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When will modern Western morality end?

danseen

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No, not very much, for several reasons:

1. A proton is for me what it is for an ancient Aztec. Physics transcends culture. So does rationality and critical thinking. A particularly smart Aztec could have questioned the significance of human sacrifice, even though he was cultured within it. Etc.
2. All human societies have shared a number of universals that is not hard to find via google search.
3. Whatever a human's "conceptual scheme" is isn't particularly relevant, but rather somewhat superficial. Happiness is happiness (biologically) regardless of the "about" behind it. That's deep similarity.

er. yes.

but then objective things are viewed subjectively. again, basic human neurology...

you're also saying that:

- people don't hold different beliefs
- humans don't possess different physiological temperaments/dispositions
- humans don't see colours differently
- humans don't feel pain differently
- humans don't experience joy and other emotions uniquely

Seems you see things too literally. When I said (and presumably others in the world, though I can only ever speak for myself) that everything is subjective, it's part fact and part rhetoric. the fact is humans see and perceive things in unique ways, it doesn't mean there are no facts.

Nobody in his or her right mind, unless s/he could cite evidence of course, would say that Antarctica is a tropical continent. It's nowhere near the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, so of course cannot be by definition.
 

danseen

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The enlightenment, if anything, made racism stronger than it ever was before, so I can't say equality entirely came from that.

But anyhow, it's not the whole picture. Morals do not fall into a before and after enlightenment box. There are constantly changes going on, with some variation in the speed, but the enlightenment wasn't the only burst of radical thinking in history.

Yet Enlightenment thinkers didn't provide the philosophical basis for modern liberal democracy (our supposed "perfect" political system lol..), human rights, and the Founding Fathers' beliefs/works?

i would say the moral order of the West was unchanged largely since ancient times to the early modern era.
 

zago

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er. yes.

but then objective things are viewed subjectively. again, basic human neurology...

you're also saying that:

- people don't hold different beliefs
- humans don't possess different physiological temperaments/dispositions
- humans don't see colours differently
- humans don't feel pain differently
- humans don't experience joy and other emotions uniquely

Seems you see things too literally. When I said (and presumably others in the world, though I can only ever speak for myself) that everything is subjective, it's part fact and part rhetoric. the fact is humans see and perceive things in unique ways, it doesn't mean there are no facts.

Nobody in his or her right mind, unless s/he could cite evidence of course, would say that Antarctica is a tropical continent. It's nowhere near the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, so of course cannot be by definition.

No, I really didn't say those things. I said a proton is a proton for all people, all cultures share universals, and happiness is a biochemical pathway. I acknowledge that people hold different beliefs, and that is specifically why I (above) called freedom objectively superior to slavery. Because it allows people to promote their own agendas and happiness, which increases happiness overall.
 

danseen

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But then you asserted that nothing is subjectively perceived.

As said, everything being subjective doesn't mean nothing can be objective.
 

danseen

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I don't think we believe in any of those things, we just give a good show.

true, though I would say for the most part we do.

However, this is just thinking out loud on my part. as morals always do change, just thinking how our current paradigm can or will change.
 

zago

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But then you asserted that nothing is subjectively perceived.

As said, everything being subjective doesn't mean nothing can be objective.

Eh? I didn't assert that nothing is subjectively perceived. Nor do I think you ever said that everything being subjective doesn't mean nothing can be objective. You whole argument was that "everything is subjective so why is freedom better than slavery?" That's why I have been talking about science and such, to try to tell you that things are definitely objective too.
 

danseen

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Eh? I didn't assert that nothing is subjectively perceived. Nor do I think you ever said that everything being subjective doesn't mean nothing can be objective. You whole argument was that "everything is subjective so why is freedom better than slavery?" That's why I have been talking about science and such, to try to tell you that things are definitely objective too.

To me at the least, if everything is subjective, then no thing can be objectively better than another.
 

zago

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To me at the least, if everything is subjective, then no thing can be objectively better than another.

