neither/nor wrote:
So, for instance, it's right for me to live if I don't set out to end the lives of others. That means it's wrong for other people to kill me.

But this is still hopelessly vague...subjunctive. There are any number of circumstantiual contexts in which others might feel justified in killing you. And all they need have are their own reasons, right?

Maybe they see you embracing a moral or political issue they are convinced leads to the deaths of others. Like, for example, if you support abortion or stem cell research. Or if you support a foreign policy [a war] that leads to the deaths of others. Or if you support an economic policy they believe leads to the pain and suffering of others. Or if you are an infidel. Or if you did something [anything] that absolutely infuriated them.

The number of people who think I should die is probably very low compared to the total number of people alive on Earth. I don't think there's a lot of disagreement, except from extremists of various stripes, about most everyone in the world having some right to live. But then there is widespread agreement on some broad moral issue, yeah?

szavieur wrote [message 180034]:

The similarity I find in Sartre and Kant is what they have to say about representing ourselves as free of will and what this means for justifying our actions. That self-deception ("bad faith") equals the nature of wrong action is common to what they derive from that representation.

What Sartre and Kant both share in common, of course, is pure speculation about the nature of "will" and "autonomy". Neither was able to pin them down such that we know they know that what they are talking about is all that can, in fact, be known.

Thus, when Nietzsche spoke of the "will to power" the first thing one must ask is, "does he have the capacity to know what he is talking about?"

After all, how in the world would we know this?

That's understood right? We can't assume that our speculations about a priori knowledge here are anywhere near what it might be [if it BE anything at all] from the perspective of an omniscient vantage point. Whatever that might possibly mean of course. Indeed, perhaps we can only understand these things as the philosophical equivalent of quantum mechanics. "Reality" is not the relationships between things so much as the relationships themselves.

Philosophers don't call these things antinomies for nothing.

That's why I keep emphasizing the crucial factor here is how we choose to act on these ideas out in the world. And how we come to choose "who" we "are" as dasein.

How do you know (or is know a four-letter word?) that you've construed or assessed anything even reasonably?

Generally, I predicate that on the extent to which I can convince others it is reasonable too. But I readily acknowledge that, regarding many of the relationships we discuss here, reasonable is in the mind of the beholder.

But the mind of the beholder is always situated. All we can do then is separate out the things we can clearly show to be true for all people for all times. We can clearly show, for example, that an abortion involves the destruction of an unborn embryo or a fetus. We cannot clearly show this is moral or immoral.

And, yes, I looked it up. Know is a four letter word. Although some spell it more sceptically than others. ; o )

me originally:

Have you ever had an epiphany about something I and others here can actually relate to with respect to an issue we read about all the time in the news? Something revolving around a clash of particular [conflicting] behaviors?

you:

Nonviolent resistance is pretty concrete, I think. If you don't know what supererogatory means, well, there's always the dictionary.

This is just a another non sequitor in my view. In other words, my point and yours are clearly in the minds of very different beholders, aren't they? ; o )

I don't see how much it matters to reality that people might want to kill me. They're wrong, and I know they are. What I mean by "wrong" and "I know" establishes this.

Oh, for sure, They Are Wrong. Period. Why? Because you have already established that they must be. Theoretically, for example.

Do you have any idea though how dangerous that point of view can be if it is in the mind of a beholder hell bent on, say, instantiating one or another additional final solution?

What do you think the implications of knowing something are?

Exactly. It is the implications I impute or ascribe to it. Do you grasp the implications of that for those who are convinced they know what the rest of us should know about it too? Basically, they think they know the most rational manner in which TO think about something. Or sometimes, everything.

I ask:

...how in the world---the world we all live in---does Kant's philosophy have meaning? What can human knowledge and meaning even mean at all in a reality that ephemeral? that tenuous? that profoundly problematic?

You answer. But with another question hell bent on taking this back up into the ivory tower:

What do you mean by "meaning," here?

I mean existentially, of course.

.....I don't see how your arguments could reasonably dissuade me from my conviction. Your arguments, from your point of view, seem to me to be sound and valid only for you.

I don't think reason has much to do with what motivates you here. Instead, I think you are motivated to enbrace Kant as a psychological defense mechanism. You might say I "intuit" that from the manner in which you react to my attempts to deconstruct your sense of "self".

