[SPLIT from Sexual Lifestlyles] Nietzsche and moral facts

[Piparskeggr]

There can be. But I don't think it has to be. Rape, seen as a sexual expression, is hardly what I associate with "intimacy".

If I may?

Rape is an act of brutality, an assault and is never right.

Intimate, yes, but brutal and brutish nonetheless; no ifs, ands or buts.

Rape is not a true sex act. It is an ATTACK, an expression of dominance and power by a defective individual who momentarily has gained control of another.

[Lutiferre]

For me, the physical is inexorably bound up with the psychic..
It is even in the case of having sex with someone you don't have a bond with.


"Having sex" with someone, with whom I have no emotional bond is tantamount to using a self-heating "blow-up" doll for masturbation in my mind. Neither party is invested in the full measure of contentment of the other, seeking only personal "release."
It is possible having an "emotional bond" without it being exclusive or permanent, but still being an occasion for just as meaningful experiences as longer-lasting or exclusive ones.

An emotional bond or bonding can last from short moments to a lifetime, be exclusive or just one among others.


For me, the physical pairing can not truly exist without the psychic pairing.
Psychic pairing as analogy to physical pairing could mean many things.

But it seems to me you are meaning some kind of self-destructive symbiosis which eliminates any other opportunities for "pairings" by virtue of a total synchronisation.

[Lutiferre]

If I may?

Rape is an act of brutality, an assault and is never right.
Whether it's right or not is irrelevant to my post.

But I don't deal with a monolithic idea of one "right". An action that has actually occured can be many things, but not "never right".

Apparently, in the situations that it occurs, rape is perfectly right for reality. Reality trumps your moralism.

Whatever else rape is, it is only "always wrong" in your world of ideas which itself is -- nothing.


Rape is not a true sex act. It is an ATTACK, an expression of dominance and power by a defective individual who momentarily has gained control of another.
Defective how? Because he violates your moral code?

Your moralistic outbreak is an expression of a cultural set of norms and values, which you aren't the inventor of, though a defender of - "rape is always wrong" might be one of the moral commandments you are a servant to.

[anonymaus]

Whether it's right or not is irrelevant to my post.

But I don't deal with a monolithic idea of one "right". An action that has actually occured can be many things, but not "never right".

Apparently, in the situations that it occurs, rape is perfectly right for reality. Reality trumps your moralism.

Whatever else rape is, it is only "always wrong" in your world of ideas which itself is -- nothing.

Defective how? Because he violates your moral code?

Your moralistic outbreak is an expression of a cultural set of norms and values, which you aren't the inventor of, though a defender of - "rape is always wrong" might be one of the moral commandments you are a servant to.

Even lacking your religious impetus, your posts are still filled with nonsensical wank. Your mind is adrift in a sea of worthless subjectivist twaddle.

[Nodens]

Your mind is adrift in a sea of worthless subjectivist twaddle.

Nihilism /= Subjectivism

[Piparskeggr]

@ Lutiferre...

Bed time...I'll reply more fully tomorrow.

I think I see your points...not much by way of agreement, as you might expect.

[Lutiferre]

Even lacking your religious impetus, your posts are still filled with nonsensical wank. Your mind is adrift in a sea of worthless subjectivist twaddle.
There was nothing subjectivist in my post, but simply a denial of an exclusive moral postulation which is impossible to prove.

In fact, I explicitly reduced his "world of ideas" (subjective view) to "nothing".

You cannot accept a moral truth claim (e.g. rape is always "wrong") without providing evidence in some way and still be dealing with truth rather than ust arbitrary will. Evidence, which is impossible to produce, because there are no prescriptive facts. You cannot prove such statements. The only "right or wrong" statements you can prove are descriptive of reality - e.g. "he thinks it is right", or "it is right for reality as apparently it occurs."

For which reason I am not a "subjectivist" with regards to prescriptive moral claims, but just a non-cognitivist and symptomatologist.

