Philosophy: books and discussion

[troymc]

I just re-read Plato's Euthyphro.

And now I'm creating an epub of Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell since it was brought up here.


Troy

[mysweety]

Gallimard ebooks and a lot more are available on:
http://www.librairie-ledivan.com/livrel.php

[mysweety]

Originally Posted by troymc

I just re-read Plato's Euthyphro.

And now I'm creating an epub of Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell since it was brought up here.


Troy

Please let me know when it is available.

[nguirado]

The Antichrist is probably Nietzsche's most sustained attack on Christianity in all of his writings; not that he was ever shy about it in any of them. As a non-believer, the problem I have with Nietzsche is not his antipathy for Christianity; but that he denigrates everything I feel to be of worth about that religious tradition. Where he criticizes the excesses and questionable metaphysics of Christianity, I feel we are on the same page, but when he attacks the notions of charity and offering support to the weak and helpless, I can't help but recoil. He calls Christianity a weak feminine religion; a slave's religion that stands against everything that is born of strength, virtue, and nobility.

Nietzsche tried to find a motivator besides God. He came up with power, conquest, etc. In many ways, Christianity is the opposite of this so he attacked it. The modern equivalent to this type of atheism is Ayn Rand, with capitalist success taking the place of warfare.

Since you're an atheist, you can come up with another motivation on your own. Many atheists are socialists which is like Christianity in many ways, except for the theism. Some are communists, but that has a bad reputation.

Remember, as an atheist, you can make up anything you want. You have that freedom. So, just disagree with Nietzsche and move on.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by nguirado

....

Remember, as an atheist, you can make up anything you want. You have that freedom. So, just disagree with Nietzsche and move on.

Um, no, you can't just make things up, they have to fit into our view of reality.

[FlorenceArt]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Um, no, you can't just make things up, they have to fit into our view of reality.

... and ethics.

[TimMason]

There's an enormous variety of non-theistical viewpoints, some of which - many of which - would seem to deviate markedly from 'our' vision of reality. So while I'm not sure that we can 'make up anything we want', we can certainly note the existence of a large number of different belief systems which do not place a creator god at their centre.

Moreover, a person's 'vision of reality' is itself contingent on her belief system, as much as the other way round. If I believe in the existence of a creator demiurge who, having set the world up and set it running, then went off to somewhere else to do something else - and this is a recurrent kind of belief - then reality is rather different than if I subscribe to an agentless Big Bang. The same could be said for ethics.

[nguirado]

I didn't mean that you're free to say that the White House is made of cheese. That's a physical, verifiable reality.

I'm saying that you can make up what you consider right and wrong. So, you can be like Nietzsche, thinking that the best men are those who dominate or you can think the opposite. Who cares? As an atheist, you're free to think whatever you want on ethics and morality. That's why they call it "free-thinking."

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by nguirado

Nietzsche tried to find a motivator besides God. He came up with power, conquest, etc. In many ways, Christianity is the opposite of this so he attacked it. The modern equivalent to this type of atheism is Ayn Rand, with capitalist success taking the place of warfare.

Since you're an atheist, you can come up with another motivation on your own. Many atheists are socialists which is like Christianity in many ways, except for the theism. Some are communists, but that has a bad reputation.

Remember, as an atheist, you can make up anything you want. You have that freedom. So, just disagree with Nietzsche and move on.

I don't believe I've used the word atheist here to describe my beliefs. I prefer to say I'm a secular humanist and an agnostic. Humanist in that I consider my obligations to other members of my species to be of paramount importance, secular in my outlook. In matters metaphysical, I'm an agnostic. I don't pretend to be in a position of being able to determine whether this universe has a creator, sustainer, or director. I lean towards atheism, yet there are times when it's difficult to believe that this universe is a wholly impersonal place.

