nature, including normal human moral development, until psychopathology became the 'statistical' norm, but not psychologically normal. Jung predicted what was going to happen to the national personality in the wake of the humiliations of WW I, and the collective Shadow arose to overwhelm anything remotely normal in the SS mentality. It was not a matter of cultural or ethical relativism, but a pathology of stupendous proportion that overwhelmed a previously 'normal' population. It is a matter of a primitive psychic constituent, erupting like a volcano, and burning magma turning to lava as it breaks onto the surface of civilization, immolating civilization. Lava is as inimical to life as the Nazi Shadow. The analogy works. Of course, civilizing factors that become culture are sometimes quite thin - a mere veneer - not a deep-seated quality of the integrated personality. That is why socio-cultural behaviors are derivative of deeper processes, and if those processes are way more 'Manipura' than 'Anahat'a, you're gonna see unparalleled violence.
So instead of Spartans, I used Aryans of a later period. The Aryans adopted the Indian (Sanyasin) symbol of the swastika, which is found in the Manipura chakra symbolism of Hindu Yoga. It's power is to destroy the world by fire (holocaust!) and rebuild it in one's own image (J. Woodruff's The Serpent Power). Apparently, Hitler's signature has turned up in a few Yoga books that were discovered. No surprise. Hitler wasn't an ethical vegetarian! He also forbade smoking around him for occult reasons. (Angebert, Ravenscroft) This is Aryan depth psychology based on one plane or tier of the human edifice. Its motives are deemed cosmic as well as psychological. This fiery cosmic realm translates into Blitzkrieg, and the ovens of Auschwitz on the psycho-social-cultural plane (also Manipura phenomena). Civilization is real. So are primitive destructive, death-wishes. When primitive, violent, destructive forces erupt into the stable structures of civilization, it is not a matter of simple relativism, AS IF a culture built on conquest and ethnic cleansing is just another possibility for human culture - different but equal.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
|
Repertoire89
Cat



Registered: 11/15/12
Posts: 21,773
|
|
But even if a culture exists whose concept of morals were utterly different from our own, so what? Why couldn't their morals simply be incorrect?
Morality as I've been saying is subjective, its central core stems from our real pack animal instincts and then culture comes in and changes it. So as you just implied one's subjective morality may well contradict their biological instincts. That doesn't make their morality "incorrect" though, it outlines its illusory nature. Morality is an artificial, subjective concept.
Edited by Repertoire89 (10/14/13 12:53 AM)
|
Repertoire89
Cat