It's a matter of arbitrary will, not of "subjective" or even worse, universal facts.

[Nodens]

There was nothing subjectivist in my post, but simply a denial of an exclusive moral postulation which is impossible to prove.

In fact, I explicitly reduced his "world of ideas" (subjective view) to "nothing".

You cannot accept a moral truth claim (e.g. rape is always "wrong") without providing evidence in some way and still be dealing with truth rather than ust arbitrary will. Evidence, which is impossible to produce, because there are no prescriptive facts. You cannot prove such statements. The only "right or wrong" statements you can prove are descriptive of reality - e.g. "he thinks it is right", or "it is right for reality as apparently it occurs."

For which reason I am not a "subjectivist" with regards to prescriptive moral claims, but just a non-cognitivist and symptomatologist.

It's a matter of arbitrary will, not of "subjective" or even worse, universal facts.

Alternatively:

Values /= Facts

[SuuT]

There was nothing subjectivist in my post, but simply a denial of an exclusive moral postulation which is impossible to prove.



I wouldn't claim them to be impossible to prove. This word, "proof", is problematic, I think, as via Concensus Theory of truth, as one of many examples, it would likely be proven that rape is always wrong. The Social Contract is a powerful thing, and while stuffed full of fictions, these fictions prove themselves to be quite useful - thus the construction of schema such as Utilitarianism.

[Lutiferre]

I wouldn't claim them to be impossible to prove. This word, "proof", is problematic, I think, as via Concensus Theory of truth, as one of many examples, it would likely be proven that rape is always wrong.
Depends what kind of consensus and in what age. What we now call "rape" may have been acceptable in certain situations in other cultures and ages.

More importantly, "rape" is itself a "loaded" term, loaded with the presupposition of there existing such things as personal rights, personal property and "rightful belonging", which can be violated.

If one does not affirm the legitimacy of those "rights" (e.g. the right to have personal liberty and authority over your body, or the right to property), one cannot actually "rape" anyone in the loaded sense, since it implies a violation, a violation which can only exist insofar as there are "rights" to violate in the first place.

Further, I don't think the "consensus" theory of truth is much of a "truth" theory of truth. That is, it fails to recognise the differing value of different interpretations of reality, for which reason cultures in which women have no rights and are raped ritually are just as correct, according to consensus theory, as our culture in which it is considered wrong. It is really a herd theory of truth.

The Social Contract is a powerful thing, and while stuffed full of fictions, these fictions prove themselves to be quite useful - thus the construction of schema such as Utilitarianism.
There is no universally shared set of interests to base moral constructs on. Different people have different skills, limitations, mindsets and behaviours and hence, different interests. We can start organising our lives after a categorical imperative or simply realise that what is useful for society's members as a whole is not the same as what is useful for me in individual situations.

[SuuT]

Depends what kind of consensus and in what age.

This is interesting insofar as it is a fact that Morality shifts, sways and buckles. However, taken too far, it would result in an entirely unnecessary complication of the matter. - The changes in moral schema are not so much perennial as they are violently abrupt within perennial phenomena. Therefore, it may be said that whilst morality vibrates, it is stable at the points at which it is held taught. Further, that the appearance of moral relativism is epiphenomenal to the larger dynamic of finite moral potentialities within infinite time. In short, that rape was okay at point x, but is not okay at point y, does not neccessarily indicate anything at all relative about the truth of rape, or that point y does not indicate a superiority over point x that most rational observers would come to a concensus on, thus fulfilling the Social Contract paradigm.


More importantly, "rape" is itself a "loaded" term, loaded with the presupposition of there existing such things as personal rights, personal property and "rightful belonging", which can be violated.

Cf. Social Contract.


If one does not affirm the legitimacy of those "rights" (e.g. the right to have personal liberty and authority over your body, or the right to property), one cannot actually "rape" anyone in the loaded sense, since it implies a violation, a violation which can only exist insofar as there are "rights" to violate in the first place.