..until you realize that pain and pleasure are reality and the obvious, fundamental metrics by which we can determine what is objectively good. Slavery causes more pain and less pleasure than freedom, overall. Freedom is objectively better.

You wouldn't even be able to conceive of "better" if such a concept weren't real.

Does a car with its tank full of gas work "better" than a car with its tank full of sugar? Yes--why? Because we need the car for our well being. That's why we made it.

Does a society with freedom work "better" than one with whips-and-chains slavery? In the same sense, yes. Objectively. For sure. We need free society for our well being, like we need a car. Just a different scale.

If you accept that humans want pleasure (not to suffer), then some societal systems must be better than others, objectively. And human life, of course, is defined by the drive to experience good things.

A rock's life is not. Your problem is that you are looking at things from the perspective of a rock. That's pretty much invalid and pointless, but it may appear to you to be more true because, well, it's simpler. Sure, to a rock pain and pleasure don't enter the equation. Human life is without value. It can come and go, no matter. Everyone can be in a state of perpetual agony, tortured for their entire lives. Rock don't care. Rock has no way to prove that this is a bad thing at all. And hey, it's all subjective, right?

So why do you think the perspective of dead matter is a more true perspective than that of sentience, which knows good and bad?
 

zago

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I'm beginning to think you are saying all of this to try to escape the responsibility of being human. That's cause for existential despair in all of us. We have the capacity to suffer immensely, for long, long periods of time. Maybe forever. That's completely horrifying. So I wouldn't really blame you for trying to convince yourself that this isn't our reality. To understand that it is our reality means it's up to you to prevent that sort of thing from happening, and you may not be enough. This is where you'll find meaning again, when you do. What happens to us is IMPORTANT. Suffering is real. It can and must be stopped. We are the only ones who can stop it.
 

inventor

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true, though I would say for the most part we do.

However, this is just thinking out loud on my part. as morals always do change, just thinking how our current paradigm can or will change.

I understand. I really do think it will change soon. I feel that seeds of fascism are being set up in the west. (Unless the US has another military disaster like Vietnam) I don't think eugenics will come back as well.
 

zago

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape

I balked at his TED talk when I first heard about it years ago, but these days I don't see how it couldn't be true. This is pretty much directly related to the questions asked in this thread, and having stumbled across it just now, I think it might be useful.

Also, apparently he has a challenge (the moral landscape challenge, look it up), in which he is offering 2-20 thousand dollars to anyone who can successfully refute him.

CHECK IT OUT!

EDIT: here's a vid to summarize:

 

Mole

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Modern Western Morality and the Deep Morality of the West

Western morality is based on Ancient Greek philosophy, Judaism, Christianity and the Enlightenment.

But modern Western morality is based on the invention of the printing press in 1440 and the subsequent Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Print is coming to an end. And the Printing Works at the end of my street have been closed and replaced by electric computers.

So the end of print and the subsequent Enlightenment may seem a tragedy for the West, but before the printing press in 1440 and the subsequent Enlightenment, the West was a spoken culture, not a print based culture.

So as we move deeper into the Electric Age, which has many of the qualities of a spoken culture, the West has the riches of 2,500 years of spoken culture to fall back on.

So while modern Western morality is coming to an end, the Western morality of our first 2,500 years is coming to new life in the Electric Age.
 

Magic Poriferan

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape

I balked at his TED talk when I first heard about it years ago, but these days I don't see how it couldn't be true. This is pretty much directly related to the questions asked in this thread, and having stumbled across it just now, I think it might be useful.

Also, apparently he has a challenge (the moral landscape challenge, look it up), in which he is offering 2-20 thousand dollars to anyone who can successfully refute him.

CHECK IT OUT!

EDIT: here's a vid to summarize:

Hmmm. That's a lot harder to clarify than James Randi's challenge. I'm not sure I'd enter even if I thought I was right.

