/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11829520]

What’s his problem?

[Anonymous No.11829524]

>>11829520
jew

[Anonymous No.11829526]

>>11829524
/thread

[Anonymous No.11829540]

>>11829524
Ok...can you be more specific.......?

[Anonymous No.11829543]

>>11829540
Atheist Jew.

[Anonymous No.11829545]

>>11829520
Mainly that he wants to be a logical and unerring Spock more than he wants to be human or understand humanity.

[Anonymous No.11829558]

>>11829545
Expecting a jew to understand or care about non-jew "humanity" means you don't know the first thing about jews and how they actually view this non-jewish humanity.

[Anonymous No.11829565]

>>11829558
Racism is bad.

[Anonymous No.11829572]

>>11829565
Tell that to the talmudists calling whites "racist."

[Anonymous No.11829573]

Someone post his Twitter proof of objective morality

[Anonymous No.11829578]

>>11829572
If they're talking about you, then they are right. You are a racist. Racism is bad.

[Anonymous No.11829583]

>>11829578
For you.

[Anonymous No.11829586]

Dastardly religionists and science-denying scoundrels.

[Anonymous No.11829589]

>>11829545
Spray Tan Enlightenment.

[Anonymous No.11829650]

>you will never have the slick reasoning skills of Sam Harris

[Anonymous No.11829843]

>>11829520
He thinks he can derive ought from is through wordplay about pain from touching stoves.

[Anonymous No.11829875]

utilitarianism/consequentialism is a disease and must be purged

[Anonymous No.11830274]

Like most white males he assumes there is only one truth (that of white males) and only one knowledge (that of white males). He is incapable of understanding that there are many truths and many knowledges

[Anonymous No.11830283]

>>11830274
>white male
Um, no.

[Anonymous No.11830289]

>>11829875
Absolutely this. The rest of anglo philosophy next.

[Anonymous No.11830693]

>>11829520
What do you mean what's his problem? He was great in Zoolander and Tropic Thunder.

[Anonymous No.11832115]

>>11829875
Consider that there are potential biological states you could achieve in which you would be happier and healthier than you are now, and you aren't necessarily aware of such states or how attain them. Getting there could even go against your current beliefs/intuitions. So is wellbeing truly subjective?

Next, is it actually possible to take an action which isn't in pursuit of some form of wellbeing, even if very short term? Someone who deliberately harms themselves does so to satisfy some compulsion, assuage some kind of suffering, or to futher some cause they think will benefit the wellbeing of others (psychologically satisfying themselves in the process).

Wellbeing:
Well-being, wellbeing, or wellness is a general term for the condition of an individual or group. A high level of well-being means that in some sense the individual's or group's condition is positive.

Although our actions may lead us to an overall inferior condition (smoking 2 packs a day until terminal cancer), are individual actions ever not pursuing some kind of satisfaction (dopamine hit) and thus 'wellbeing'?

All you contientalfags and dualists ever offer are facile dismissals and poor arguments for imagined hard distinctions (is/ought).

Yes, he's a neoliberal jew. Yes, his political views are trash. That doesn't mean his position on morality -- one he didn't invent -- is necessarily wrong.

Finally, I have no particular beef with religious folks, but why do you bother to uphold a pretense of philosophical inquiry if ultimately you don't have to meet any objective standards? What's the point? Just evangelize and be honest about it.

[Anonymous No.11832206]

>>11832115
>imagined hard distinctions (is/ought).
How on Earth do you pretend there's no difference

[Anonymous No.11832212]

>>11832115
>Well-being, wellbeing, or wellness is a general term for the condition of an individual or group. A high level of well-being means that in some sense the individual's or group's condition is positive.
All you did was just circumvent the meaning of well being by using positive in the form of a synonym.

[Anonymous No.11832220]

>>11829524
>>11829526
>>11829540
>>11829543
I love you /lit/.