One can fight the authority of the Social Contract, but one will 'lose'. More importantly, Morality finds and establishes itself in practical everday human interaction, not in largely academic thought experimentation; a human being is only capable of vibrating the moral sting - it cannot be snapped. For example, if I were to today rape your mother in the ass and make you watch while you make me a sandwich, I have nothing but the double-edged, razor-sharp implement of Nihilism to base my argument upon to you that it was right because rights do not exist: Nihilism destroys me too, and the act becomes another empty occurance - temporal flatulence, if you will, bereft of any significance outside of itself.

"Violations" and such involve and engender the interest of the moral agent. They are not concepts existing only to pull-out of the aether and spin in the mind. Therefore, whilst I cannot go outside and build a 27- meter-tall set of "rights", I can show you rights-in-action as they stem from the Social Contract.


There is no universally shared set of interests to base moral constructs on. Different people have different skills, limitations, mindsets and behaviours and hence, different interests. We can start organising our lives after a categorical imperative or simply realise that what is useful for society's members as a whole is not the same as what is useful for me in individual situations.

It is indeed, as I know first hand, possible to contemplate one's self right into sociopathy. I believe that the true philosophers, Nietzsche's Philosopher's of the day after tomorrow , are the one's who dive into Nihilism face first, learn to breath the rarified air and discover - after however long it takes - that it was that which was never there to begin with.

[Lutiferre]

In short, that rape was okay at point x, but is not okay at point y,
I think the more significant point of moral discontinuity is the placement/distribution of the rights and property, and the criteria for what constitutes violations like rape. Modern individual "personal" rights do not resononate at all with the original meaning of the illegality of rape; which was a matter of property and rightful belonging, not of personal rights. That is, rape was a violation more of whoever the woman is married to (or her father) than the women herself and her personal liberty.


One can fight the authority of the Social Contract, but one will 'lose'.
I agree of course, and I didn't actually attempt to "fight" it. All I fought was the absolute assertion that "rape is always wrong", due to it's exaggerated character. Even if we were to concur that rape is mostly wrong, we could always find exceptions. If Hitler were a woman, most people would hardly find it too much punishment for him to be raped, if such punishment were possible.


More importantly, Morality finds and establishes itself in practical everday human interaction, not in largely academic thought experimentation;
My point was not to deconstruct morality as a practical phenomenon, but simply to wipe it off the table as an absolute rational and dogmatic imperative. Whereas in truth, it's function lies in egoistic human societal and individual interests and is reducible to arbitrary will and subject to it's consequent fluidity.


a human being is only capable of vibrating the moral sting - it cannot be snapped.
I agree.


"Violations" and such involve and engender the interest of the moral agent. They are not concepts existing only to pull-out of the aether and spin in the mind. Therefore, whilst I cannot go outside and build a 27- meter-tall set of "rights", I can show you rights-in-action as they stem from the Social Contract.
Indeed, or rather, rights-as-consensus, and rights as constructed protectors of human interests.

[SuuT]

I think the more significant point of moral discontinuity is the placement/distribution of the rights and property, and the criteria for what constitutes violations like rape. Modern individual "personal" rights do not resononate at all with the original meaning of the illegality of rape; which was a matter of property and rightful belonging, not of personal rights. That is, rape was a violation more of whoever the woman is married to (or her father) than the women herself and her personal liberty.

Thus the construct changed in degree but not kind: Whereas once the property owner had his right to the property and person of his wife or daughter, the ownership now cedes to the marriage contract or the sole nature of parentage; in which, the personages of the couple are owned respectively in instances of marraige, and the daughter is the sole responsibility of both of it's parents.

It is still in essence a matter of Creditor and Debtor and their respective rights. That rape was once seen as wrong or an afront because of a, and now is wrong or an affront because of b, does not affect the moral truth of rape.


