From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Wed Apr 30 2003 - 17:11:36 BST
Hi Johnny,
>
> >Still waiting for an answer for some examples of "moral mechanisms."
>
> Well, what is moral is a lot looser and fuzzier now than it used to be, it
> is now moral to work toward cures for diseases and figuring out ways to
> solve various energy crisis, etc. Do you get my original objection though?
> I'm trying to not throw the baby out with the bathwater when we talk about
> replacing morality with "newer" and "better". It happens naturally, as
> part of the moral patterns, that things improve. But when we start to
> suggest that everything is rotten, including the baby, and we've got a
> newer and better baby, well...i guess my metaphor loses some meaning there,
> but maybe you can do your best to tell me what you think I am trying to say
> and if it seems close, we'll put it to rest.
I'm guessing, but maybe you're trying to say things were better before
the Hippies of the 60's made it cool to have indiscrimate sex and shoot
up on drugs.
> >As for "what most people do is moral," you might want to check out
> >what's going on in Zimbabwe.
>
> Whatever most people do in Zimbabwe is moral in Zimbabwe. Sounds like I
> wouldn't consider it moral, whatever it is.
Maybe this is an example of the newer and better morality that on one
hand you disparage, on the other hand endorse. The idea that whatever
most people do in Zimbabwe is moral in Zimbabwe is the new moral
relativism and equivalency being taught in schools and colleges today in
the name of diversity, tolerance and political correctness. If the people
in Mascatchooan throw every third baby girl into a bonfire as a cultural
rite, there's nothing wrong with that. Who are we to tell them that it's
wrong? We must tolerate the customs of other cultures and celebrate
the diversity of life. Those values are much higher than what happens to
individual human beings within those cultures.
Swallowing such a line of malarkey is the road to hell on earth. If that's
the "new and better" morality that bothers you, I'm with you all the way.
> > > My "faith in determinism" is comonly called Reason.
> >
> >Whatever. Your faith in Reason and Determinism is like the priest's faith
> >in God.
>
> You do know you are making a rather ironic comparison, right? THose are
> usually considered mutually exclusive, the debate has been "Faith versus
> Reason" for centuries. I never felt they were contradictory, to me my
> faith in God was the same as my faith in Reason. But I never heard anyone
> propose there was a third alternative. What are you proposing as an
> alternative to both Reason and God, exactly? Atheistic Unreason?
No. Aesthetics and DQ.
> >As explained, experiences of beauty differ from one person to another, but
> >all experience beauty. The beauty experience is innate, like the
> >experience of hunger.
>
> I agree with that, but you know what? I think it shows an innate
> appreciation of static patterns that relate to other patterns harmoniously,
> or according to static patterns that define harmony. And I think that
> innateness is also a constituent static pattern of human beings.
I think you have something there. Responses to DQ today emanate
from the combination of static patterns that make up in human beings. If
DQ created the world it makes sense that DQ created patterns in the
world that would recognize itself.
> (If you have it handy, could you please point me to where he said art can
> free man from his will? (or don't bother, I may come across it someday.
> Is that in World as Will and Idea? I sporadically dive in to that
> randomly. it's too long for me to read straight through.)
I wouldn't condemn anyone to reading original texts written by
philosophers except for a few moderns like Pirsig who take pains to
make their texts readable. My reference is from Will Durant's "The Story
of Philosophy" where in writing about Schopenhauer's ideas he says,
"This deliverance of knowledge from servitude to the will, this forgetting
of the individual self and its material interest, this elevation of the mind
to the will-less contemplation of truth, is the function of art."
> >What about the unexpected good that comes as a surprise?
>
> That's the kind of good that is 'agreeable to me or beautiful to me'. It
> is 'good to me' and is just what i have come to define as good according to
> static patterns. Static patterns tell me that finding $20 is good. I'm
> talking about the good that is the ontological result of continuing
> existence of the universe. You say the good came first, I say it came
> second, after the first static pattern began self-enlarging. "And it was
> good" came after the the Word.
A "self-enlarging static pattern?" What? No cause? I thought you were
a determinist. :-)
> > > You underestimate how much of your will is a direct result of
> > > marketing.
> >
> >I thought you were a Schopenhauer fan where man is manipulated by
> >will not of his own making.
>
> Right, man is ruled by his will, and man's will is easily swayed by
> marketing. He is not in direct control of his own will, the will is 100%
> in service of morality (as in static patterns, which now includes those
> static patterns called advertisements). This is why what other people do
> is important. What we do effects what other people will do, because it
> changes their perception of morality.
Have you been swayed against your will by advertising? I give you more
credit than that. :-)
> >How will you determine what is culture's and morality's benefit? I prefer
> >the free market to make those decisions. You seem to prefer some sort of
> >cultural or moral elite to decide for us made up of people who agree with
> >you.
>
> If you think something is moral or cultural, then doing it probably
> benefits culture and morality.
Like Saddam Hussein? I don't think so.
> I do value a cultural and moral elite of
> respected people like Rabbis and the Pope and also respected family members
> and friends - people you can turn to when you aren't sure what to do, who
> can help you not only figure out what a person should do in the situation
> at hand but also teach how to be wise. It's not incompatible with a free
> market, is it? Even if their moral precepts are enacted as laws, and even
> if those laws are enforced. I also believe in electing people to office
> who are moral and upstanding people who set a good example. (And I oppose
> witch hunts that expose people's transgressions, moral transgressions
> should be not spoken of)
You, as a free individual, can turn to whoever you want for moral advice.
That's what I meant by a free market. But, those who commit crimes
are moral transgressors and should be pointed out, punished and in
some cases, jailed--all within a judicial system based on a constitution
that protects the individual's human, i.e., intellectual rights, such as trial
by jury.
> >So you must be in favor of the President's across the board tax cut. I am.
>
> I just hope it cuts the taxes of some of my friends who make about 16 grand
> a year but still have to come up with whopping FICA and state taxes.
> Payroll taxes shoud be cut too, these people can't afford to go to movies
> or eat out at restaraunts, yet they work full time at jobs we depend on
> (well, coffee shops and record stores).
I agree. Let's get rid of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It's
draining lower income people (who don't pay income taxes). By taking
some of the money they would get by eliminating those taxes and
putting it into private insurance and savings plans, they'll do a lot better
in the long run. Being dependent on government for a handout is not the
way to freedom, either economic or political.
Platt
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