In any case; none of us are free, in my opinion, to make up anything we want. We are constrained by the nature of the reality in which we are immersed and by our evolutionary biology as social animals. To ignore either is to court disaster and is a sure road to an unhappy and unfulfilled life. Nor am I completely persuaded that we have free will. Each of us feels as if we are free in our volitions, but this may be an elaborate illusion perpetrated by nature. That we aren't always aware of the source of our thoughts and actions is no reason to assume that we are that source. If we are indeed free from the laws of cause and effect, that certainly makes us unique from the entire rest of the known universe.

From what I've read of Ayn Rand, I feel her position is indeed close to that of Nietzsche's, and is one of the reasons why I take issue with her unbridled Libertarianism. While I admit that most Libertarians are perhaps more consistent than most those of other political persuasions in their beliefs; they also tend to be ideologues, and pure ideology of any stripe is not always a good way to conduct business in the very complicated real world in which we live. Despite my admiration for the atheistic writings of people like George H. Smith, I part issue with him on his Libertarianism for much the same reason I take issue with Nietzsche's attack on Christianity. Not everyone is cut out to be an overman, and such philosophies appear to me to tend to minimize the plight of the weak and needy in their celebration of strength.

As for Nietzsche, deep down I suspect he didn't fully subscribe to his own doctrines. When his breakdown occurred, it was said that he witnessed the beating of a horse by a coachman and ran out to throw his arms around the animal in an attempt to protect it. In his Great Ideas of Philosophy, 2nd Edition course prepared for The Teaching Company, Professor Daniel N. Robinson said that this is how he likes to think of Nietzsche; not as the one who railed against all conventions, but as the one who ran out to protect the helpless against an oppressor. To quote Robinson, "He must have found in the suffering of that innocent animal just the sort of authentic experience that human nature sets out to deny itself; and in denying itself, that it inflicts on another and on the innocent. The picture I have of Nietzsche is the picture of Nietzsche caressing an innocent who has been the subject of abuse; and that picture forgets almost all the rest." Nietzsche did, after all, say that his practical aim was to become artist (creating), saint (loving), and philosopher (knowing) all in the same person (Werke, XXII, page 213); and as Will Durant writes in The Story of Philosophy:

.....Nevertheless, his father was a minister; a long line of clergymen lay behind each of his parents; and he himself remained a preacher to the end. He attacked Christianity because there was so much of its moral spirit in him; his philosophy was an attempt to balance and correct, by violent contradiction, an irresistible tendency to gentleness and kindness and peace; was it not the final insult that the good people of Genoa should call him Il Santo—"the Saint"? His mother was a pious and Puritan lady, of the same sort that had fostered Immanuel Kant; and, with perhaps one disastrous exception, Nietzsche remained pious and Puritan, chaste as a statue, to the last; therefore his assault on Puritanism and piety. How he longed to be a sinner, this incorrigible saint!

[TGS]

Originally Posted by nguirado

I didn't mean that you're free to say that the White House is made of cheese. That's a physical, verifiable reality.

I'm saying that you can make up what you consider right and wrong. So, you can be like Nietzsche, thinking that the best men are those who dominate or you can think the opposite. Who cares? As an atheist, you're free to think whatever you want on ethics and morality. That's why they call it "free-thinking."

Don't you think that reason plays a part - even in ethics? For example, one might hold to a principle that all life should be protected and that doing intentional harm to a living creature is wrong, (most people don't hold this principle, it's just an example). Now if a person who claimed that causing deliberate harm to a living creature was wrong unless the English name of that creature began with W, and therefore causing harm to worms, wombats, wolves and whales (and probably lots of other things that I can't think of), was morally justified, we would consider them irrational. There simply seems to be no a priori reason to ascribe a different moral status to creatures on the basis of what their English name is. Similarly if someone argues that all humans have equal rights - unless they have ginger hair, that's equally irrational.

So, in this sense I'm not sure that non-theists are "free" to adopt whatever beliefs they want in relation to morality.