My point was not to deconstruct morality as a practical phenomenon, but simply to wipe it off the table as an absolute rational and dogmatic imperative. Whereas in truth, it's function lies in egoistic human societal and individual interests and is reducible to arbitrary will and subject to it's consequent fluidity.

Morality is a biological imperative if not an entirely biological phenomenon that we dress-up in flowery metaphors and therefore cannot be arbitrary. Nor is Morailty fluid as a consequence of a perceived arbitrary-ness: The sting vibrates - it does not break.

[Óttar]

I can't find any reason for why rape isn't always wrong. I doubt any amount of convoluted omphaloskepsis is going to change that.

:fponder:

[Lutiferre]

I will reply later. Heading for school now.

[Lutiferre]

Thus the construct changed in degree but not kind:
I disagree. Personal rights to authority over your own body and personal liberty and choice as a universally accepted moral code is a different kind of rights and morality than one in which persons external to yourself have an ownership over you - which is itself a contradiction of the former kind of morality.

That rape was once seen as wrong or an afront because of a, and now is wrong or an affront because of b, does not affect the moral truth of rape.
First, it is not a matter of "moral truth", but of an accepted moral attitude - which only proves it as a matter of "truth" or fact if you accept some academical "consensus" herd epistemology, which is itself not constructed by consensus, but is an esoteric construct.

Second. Rape is not wrong in sense B (personal rights being violated) if it is wrong in sense A (e.g. property violated) because sense A explicitly contradicts the personal rights of sense B.

In both cases, "rape is wrong", but the very meaning of "rape" is altogether different, making it semantically uncritical to simply claim they "agree" because they both forbid their respective definitions of "rape".



Morality is a biological imperative if not an entirely biological phenomenon that we dress-up in flowery metaphors and therefore cannot be arbitrary.
I am speaking of arbitrary as in reducible to will, but of course not an "arbitrary will".

To the contrary, generally a will driven by its own interests and in any case, it's respective dispositions.

Will is simply a simplistic word for the dominant dispositions of our psychology. I can construct, accept or violate any moral "imperative" by an act of will, and have done so numerous times.

Meaning it is not an immutable, absolute, objective or self-given imperative, but one which we must ourselves create, accept, deny, which we do according to our own interests both as groups, societies and individuals through history.

If at any point we no longer generally act after and construct morality according to self-interest both as groups and individuals, either because we are incapable or have an unhealthy self-destructive disposition, we will simply die out as subjects of natural selection. Whereas whoever does act after what is in the interest of their survival and expansion, will survive and expand with the moral attitudes which made that possible and easier.

Thereby I don't claim that we have "arbitrarily created" all morality; I don't believe we have so, I believe it has been created us in an unconscious sense of emerging from our social interactions and psychological drives and development; and it can consequently be denied by that same human psychological and social activity.

[Lutiferre]

I can't find any reason for why rape isn't always wrong. I doubt any amount of convoluted omphaloskepsis is going to change that.
That's a reversal of the burden of proof.

You simply accept and claim that "rape is wrong (always)" as if it was a fact, without substantiating why. And then, without having produced any positive case, you demand that I disprove something with negative reasons, for which you have no positive proof.

But it is not a moral fact just because you think it is. It is a fact of your will and psychology, your disposition. You can accept it, but that doesn't make it a fact.

[SuuT]

That's a reversal of the burden of proof.

You simply accept and claim that "rape is wrong (always)" as if it was a fact, without substantiating why. And then, without having produced any positive case, you demand that I disprove something with negative reasons, for which you have no positive proof.

But it is not a moral fact just because you think it is. It is a fact of your will and psychology, your disposition. You can accept it, but that doesn't make it a fact.

^You've not proven an instance in which rape is right - you have illuminated instances within a historiographical framework in which rape was wrong for reasons other than those agreed upon today. Ergo, while your assertions have been lengthier and more in-depth, his stands as equally substantive.


I am replying to your other post presently.