But surely by now you will acknowledge I am the very first to admit this can only be my own subjunctive opinion. I would never associate my point of view with an alleged categorical imperative associated with an alleged moral law.

Truth be told [one of them?], I do not even feel it is my duty and obligation to inform you of this.

neither/nor wrote:

...no one can absolutely know or know absolutely whether the Israeli policy is right or wrong.....Do you disagree with it? If so...and with respect to particular policies that generate behaviors that impact others and motivate their own reciprocal behavior...what do you mean by it?

szavieur wrote [post 180042]:

I mean you define right and wrong very differently from how I do, which means you may very well be totally correct that "nothing can be absolutely known about right and wrong" but so can *I* be totally correct in saying that "everything can be absolutely known about right and wrong."

Aside to others:

Note how [once again] szavieur basically ignores the substantive point I am raising about a particular set of behaviors. A set of behaviors we all have access to in the media; and from various conflicting sides of the conflict.

Instead, he seeks to yank the discussion into a metaphysical fog---what can or can not be "absoltutely known"? Theoretically, he seems to assure us, both nothing and everything.

If only the folks slaughtering each other over in the Middle East could grasp that!! Don't they have a priori knowledge over there? ; o )

I make a reasonable request:

[W]hy don't we go to the New York Times front page and, article by article, discuss the events from the perspective of dasein or from the perspective of a rational agent doing the rational thing for all the rational reasons a Kantian might invent theoretically.

you respond:


When I explained some considerations Kant might've thought relevant to Mary's particular problem, you just threw up "Gloria Steinem's dictum" in front of it, as if some witty-sounding claim by this Steinem person could magically evaporate the importance to the rights and wrongs of Mary' case of the interests of the person Mary got knocked up by.

Again, aside to others:

Is there anyone here who can explain more clearly how szavieur's rejoinder above is appllicable to the suggestion I made that prompted it? Is it, perhaps, an aspect of a priori knowledge I simply do not fathom...logically?

With respect to Steinen's somewhat facetious attempt to oraculate, I was merely making the point that abortion as a moral issue is embedded in the biological reality of pregnancy. Men cannot become pregnant and thus can never know what it means existentially to endure an unwanted pregnancy. Certainly not in the manner in which women can.

I was simply asking szauvieur how, given this undisputable empirical fact, it might be an important consideration given how, in turn, it is usually men [on the courts and in the legislature] who render moral judgments about abortion into law.

or as szavieur put it:

But what's the point of me judging...Mary's problems? Aren't those way too intensely personal for me to judge?

Yes, exactly. For szavieur it is "personal" in a manner such that he will never have to judge his own behavior with respect to this particular moral conflagration. Again, not as a woman might.

So, a priori, is Steinen's fanciful observation relevant or not?


...I will say (A) this [political] negotiating is our objective duty and [B] whatever the outcome of that negotiation is, is the objective moral law as it should be.

But it is only "as it should be" theoretically. And it is our "objective duty" only in the sense we have no choice but to render legal judgments when behaviors collide. That is more a practical or a utilitarian imperative and not, philosophically a categorical one.

"Progress" here revolves around our willingness to do this more or less democratically. And, again, democratic value judgments evolved from the assumption that philosopher-kings do not exist to provide us with a Moral Law such that we can know for certain what is rational or irrational behavior.

neither/nor wrote:
Instead, he seeks to yank the discussion into a metaphysical fog---what can or can not be "absoltutely known"? Theoretically, he seems to assure us, both nothing and everything.

No, that's not what I meant. I meant that what YOU mean by "right" and "wrong" is something no one can know without being omniscient, whereas what I mean by it is something a person can know, even if he or she doesn't know anything else. In other words, we're both correct, in a way.

I was simply asking szauvieur how, given this undisputable empirical fact, it might be an important consideration given how, in turn, it is usually men [on the courts and in the legislature] who render moral judgments about abortion into law.

It IS important that men can't get pregnant whereas women can, but this doesn't mean that my girlfriend (if I had one) could just reasonably shrug off my concerns about our potential kid when it comes to deciding whether to carry her pregnancy to term.

So, a priori, is Steinen's fanciful observation relevant or not?