Registered: 11/15/12
Posts: 21,773
|
|
Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said:
This is not a valid or reliable means by which to prove relativity of moral development. The opposite has been amply documented. As Wilbeer might say, its all the same furniture, it's just arranged differently from culture to culture. As most everyone knows, human have the ability to counter natural human development on every level. People smoke cigarettes and the first time is met with a physiological rebellion of several mechanisms. They get sick but persevere until it becomes tolerated, enjoyed, and then, addicting. Germany produced some of the most important thinkers in philosophy, theology, and psychology at the same time as it produced Nazism. Again, contrary to nature, including normal human moral development, until psychopathology became the 'statistical' norm, but not psychologically normal....
... When primitive, violent, destructive forces erupt into the stable structures of civilization, it is not a matter of simple relativism, AS IF a culture built on conquest and ethnic cleansing is just another possibility for human culture - different but equal.
You miss the point entirely, its not a matter of all systems of ethics being equal - the point has been that ethics does not exist. We have biological functions which include ingrained social behavior, that doesn't change regardless of one's "morality". Being a nazi with an ethical code which rewards hunting down and murdering gypsies doesn't change one's biologically based social triggers which are set-up to protect the species by causing psychological trauma when one kills another member of their species. PTSD provides ample evidence for the psychological cross between subjective culturally based morality and objective biologically based social triggers.
In nature there is no ethics only instinct, for humans with our complex social systems it becomes necessary for us to interpret our social instincts (forming morality) to establish order in mass but at the end of the day there are many contradictory ethical systems and many of them go against our biological boundaries.
|
Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
|
|
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
|
MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
|
|
You are trying to make a case for arbitrarily derived ethics, and ethical relativity. I am not a reductionist but an expansionist. All systems build upon, include, but exceed (transcend) earlier, less inclusive motives. Failure to identify with the entire human species is a failure shared by most human beings apparently. Universality is a measure of human development IMO. Nationality, ethnicity, provinciality, regionally, familiarity....the shrinkage of identity from universality to more and more specifically individual and personal recognition, sets up more and more separation, resulting in restrictive minds similar "pack" or tribal mentalities belonging to a mind-set that is practically paleolithic in its primitivity.
Humans do not live by instinct very well relative to the rest of the mammalian kingdom. Human nature is not reducible to "nature" in the way you use it, we are one species that requires being taught to do almost everything but suck at a breast. Learning theories much better account for us, unless we become feral children, raised by animals or by scavenging. Then we degrade into more instinct-ridden entities, but we then 'learn' from 'social learning theory' with canines or primates as our teachers. Such humanoids are profoundly damaged. Feral children raised by wild dogs, for example, who go about on hands and knees, eat and drink by lapping up, without the use of hands, and failure to meet developmental windows for the acquisition of speech, prevents later acquisition. Instinct is insufficient for the development of specifically human nature. It seems like multitudes of humans are merely humanoids, but very quickly step on someone else's trampled body during life-threatening crises like fires, wherein instinct trumps compassion. I have a limbic system, but I do not identify with my reptilian brain. I embody higher functions.
It seems to me with your socio-biological reductionism, we are this instinctual in your eyes, but have 'learned to merely compensate with provisions of ethical behavior. I'm saying that ethics derives from moral development, which in turn is a subcategory of cognitive development (based on Kohlberg's elaboration of Jean Piaget's important work). These cognitive developments are naturally correlated with normal biological development in dialogue with social development (nature AND nurture). But there is a tremendous amount of pathology that interferes with normal human development.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
|
Repertoire89
Cat



Registered: 11/15/12
Posts: 21,773
|
|
Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: You are trying to make a case for arbitrarily derived ethics, and ethical relativity. I am not a reductionist but an expansionist. All systems build upon, include, but exceed (transcend) earlier, less inclusive motives. Failure to identify with the entire human species is a failure shared by most human beings apparently. Universality is a measure of human development IMO. Nationality, ethnicity, provinciality, regionally, familiarity....the shrinkage of identity from universality to more and more specifically individual and personal recognition, sets up more and more separation, resulting in restrictive minds similar "pack" or tribal mentalities belonging to a mind-set that is practically paleolithic in its primitivity.
Humans do not live by instinct very well relative to the rest of the mammalian kingdom. Human nature is not reducible to "nature" in the way you use it, we are one species that requires being taught to do almost everything but suck at a breast. Learning theories much better account for us, unless we become feral children, raised by animals or by scavenging. Then we degrade into more instinct-ridden entities, but we then 'learn' from 'social learning theory' with canines or primates as our teachers. Such humanoids are profoundly damaged. Feral children raised by wild dogs, for example, who go about on hands and knees, eat and drink by lapping up, without the use of hands, and failure to meet developmental windows for the acquisition of speech, prevents later acquisition. Instinct is insufficient for the development of specifically human nature. It seems like multitudes of humans are merely humanoids, but very quickly step on someone else's trampled body during life-threatening crises like fires, wherein instinct trumps compassion. I have a limbic system, but I do not identify with my reptilian brain. I embody higher functions.
It seems to me with your socio-biological reductionism, we are this instinctual in your eyes, but have 'learned to merely compensate with provisions of ethical behavior. I'm saying that ethics derives from moral development, which in turn is a subcategory of cognitive development (based on Kohlberg's elaboration of Jean Piaget's important work). These cognitive developments are naturally correlated with normal biological development in dialogue with social development (nature AND nurture). But there is a tremendous amount of pathology that interferes with normal human development.
Your flowery language is giving me a headache 
In my opinions humans live their lives almost entirely off instincts, there have been few arguments I've seen in my life which were not guided by various logical fallacies. Our very minds function based on pattern
My decision to become a musician has instinct at its base, I've spent years considering various options but instinctively I've only sought to justify that decision and find ways to make it work. Circular logic
|
Repertoire89
Cat