[SuuT]

I disagree. Personal rights to authority over your own body and personal liberty and choice as a universally accepted moral code is a different kind of rights and morality than one in which persons external to yourself have an ownership over you - which is itself a contradiction of the former kind of morality.

Then you must show how the *expansion* of the Liberty concept to a greater number fundamentally alters Liberty, itself. To be free is to be free.

It is not the concept of Liberty (our kind), but the pulling and centering of the concept towards equitablity. As a result of this, in can be argued that more human beings are owned by more human beings now than in any other point in history: A wave in the flux; an intensified vibration of the moral string.




You fail to see that Freedom, Liberty, Rights etc., can be achieved in no other way but through practise and application, which are first understood through concensus, which is first understood as per the group Social Contract as the repository of truth.

[Osweo]

Heading for school now.

Conscientious bartenders have the right and duty to refuse to serve a man who in their estimation has 'had too much'. If only teachers realised their analogous duties... :rolleyes:

[Lutiferre]

^You've not proven an instance in which rape is right - you have illuminated instances within a historiographical framework in which rape was wrong for reasons other than those agreed upon today. Ergo, while your assertions have been lengthier and more in-depth, his stands as equally substantive.
I don't want to actually postively claim that there are instances in which "rape is right".

But I do dispute that it's a moral fact that "rape is always wrong" given the grounds you have presented. And I don't believe your advocacy for the "social contract" or herd-epistemology in any way establishes this as a moral fact even if they provide substantiation of your viewpoint, simply because a fact is not established through just advocacy of a theory, but through method, the production of evidence and proof. That is the difference between facts and viewpoints and "epistemologies" you might produce.

Furthermore, even if you advocate your social contract theory and epistemology with method and evidence, this may prove facts about society and your views, but you cannot derive a moral fact from it, per Hume's infamous dictum, that you do not derive an is from an ought, at least without demonstrating howcome the "ought" follows from the pure facts, rather than just stating that it does.

[Lutiferre]

Conscientious bartenders have the right and duty to refuse to serve a man who in their estimation has 'had too much'. If only teachers realised their analogous duties... :rolleyes:
It's a shame that I don't learn much in school. My teachers aren't to blame.

Blame the quest for knowledge, blame books! :thumb001:

[Lutiferre]

Then you must show how the *expansion* of the Liberty concept to a greater number fundamentally alters Liberty, itself. To be free is to be free.

It is not the concept of Liberty (our kind), but the pulling and centering of the concept towards equitablity. As a result of this, in can be argued that more human beings are owned by more human beings now than in any other point in history: A wave in the flux; an intensified vibration of the moral string.
On that point I agree. But I still hold there is a difference in kind in the condemnation of rape on the grounds of violating another persons property in the act, and on the other hand, violating the person who is the object of the act him/herself.

Both are a matter of liberty, perhaps, but only rather loosely, since I consider external property to be a different kind from basic liberty/authority over your own body, which is "internal".




You fail to see that Freedom, Liberty, Rights etc., can be achieved in no other way but through practise and application, which are first understood through concensus, which is first understood as per the group Social Contract as the repository of truth.
You have simply stated what you believe is true ("consensus"), you have not actually given me reason to believe it other than your advocacy. I have no reason to accept it just because you do.

[SuuT]

I don't want to actually postively claim that there are instances in which "rape is right".

Why not? That certainly would be harder than what you are doing.


But I do dispute that it's a moral fact that "rape is always wrong" given the grounds you have presented.

The problem is now that that gnawing Absolutism that haunts you is short-cicuiting what "truth" even means. I have provided the grounds of the Social Contract that is the repository of truth of the moral wrongness of rape. Your arguments continue to deal with some foggy aire of disparity betwixt A is B and if-then statements that are prima facie groundless, and then you tell me that I've done nothing but present my opinion as opposed to a fact. You clearly have something in mind that you are having trouble objectively deviating from..:confused2:..why not just post that?