[Anonymous No.11832277]

>>11832115
>Just evangelize and be honest about it.
I do and I am.
Utilitarian ethics are simply retarded. Kill one healthy person on the street to harvest organs to save two sick people. You'll say that's a strawman, and of course it is, but my point is that utilitarian ethics leads to many such silly outcomes (what happens when everyone needs an organ?). Ethics based on "happiness" or "utility" always suffer from contradictions, not least of which is that the analytic Anglos who push them have the incredible belief that such things can even in principle be quantified. The entire system is predicated on a mystical belief in the "utility function," a belief that is supported by no good arguments I'm aware of; it is far less rational a belief than even belief in God. No, far better to consider as "ethical" that which preserves the human social order. As an engineer, we call this a "steady-state solution." What behaviors will or won't ruin it all? And we conclude that a behavior whose universal practice would destroy the social order is unethical on the individual level, arriving at Kant's categorical imperative.
Your post is as follows:
>You could be happier than you are now. So is wellbeing truly subjective?
So my subjective preference to one state over another is... objective? Are you retarded?
>Everything you do, you do to make yourself happier
Psychology isn't ethics, you're not even addressing the issue. Further, you're talking about "is," not about "ought," not that you know the difference.
>why do you bother to uphold a pretense of philosophical inquiry if ultimately you don't have to meet any objective standards?
Why do you think your standards are objective? Because they subjectively make sense to you? I am a subject, not an object. Why should objective standards apply to a subject? Why do you even believe in objectivity? And it is a belief, you'll try to say "it's self-evident logically" but then—why do you believe in logic? It's simple faith. Your faith is just in Reason™ and Science™ rather than God.
Your an idiot. I use the wrong "you're" there for comedic effect.

[Anonymous No.11832543]

>>11832206
An 'ought' is simply a desire to manipulate what is into another is. Desires are also a kind of 'is'. There is no discrete category of other-knowledge that constitutes 'oughts'. The distinction is a conceptual one, there is no concrete boundary.

>>11832212
True, the definition is from wikipedia. I wanted to point out how generalized wellbeing can be. To address the apparent circularity, I propose that 'positivity' is the satisfaction of various biological impulses which we can only prioritize, not avoid entirely. We can do nothing else but pursue said satisfaction, although we may fail to prioritize effectively. Referring back to my previous post, there can be biological states which we would find far more fufilling, but are unaware/blind to the potential of. So while greater wellbeing may appear to be a subjective notion, if we treat it as a real biological state we can see it is objective. The supposed subjectivity is due to limited perception and the objective differences between people (we don't share the exact same optimal states, even if there's a lot of overlap).

>>11832277
Ethics based on utility is simply honesty. You see contradictions because you have silly expectations of morality being truly universal and independent of human bias. In reality, if your religious collective came into conflict with another collective whose concept of god was different and offensive to you, you would prioritize the utility (including survival) of your collective. The same 'contradictions' are there, but since you aren't honest about the nature of morality you have to rely upon asserted edict as opposed to honest observation. Can you not see that your argument to favour that which preserves human social order is a utilitarian one? I propose that your conception of utilitarianism is artifically restrained due to unfounded prejudice.

-Yes, all your preferences are biological reality. Ultimately it's all objective, subjectivity only refers to our limited perception. Try thinking things through, retard.

-You can't even define ethics without consideration of what is. Go ahead, try. There is no knowledge you have which isn't entirely dependent on how things actually are.

-Knowledge which demonstrates predictive power is more objective than that which does not. This how you live most of your life (especially if you're an engineer), whether you admit it or not. You believe in logic because you observe consistent relations in the concrete world. That is not faith. The only thing comedic here is your wholly ironic arrogance.