Registered: 11/15/12
Posts: 21,773
|
|
One thing I find interesting is how people find the idea of a lack in free will threatening, that we are in large part guided by our instincts. We already observe the process of our minds and the results, the way marketing works on people is a simple pattern known as brand recognition - as a small example.
We're already aware from 1st person how this works, we see the results as well, personally I enjoy my life even knowing that I have instinctual motivations for the largest decisions I've made in my life. In being a musician I seek/sought pleasure, the same as why I had sex. They were both motivated by instincts, and I utilized logic to make both possible.
|
MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 2 days
|
|
Frankly, I don't think you have differentiated Instinct from Intellection from Intuition, but I don't want to give you a headache pondering the differences.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
|
GreySatyr
Pagan-Psyche


Registered: 06/20/13
Posts: 3,376
Loc: North Carolina
Last seen: 9 years, 8 months
|
|
Crazy poetry, mindfuck central, Alice in wonderland could be the bible of philosophy.
-------------------- ...also, go to hell, huh?
|
Hobozen


Registered: 11/03/11
Posts: 10,634
Loc:
|
|
Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said:
Quote:
CosmicJoke said: Maybe it's the lack of a corresponding drug to a moral motivational center that's confusing. You sort of know where opiates, alcohol, amphetamines go on the chakra totem, but then there's a missing gap for ethics before you go into far out psychedelic states 
Are you referring to 'The Abyss,' in which the non-sephira Da'ath (Gnosis) is? That seems like a 'cloud of unknowing' in which ethics can become confused. Whose ethics? Who/What am I? Relativity flounders and drowns in the proximity to the Supernals. The Divine Will is 'beyond good and evil,' but following the Absolute, the reflux passes back down to the plane of humanity again, and ethics or the lack thereof illustrates whether the Light one has encountered has been Supernal or merely Luciferian. Has one become more established in compassionate Tiphereth, indicating an influx from Kether, or was it Luciferian Light which now inflates a manipulative ego who flew too close to the Supernal Light but fell clear through the Ethical Triangle on the way down into the Astral Triangle, Malkuth, or the Qlippoth itself?
Ground this paragraph bro. That is my philosophy for the hour.
|
Repertoire89
Cat



Registered: 11/15/12
Posts: 21,773
|
|
Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: Frankly, I don't think you have differentiated Instinct from Intellection from Intuition, but I don't want to give you a headache pondering the differences.
I'm very impressed, I assure you.
|
husmmoor
Invitro


Registered: 04/17/11
Posts: 557
Last seen: 8 years, 8 months
|
Re: Philosophy [Re: XUL]
#18986849 - 10/16/13 04:04 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
XUL said: I never officially studied philosophy but I have this vague idea that every debatable topic can be boiled down to ethics; that is what is right wrong.
It is a very radical position to claim everything can/should start from ethics. But could be quite cool. 
On a different note, I would say that in my experience, the philosophical questions which are most important to - most - people are actually ethical ones. They literaly go right to the 'heart' (and lack thereof) of the human experience. But many haven't really found their "ethical self", we routinely avoid thinking too much about these things, perhaps because it's often more comfortable to think about the constitution of reality, free will, etc, and on some level they may appear to be more challenging intellectually.
|
Repertoire89
Cat



Registered: 11/15/12
Posts: 21,773
|
|
Quote:
husmmoor said:
Quote:
XUL said: I never officially studied philosophy but I have this vague idea that every debatable topic can be boiled down to ethics; that is what is right wrong.
It is a very radical position to claim everything can/should start from ethics. But could be quite cool. 
On a different note, I would say that in my experience, the philosophical questions which are most important to - most - people are actually ethical ones. They literaly go right to the 'heart' (and lack thereof) of the human experience. But many haven't really found their "ethical self", we routinely avoid thinking too much about these things, perhaps because it's often more comfortable to think about the constitution of reality, free will, etc, and on some level they may appear to be more challenging intellectually.
People babble about ethics ceaselessly, from my observations the least ethical people especially.
|
|