Anyhow, Harris frustrates me, because I actually agree with his ultimate point, and it's a point that I think really needs to be made more often, but his own way of conveying it seems to beg the question.
 

Qlip

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Moral_Landscape

I balked at his TED talk when I first heard about it years ago, but these days I don't see how it couldn't be true. This is pretty much directly related to the questions asked in this thread, and having stumbled across it just now, I think it might be useful.

Also, apparently he has a challenge (the moral landscape challenge, look it up), in which he is offering 2-20 thousand dollars to anyone who can successfully refute him.

CHECK IT OUT!

EDIT: here's a vid to summarize:


I'm not buying it, exactly. Group morality has always been about the survival and propagation of a particular culture. It's a type of meta survival of the fittest. Not about human well-being, but human well-being definitely factors into it.

Unrelated. It does annoy me that people don't understand this in respect to Biblical moralities. Heaven and hell aren't the facts those particular moralities are based on, they're ideas to distribute moralities. These originally flourished exactly as memes do.
 

zago

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Hmmm. That's a lot harder to clarify than James Randi's challenge. I'm not sure I'd enter even if I thought I was right.

Anyhow, Harris frustrates me, because I actually agree with his ultimate point, and it's a point that I think really needs to be made more often, but his own way of conveying it seems to beg the question.

I feel the same about Sam Harris but I don't have a problem with what he said in this particular talk. Another one I watched recently had him lead the audience in a "mindfulness exercise." It was creepy and ironic.

I'm not buying it, exactly. Group morality has always been about the survival and propagation of a particular culture. It's a type of meta survival of the fittest. Not about human well-being, but human well-being definitely factors into it.

I don't see your point.
 

Qlip

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I don't see your point.

I don't agree with him that morality is objective. It may be objective within a framework of certain measures of modes of living, but the modes themselves are only objectively better if they allow a culture to flourish. For this to happen individual well-being is not the only factor.
 

zago

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I don't agree with him that morality is objective. It may be objective within a framework of certain measures of modes of living, but the modes themselves are only objectively better if they allow a culture to flourish. For this to happen individual well-being is not the only factor.

I think he did take that into account in the talk. He compared it to a chess game; sometimes losing the queen is actually the best move you can make. So while the queen's well-being isn't so good, the rest of the pieces are better off.
 

Qlip

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I think he did take that into account in the talk. He compared it to a chess game; sometimes losing the queen is actually the best move you can make. So while the queen's well-being isn't so good, the rest of the pieces are better off.

Well, he addressed it, but it still doesn't make it truly objective. I'm guessing he addressed different modes of living in this map of his (I only got to watch part, I needed to take off to a different place, but I have a low quality connection here). When you get as high level as that, the term 'objective' takes on so much shading that the point he's trying to prove doesn't really exist anymore.

It turns out to be the same old thing: Science can answer moral questions within the framework of several different modes of living, of which your evaluation of from an individual point of view would be based on your own morality. The ideals of quality of living are very wide ranging and you end up weighing what to 'sacrifice' based on numerous values (ecological diversity, efficiency/productivity, individual agency). The relativity is reintroduced.
 

Mole

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We are now watching in front of us the end of modern Western morality.

The members of Typology Central are performing for us the end of modern Western morality.

These members have been compelled by State law to go to go to school to learn to read and write, and in the process have learned to think counter-intuitively and to privilege the eye.

In essence the educated members of Typology Central have inherited the Enlightenment. We have inherited a way of perceiving.

But that's all over now and the Enlightenment is now the content of the internet.

The Enlightenment has been relegated. The individual has been relegated. Privacy is over. Counter-intuitive thought is now an interesting artifact and intuitive thought reigns supreme.

Just look at mbti - it is entirely intuitive.

Just look at astrology - it is entirely intuitive.

God is dead. The book is dead. And modern Western morality is dead. Long live the old/new morality of the West.
 
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