philosophical inquiry (cont.)

Keep in mind that in ethics it is very difficult to synethesize ethical systems.

If, for instance, we combined the golden rule and utilitarianism into one rule, we would have something like the following formulation:

"I must do unto others as I would have them do unto me, unless consideration of the greater good outweighs this rule, in which case I must do the act that realizes or maximizes the greater good."

Then what I really am saying is simply

"I must do the act that realizes or maximizes the greater good."

because I am specifying that in all instances where I apply the golden rule and this application contradicts utilitarianism, I must instead follow utilitarianism. In which case, the golden rule isn't actually doing anything. It's just a bunch of worthless words. We may as well just call ourselves utilitarianists.

 

So...great. Your point was that it's stupid to blindly follow a rule even if it's widely touted as 'universally applicable' - by people who don't follow it themselves, even?

Heh...nice.. I coulda said that in one post and had pretty much everyone agree with me, but because it's you, no one wanted to.

I find it amusing that what you're really arguing against is your own lack of charisma and ability to win people over to your side. You must be the worst debater i've ever seen because you can't change anyone's mind, but indeed force them to the other side simply because you're being a cock.

And I don't really mean that in a harsh way, I don't have a lot of problems with you, generally. I just mean...how can you not see your own attitude is like falling upon your sword over and over. Just like a myriad of other people on this forum and in this mod, you have the potential to be so much more and you're just ignoring it...why? - Because you're an idiot??? But you're not!

/sigh

Whatever, I guess that wouldn't have any affect on you.

 

it will probably start or end with groups of people ignoring other groups of people

 

I would not have agreed with you on principle (and I don't).

"I am right because of my charismatic nature." What an asinine and potentially harmful way to win an argument. You know who else got a long way on charisma alone? Adolf Hitler.

I would much rather you and everyone else hate me and instead look at my arguments. In fact, one of the virtues I am trying to demonstrate to you is the ability to view a person's arguments independent of their character.

That's not at all what I see. Brutos, the individual I originally engaged in this discussion, just reached a major point of understanding and is well on his way of discovering the truth on this topic (or, failing that, at least some kind of deeper understanding). The amount of time it takes to reach the breaking point is irrelevant to me because this is something that I thoroughly enjoy doing.

 

Sadly, you failed to provide any arguments at all.
You were stating your thesis.
Oh and all people here agreed that blindly following one rule is undoable.
I didn't even care about categorical imperative before i saw that "debate".
I'm saying "debate", because as it was said before, debate ain't about blindly defending your position, trying to force people to give up. It's about arguments, explaining your view and trying to CONVINCE other people your thesis is right. You might fail to do it, but at least the other side gets to know and should respect your thoughts.

Saying that categorical imperative is broken because it leads to a paradox in situation that CANNOT take place withing set boundaries is hardly an argument.

It's like saying relativism is worthless because it cannot handle microscale world.
(don't have time to construct sophisticated analogy)

 

What are you disagreeing with? Do you even know anymore?

I didn't say that, I said your attitude is actively harming your arguments. You are turning people away from even your good arguments, simply because they do not like you.

Yes, Adolf Hitler had charisma. Every good leader has a large element of charisma, and no it shouldn't be charisma ALONE, no one is advocating that, fool. No leader has ever had an attitude that makes most people turn away in disgust, no one can lead like that. But I guess you would rather be that whiny little bitch in the back row rather than any kind of leader.

Only in your mind are you demonstrating a virtue. To everyone else you're demonstrating how someone with a fair point to make can utter cock-up of it, by being dislikable. I'm sure it's an education for people who didn't know that being an arse while making your point, doesn't help your point any - like yourself.

I'll take your word for it

 

If that's true, then why are any of you defending the categorical imperative? Do you know what "categorical" means?

dictionary.com definition #1:

• without exceptions or conditions; absolute; unqualified and unconditional: a categorical denial.

If you're saying that the categorical imperative is not categorical, why are you defending it? Are you conceding your entire argument?

If I can establish a single case where the categorical imperative is not universally applicable, then I have defeated the categorical imperative. Kant bit the bullet when he was confronted with a question similar to this. If you cannot, then I suggest you find another ethical paradigm to follow.

 

Was anyone really arguing with you for more reason than because they don't like you :confused:

 

If you do, on given conditions then yes. Yet you do not.

And i am arguing with him because SOMEONE IS WRONG ON TEH INTERWEBZ! The things you mentioned Ikalyx can have to do with it too

 

Alright, i'll bite.

As far as the categorical imperative, and the golden rule, note that it does not state ignorance as being a sin, so to speak.

Unless the nazi specifically asks if I am keeping a person in the extra guest bedroom conveniently located behind the fire place or bookshelf, then i have no answer for him other than no, I am not in fact hiding anyone.

The idea that I will not lie to a person because I do not like being lied is full of many moral loopholes. A lie is telling someone something that I KNOW to be in direct contradiction to what we perceive as the truth.

At the same time, knowing the truth is also claiming to understand with certainty. Therefore, in the above situation, I would best answer the nazi simply by stating "not that I am aware of." By accepting the endless possibilities of the universe, I accept that there is no truth, and thus no lies can be told through uncertainty. To claim that I know something with a universe so full of uncertainty would, to some extent, be more of a lie. I would not want a person to tell me what they think to be the truth. At the same time, I would not like a person to tell me what they know to NOT be the truth.