[nguirado]

I don't mean to start a fight. Most of my friends are atheists or irreligious. Nothing you said contradicts what I said. In regards to morality and ethics, you can say and defend anything you want.

The only authority you can use is that a particular opinion on morality, if held by everyone, would create a "worse" society, sort of like what Kant held. This is no argument for an objective morality that holds for everybody (such an idea is to be found in the concept of the natural law, but that necessitates an author of nature).

It's like deciding which rules for a particular game would make it more fun. The rules aren't inviolate. They're there to facilitate a certain result.

Respectfully, except for physical reality, one can hold any morality one wants to since it's just a social construct anyways and doesn't exist independently of our opinion.

[nguirado]

Originally Posted by TGS

Don't you think that reason plays a part - even in ethics? For example, one might hold to a principle that all life should be protected and that doing intentional harm to a living creature is wrong, (most people don't hold this principle, it's just an example). Now if a person who claimed that causing deliberate harm to a living creature was wrong unless the English name of that creature began with W, and therefore causing harm to worms, wombats, wolves and whales (and probably lots of other things that I can't think of), was morally justified, we would consider them irrational. There simply seems to be no a priori reason to ascribe a different moral status to creatures on the basis of what their English name is. Similarly if someone argues that all humans have equal rights - unless they have ginger hair, that's equally irrational.

So, in this sense I'm not sure that non-theists are "free" to adopt whatever beliefs they want in relation to morality.

Reasoning is a process. It's useless without premises. Moral and ethical reasoning needs premises. Without them, reasoning is useless. You can have premises by observing reality (induction) or apriori. Moral reasoning needs apriori premises.

For example:

Peace and wealth are good.
Stealing makes people angry and lowers GDP.
Therefore, stealing is wrong.

The second line is observation. But one can't arrive at the conclusion without the first assertion.

[nguirado]

Just to be clear. The person in your example is being perfectly reasonable, according to him premise. You're confusing "reason" with a morality that most people think is silly. Nobody holds the premise that certain letters denote superiority.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by nguirado

I don't mean to start a fight. Most of my friends are atheists or irreligious. Nothing you said contradicts what I said. In regards to morality and ethics, you can say and defend anything you want.

The only authority you can use is that a particular opinion on morality, if held by everyone, would create a "worse" society, sort of like what Kant held. This is no argument for an objective morality that holds for everybody (such an idea is to be found in the concept of the natural law, but that necessitates an author of nature).

It's like deciding which rules for a particular game would make it more fun. The rules aren't inviolate. They're there to facilitate a certain result.

Respectfully, except for physical reality, one can hold any morality one wants to since it's just a social construct anyways and doesn't exist independently of our opinion.

Hello, nguirado, and since I don't believe I said it earlier, Welcome to MobileRead.

I hope you don't feel I'm fighting with you, as that was certainly not my intent. I've disagreed with others in this thread, then turned around and gave them Karma for something with which I agree. One of the goals, I believe, of this thread is to be able to exchange ideas and viewpoints on some rather weighty issues without animosity. So far, we've had some spirited exchanges, but they've been pretty civil. If I've failed to convey that, or if my tone has come across as offensive, please accept my apologies.

I personally believe that Kant was on to something with his statement about "the moral law within." I don't believe this law to be of supernatural origin, however. I think as a species, we've evolved a certain degree of empathy with our fellow denizens of this planet, and I believe that's why a variation of The Golden Rule is found in virtually all cultures. Kant's Categorical Imperative, in my opinion, is simply a variation on this theme. In addition, we seem to have an innate sense of fair play that makes it's appearance in early childhood, probably long before children first learn to cry, "That's not fair!" over a perceived injustice. As I see it, cultures differ in the particulars of their moral standards, but all of them begin with empathy and a sense of fair play. To that extent, and to that extent only, I am a moral absolutist.

[nguirado]

Oh, and if you want a critique of Nietzsche by one of his near contemporaries, "Heretics" by Chresterton is very good.