[deleted]

If you stare into the abyss long enough...

Relative to whatever this or that person or group of people happen to feel about a topic.

There's no such thing as a solid concrete morality as if bestowed upon us by God. That would make things a lot easier.

But without being able to be lazy and just say "cuz God said so" how can we know what is moral and good and what isn't?

Well you said good and bad is relative and I'm asking you relative to what?

What is your definition of the word "good?"

I’m reading Beyond Good and Evil right now and thought the same thing lol

Please keep in mind our first commenting rule:

> Read the Post Before You Reply

> Read/listen/watch the posted content, understand and identify the philosophical arguments given, and respond to these substantively. If you have unrelated thoughts or don't wish to read the content, please post your own thread or simply refrain from commenting. Comments which are clearly not in direct response to the posted content may be removed.

This subreddit is not in the business of one-liners, tangential anecdotes, or dank memes. Expect comment threads that break our rules to be removed. Repeated or serious violations of the subreddit rules will result in a ban.

This is a shared account that is only used for notifications. Please do not reply, as your message will go unread.

It depends. A good and bad binary is necessary and correct, but that doesn't mean that there aren't shades of grey.

I agree. These are arbitrary judgements we race to stick on people things based only on narrow and present-centred definitions.

i think theres a significant difference between something being attributed as an inherently good/bad property/form and a system of thinking causing a positive/negative effect if used in specific ways.

In other news, water is wet.

And the world as it is, determines the norms we wish to transform it by. That is what I am trying to say to you, again and again.

That's descriptive, the social contract is normative.

It seems to me that this post is conflating the use of the good/evil dichotomy for selfish ends (like controlling populations) with the dichotomy itself.

Natural selection was perverted into eugenics, but that doesn't make it untrue or not useful as a concept on its own?

I'm also perturbed by what appears to be circular reasoning in this take. The existence or non-existence of moral absolutes is a metaphysical question on the same level as "is there such a thing as divinity?" and the arguments here which reduce the idea to how the dichotomy is in usage, e.g., "to control," implicitly presume that there is not a moral absolute and there is only the social aspect.

Well that doesn't answer the question of whether good/evil is a meaningful dichotomy when you're already assuming it isn't other than its effects on the societal level.

I was just reading about the probabilistic nature of the ChatGPT computer program. It uses enormous quantities of data to synthesise language, basically just taking apart millions of documents and reassembling them make new logical language. This shows how consciousness and the brain's prediction and decision making systems work - the brain isn't computing new activity to make decisions, just analysing troves of data stored in neural networks, chemical systems and DNA and applying the analysis to new situations. The difference is that our consciousness allows us to use our internal voice to "step back" and make considered judgements about possible actions, up to a point, rather than just following chains of logic the way a computer does.

>The contract is based on reason

Objectively, it isn't. You want it to be. But what binds us in real life isn't. Or was it just emanantly reasonable when we slaughtered millions of muslims in the last two decades? Is decades of blockade on Cuba reasonable? Or our alliance with Saudi Arabia and active contribution to their genocide, over our petroleum concerns? Is it reasonable that people may be bankrupted through no fault of their own, by medical emergency? Or again, that the guy who picks your abundant avocados is not granted his own? That our wealthy buy their politicians? That our planet is being sacrified for fleeting monetary gains? None of this is reason. The obligation is not to law, our obligation must be to break and reshape law in service of a genuine human interest.

>someone's identity (like class)

Class is not an identity. You belong to class regardless of how you think of yourself. The proletarian, working class interest is uniquely singled out because workers actually constitute the majority of global humanity, and is thus the best class interest to serve as a ruling class, as self rule of the class ruling itself.

I discuss hypothetical vs actual consent here. The contract is based on reason, so if there is a reason for prioritizing someone's identity (like class) to serve as a justification for restricting others, you should provide them.

I don't know what that means. But is this the is ought problem?

Relative to what if not concretes?

You could, if you wanted, have a referendum to affirm a social contract. Until we do that, I do not care about the concept, I never consented to these conditions except through my refusal to commit suicide in the face of our indignities (how voluntary)

And, more pressingly, the essay never mentions class. It seems, frankly, suspicious for it to never come up, given the central importance of production and the management of production in our daily life.

I think you aren't being attentive enough to the manner in which you and your consciousness and your capacity for reason are a social product with historically determined characteristics. Much how Aristotle, or our own Founding Fathers, at the top of Slave Societies, could wax poetic about the liberties, while owning people. Were they cruel liars? Were they stupid? No. (Well, the slaves might disgree). At least, not really. But they committed the same error as you do. Really put yourself in their shoes, what do they miss? Probably a few things jump out. Carry forward, to the present, what is it that you might miss?

And if you think we have overcome the brutalities of history, think about how you can buy avocados in winter, and if the guy who plucked them for us is granted the same liberty. That is the water we swim in, which still molds our thought.

Because it's a well written rebuke to Social Contract Theory: David Hume, Of the Original Contract might be up your alley.

https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/blogs.cofc.edu/dist/8/406/files/2014/09/David-Hume-Of-the-Original-Contract-1kif9ud.pdf (pdf warning)

Weeeeell, ya know Jimbo, a little self-righteous morality is a dangerous thing and ugh . . .

Pursuing the truth is better than resting on falsehoods.

I discuss that here. The social contract needs to be based on reason, rather than power. Class conflict may be useful in getting both sides of an issue and creating more accurate moral conclusions. But this conflict is instrumental.

> They are also pernicious because they encourage us to think of ourselves as good and write off our opposition as evil, prompting us to act in a way that is uncharitable and uncaring.

I mean, if someone is a murderous nazi and you're a POC I think it's perfectly OK to write off the nazi as "evil" because he wants to commit horrific actions, like murder against you. That's how we protect ourselves from an evolutionary perspective. We avoid the things and people who hate us and want to hurt us. A cheetah is probably considered evil to a gazelle after all, even if the cheetah doesn't see a problem ending the gazelles life (because he's a cheetah and that's what they do). Similarly, a nazi doesn't see a problem murdering a black person, because that's what nazis do. I think labeling that nazi as "evil" is literally protecting the POCs life and the nazi isn't harmed by the POC thinking they're "evil".

Do you disagree?

I have to agree with others that writing is dangerous After reading it twice, I had no idea what the author was trying to do Although he appears to be against "globalisation", he has criticized liberal critics as "power hungry". It's like a high school story Facts are hard to deny because they don't exist
Sugary, often inappropriate words like alum are added in an attempt to expand the vocabulary.
I was surprised that this hot team got 300 votes
Answer
Tell your friends about it
Be careful
It is very appropriate
He followed him to the end
User transactions
Level 2 in
Gray on website
·.
A great part of this article is about dealing with negative thoughts He said something very stupid: negative thoughts are not good He gives random information without explaining or understanding what he is saying In support of the negative view supporting negative emotions, he cites the following passage from Russia
[It is based on] a historical concept, which can be made continuously and not once in the human mind
This story is about the development of individual and global assets (especially when people become socially connected, losing their identities but being empowered in other ways). "They pile negative thoughts on each other," he said. These are many examples of his ignorance of the author's subject
This article is not my best