In the end, I cannot tell you what there is, but I can give you many examples of things that are not.

In the end, I would like everyone to treat me with the same respect and courtesy that I believe they would like me to treat them with. With such a belief, how I treat others can most certainly change with how I think that they would like me to treat themselves. In this way, I can become closer with some, distant with others, and yet always remain kind.

I believe that philosophy is something you really can't give a definite example of how it works perfectly, because each situation depends upon the interpretation of the person. I will always treat others "How I would want to be treated", meaning how I think that they would want me to treat them. Even then, sometimes i may misinterpret how I think someone wants me to treat them.

If I think someone wants me to treat them like an idiot, why can't I? Is it against the "Golden Rule"? Do I even have the right to say that, even if the person tells me how they want me to treat them, that they actually understand themselves how they want to be treated?

In the end, I am the center of my world, and I think that all others would tend to agree with me, and thus want me to live if at all possible. Thus in a war, if it came down to it, It would be better if I shot them first rather than vice versa.

Call it what you will, how you think of something is completely up to the individuals interpretation. Anyone with a mildly complex mind will be able to rationalize a way to support the decisions that best suit themselves, and allow them to move on past events of their life. Those that cannot accomplish this simply drown in their own despair.

 

Metal Smith, you really have showed some teeth there. Wish i could state my point as you do.

 

wha?

I was just spewing bullshit from my ass.

however, in the end, without a form of perfect language, there is no way to accurately describe a person's true thoughts. The only solution is to assume that people act upon the same morals as yourself, and to treat them accordingly. Whether they follow your own morals or not, that is not a persons decision to make, but rather assume that if in the opposite position they would do to you as you would do to them.

 

Willful deception is off limits. Would you want someone to play weasel words with you? Of course not. You have an obligation to be straightforward and truthful toward the nazi if you are following the golden rule.

Then you're lying. "Are you hiding jews" is a simple and straightforward question, and under the golden rule deserves a simple and straightforward answer.

What this argument is is essentially "How can we really know anything" and if you're applying this argument to the application of the golden rule then why are you following the golden rule in the first place? If you are really saying that absolute knowledge is impossible, this is just another strike against a rule that is, by definition, absolute.

If you say "not that I am aware of" in response to "are you hiding jews," and you do in fact know with relative certainty that you are hiding jews, then you are lying.

A noble undertaking, but what does this have to do with this specific example? Would you want to be deceived or lied to? Are you deceiving or lying to the nazi? From my perspective, this case is open and shut.

Sure it can. Kant himself bit the bullet on this question. When asked if he would be truthful toward a murderer seeking the location of his prey, he said yes, and he saw no moral conundrum or contradiction by saying as such. As I stated before, if you don't want to make the leap that Kant did, you should probably just abandon Kant and the golden rule/categorical imperative altogether.

Of course it is. The golden rule is very simple in both its wording and application. "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It's pretty hard to bend that statement. If you're doing something contrary to what the golden rule states you should do, then you should be honest with yourself and just say you are.

If you honestly believe this, then your views are incompatible with Kant's. Kant taught for us to view the world as a "kingdom of ends" where each individual should be treated equally as a means to their own end and you cannot use people as a means to further your own ends unless it also furthers their ends. What you have just stated here absolutely reeks of egoism and Kant would have smelled it the moment you walked into his room.

A rational person would just abandon an ethical paradigm he sees as ridiculous and useless. An irrational person would break the rule while trying to rationalize the the rule's application.

Note that it is also perfectly rational to uphold the rule in all cases if you believe that doing so upholds some "greater good," that is, you believe that truth-telling as a metaphysical concept is important enough to society or whatever that sacrificing a few lives along the way is acceptable in order to uphold the concept. You might make this argument on the grounds that if I provide examples of truth-telling to others even in times of extreme duress, that other people are also more likely to tell the truth, and that ultimately a society full of truth-tellers would not have even reached the point where they were hunting down and killing the jews. I'm not quite so optimistic as that. I view the truth and deception as simple tools that can be used or discarded as their application becomes necessary to suit the situation at hand.

I want to briefly explain that there are also extreme cases where almost any ethical system has to bite the bullet. Utilitarianism, for instance, has been shown to easily deal with the nazi and the jew scenario earlier described. The greater good for the utilitarian would clearly be to simply lie as lying is only slightly bad for the nazi and extremely good for the jewish family you are hiding. However, the utilitarian as a judge might have to convict a man he knows to be innocent of a crime if he felt that doing so clearly outweighed the good, such as if an angry mob of people was going to rampage and destroy a town if he didn't appease the mob's demand to convict the man.

 

skeptics, even the ones I am skeptical of.

The answer is "yes and yes." When I first read Kant, I didn't have the same philosophical understanding that I do today, so I didn't really understand much of what was stated and accepted most of what he said on blind faith. My understanding has grown immensely in the past year or two and I haven't revisited his work since I grew skeptical.

I know it's a double post, I don't care. The first was large enough to merit a larger page break.