[Anonymous No.11832715]

>>11832543
>You see contradictions because you have silly expectations of morality being truly universal and independent of human bias
You didn't even read my post, or you did and you're simply dishonest (more likely). I never said any such thing. I said the opposite.
>you would prioritize the utility (including survival) of your collective
Why are you talking about what I would do? Aren't we talking about ethics here? Shouldn't you be talking about what I ought to do? But again, your little brain actually cannot comprehend the difference. You haven't even made a point yet.
>Can you not see that your argument to favour that which preserves human social order is a utilitarian one?
Unsurprising that you use the English vs. the American spelling, as only a dumb analytic Anglo would make the utilitarian arguments you do. But to your point. Yes, it is an arbitrary choice, but not a utilitarian one. It's chosen not because it somehow maximizes social utility but because it leads to a contradiction-free ethical system. Is there a value judgment being made there? Yes, but calling that judgment "utilitarian" is broadening the term beyond any reasonable limits.
>You can't even define ethics without consideration of what is.
Well duh, Einstein, "is" is necessary to get to "ought," the entire point is that it's not sufficient. Do you have an argument that "is" is necessary *and* sufficient to obtain "ought"?
>You believe in logic because you observe consistent relations in the concrete world. That is not faith.
This statement is incredibly stupid even for you. Problem of induction. Logic is true because it seemed like it was the last few times? That's not solid grounding. Your belief is not founded on bedrock, but on faith.

Mathematicians prove the existence of functions they work with. You blindly assume the utility function exists at all, without any argument. Please, I'm begging you, give me such an argument.
Please, I'm begging you, explain to me why I shouldn't kill a hobo (with no family to mourn him) and donate his organs to the needy and give his body to science. This ought (see what I did there) to be a simple thing to resolve for the utilitarian.

[Anonymous No.11832978]

>>11832715
I did read your post. Your contention is that utilitarian ethics are 'retarded' because they attempt to deal with the admittedly complex balancing act of individual and collective utility instead of hand-waving it away. I'm saying that this competing utility is the reality, and finding an efffective compromise between individual preference and collective utility is the heart of morality (no matter how else you try to frame it).

Here again you reveal that you have an expectation of universal, concretely distinct 'oughts', despite your screeching to the contrary. We all do what we do, there is no 'ought' in the fanciful, metaphysical sense that you imagine there is. When I say that we should or ought to do something, I am simply saying that 'x' actions is a more effective means of achieving 'y' consequences. I do not imagine that 'oughts' are universal directives which magically transcend competing interests, statically applicable to all people in all circumstances. Try to get this all through your frontal torus before objecting.

How else do you propose we obtain 'oughts' but form what is? You concede necessitation of the 'is', but claim it is non-sufficient while failing to describe any alternative contributing source. What knowledge do you have that isn't a product of your experience with the world?

Yet, that is the grounding of logic. If everything were random interactions with no consistency, we wouldn't value logic or even have a concept of it. The problem of induction only points out the technical uncertainty of empiricism, yet we all still rely on predictive knowledge for our supposedly a priori systems of knowledge. What would 'logic' or 'true' mean in a universe of random interaction? If anything could be anything, what sense would these concepts make? How would math have begun without us experiencing dinstinctness and consistency in the concrete world?

Predictive knowledge is how you navigate every day -- pretending that it is a poor basis for an objective standard is totally disingenuous. I have no expectation of perfect certainty because that is unreasonable and unrequired. I am open to new knowledge. Even so, empricism is the strongest bedrock we have, and relying upon the observable, testable and predictive is the opposite of faith.

You shouldn't kill the hobo because it is our society's consensus that killing non-threatening individuals even for the benefit of several others would be profoundly detrimental to social cohesion in the long run. It is not a tenable precedent. Now, if the hobo volunteered (even if it meant suicide) or we were talking about a heinous murderer, we might come to different conclusions. I also accept that there is a conflict between the interests of the murderer and society, and do not pretend there is a universal law which makes society's interests metaphysically superior. We stop the murderer or they stop us. It's all 'is'.

[Anonymous No.11832995]

>>11832220
this. It's totally epic how edgy this website can be! totally why I come here!

[Anonymous No.11833361]

>>11830274
I'd suggest there's just truth, which is what is, and distortions of truth which contain all human understanding of truth.

[Anonymous No.11833629]

>>11833361
Well you'd be a bit of a problematic racist then wouldn't you. There are multiple truths and multiple knowledges. Deal with it