It's relevant but mistaken. It's just not necessarily true that if men could get pregnant, they'd sanctify ending pregnancy prematurely. They MIGHT, but if they did while they now tend (if they tend) to regard it as profane instead, this could very well just be hypocrisy (which is itself usually wrong).

But it is only "as it should be" theoretically. And it is our "objective duty" only in the sense we have no choice but to render legal judgments when behaviors collide. That is more a practical or a utilitarian imperative and not, philosophically a categorical one.

How do you know that it's "not, philosophically, a categorical" imperative?

"Progress" here revolves around our willingness to do this more or less democratically. And, again, democratic value judgments evolved from the assumption that philosopher-kings do not exist to provide us with a Moral Law such that we can know for certain what is rational or irrational behavior.

But what if people can give the "Moral Law" to themselves? Then people can know for themselves, for certain, what's rational or irrational. (Again, the definition of rationality makes a lot of the difference, here.)

neither/nor wrote:
What Sartre and Kant both share in common, of course, is pure speculation about the nature of "will" and "autonomy". Neither was able to pin them down such that we know they know that what they are talking about is all that can, in fact, be known.

I think that I'm directly conscious of my ability to make choices. Conscious just as well as I am of the rest of physical reality (maybe even more so). My relevant remarks aren't, then, just conjecture, but grounded in my awareness of the facts.

We can clearly show, for example, that an abortion involves the destruction of an unborn embryo or a fetus.

I'm not so sure about this.

Nonviolent resistance is pretty concrete, I think. If you don't know what supererogatory means, well, there's always the dictionary.

This is just a another non sequitor in my view.

You were asking me (or so I thought) for a concrete answer to a question about something (potentially?) ethically controversial. That's what my description of nonviolent resistance as supererogatory was meant to be.

Adopting absolute pacifism is often rejoined with something about how absolute pacifists are being unreasonable about killing. Intuitively, there ARE cases where killing is justified. How to reconcile this with the intuitions of the absolute pacifists, too, though? The reflective equilibrium I achieved (if only for myself) was that absolute pacifists are right about the moral superiority of their position vis-à-vis the just war theorist (for instance), but only inasmuch as their code is supererogatorily justified. THAT means that the just war theorist is right, too (about killing being justifiable).

Do you have any idea though how dangerous that point of view can be if it is in the mind of a beholder hell bent on, say, instantiating one or another additional final solution?

I know how dangerous it can be, but sometimes I just have to accept dangerous things (like driving). Logically, you could say, believing that you know what's right doesn't by itself lead to killing. It only does that (again) if you also believe that killing is right.

... another question hell bent on taking this back up into the ivory tower:

What do you mean by "meaning," here?

It's not an academic question, it's one meant to help us fix ideas, here. Unless I have some handle on what you're talking about, whether you're talking about something different from me when you say "meaning" as opposed to when *I* say it won't be clear to me. So you say:

I mean existentially, of course.

But that's not (clearly) a definition like you'd find in the dictionary. So it doesn't tell me what you think meaning *is*. And then in turn I've not got a way to figure out what your standards for predicating meaningfulness of something *are*.

I don't think reason has much to do with what motivates you here. Instead, I think you are motivated to enbrace Kant as a psychological defense mechanism. You might say I "intuit" that from the manner in which you react to my attempts to deconstruct your sense of "self".

Until you can explain how my beliefs might be "psychological defense mechanisms" (defending what, exactly?), or what "self" you're trying to deconstruct (what on Earth does "deconstructing the self" even mean?)—or until you actually provide me with your definition (if only stipulative) of the word reason—how am I *supposed* to react?

If a certain kind of utilitarian told me that the right thing to do, objectively, was unknowable because the concept being the right thing to do was the same as that of the actions out of the set of those possible for us at any given moment which would directly or indirectly cause the greatest amount of happiness for every conscious person throughout the universe for all future time, I'd happily concede that, so defined, my duties are unknowable. But then I'd just as happily say, "So it doesn't objectively matter to my decision-making whether my actions are, as such, right. It matters whether they're right when conceived in a different way, e.g. from the point of view of the original position."

I think that's kind of where half the argument of this thread (fairly wildly off topic, I'll note) has gone by this point.