And I don't believe your advocacy for the "social contract" or herd-epistemology in any way establishes this as a moral fact even if they provide substantiation of your viewpoint, simply because a fact is not established through just advocacy of a theory, but through method, the production of evidence and proof. That is the difference between facts and viewpoints and "epistemologies" you might produce.

lol You are advocating a factless series of deviations from those principles that constitute what "truth" even means. I have only attempted to explain to you the means by which we come to the determination here and now as to the moral truth about rape. All moral truths are a matter of concensus, which is not to say that the majority is always morally right.


for a Scandinavian, you have a bizzare notion of what truth is. Especially given that the words for "truth" in any and every Scandinavian tounge mean Faith/Dedication/Commitment in the sense of making something through those means.

[Lutiferre]

Your arguments continue to deal with some foggy aire of disparity betwixt A is B and if-then statements that are prima facie groundless,
The whole A-B thing was secondary to the primary issue. Which was not whether rape has always been immoral, but whether it's a moral fact at all that rape is wrong, regardless of how it has been seen and in what period.


lol You are advocating a factless series of deviations from those principles that constitute what "truth" even means. I have only attempted to explain to you the means by which we come to the determination here and now as to the moral truth about rape.
I don't believe so. I believe your view of truth-as-consensus is a deviation from what actually establishes or constructs truth; consensus simply is not the same as truth.


All moral truths are a matter of concensus, which is not to say that the majority is always morally right.
Why do you believe there are any "moral truths" at all? I don't see any reason to believe so.

Morality is a matter of attitudes and social interactions, not a "repository of truths".


for a Scandinavian, you have a bizzare notion of what truth is. Especially given that the words for "truth" in any and every Scandinavian tounge mean Faith/Dedication/Commitment in the sense of making something through those means.
I have another Scandinavian word for what you are doing now, which is ordkløveri.

[The Khagan]

SuuT - putting the sensual back in non-consensual

[SuuT]

Luti,

Please provide an instance in which rape is morally right.


Your pal,

SuuT

[Lulletje Rozewater]

Luti,

Please provide an instance in which rape is morally right.

I have been following this discussion and have not made up my mind,which is based on Western thinking but influenced by the horrible mass rapes in South Africa.Two extreme contrasts in culture

Read the article below

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/306

[Lutiferre]

Luti,

Please provide an instance in which rape is morally right.


Your pal,

SuuT

Why should I? It would be fundamentally opposed to what I have been arguing for, which is that there is no "truth" about right or wrong, that includes "right".

If I then go on to argue that there are cases in which it is a moral truth that "rape is right", I would contradict my very point, which is that reality is beyond right and wrong, beyond good and evil, and there is no truer stance, only an attitude.

Right or wrong, take your pick, but when you make it "the truth", you've lost me - especially when you claim that consensus=truth, which to me is not only slave morality, but herd epistemology of the worst kind.

[SuuT]

I shall reply to both your PM and post here.

You are reading far too much into what - exactly - it is that I have said. Truth, itself, is both strongly and weakly emergent within a Moral context. You may have dropped the Jesus bit; BUT, you are still looking for some 'out there', be that 'out there' Form or Nihilism or whatever, that is truth; and, from which the appearance of truth radiates as an imprefect representation. This is not what Nietzsche has in mind. Truth manifests itself contextually, which in no way excludes - or precludes - the application of Right and Wrong as it is understood within the context of it's application. This is not, nor can be said to be, a Slave Morality in that the resultant Social Contract can be of whatever size, and can include or exclude to it's parsimonious heart's delight. Ergo, a Master Morality that recognises the wrong-ness of rape as a truth bound to the extention of Liberty and self-ownership of the body reveals itself as possible, as well as advantageous.


Why should I? It would be fundamentally opposed to what I have been arguing for, which is that there is no "truth" about right or wrong, that includes "right".

You're running and leaping over huge amounts of philosophical space that you need to turn around and go back to. I understand that the idea that Truth is a construct whose truth is not lessened by that fact is intensely difficult to grasp if not counter-intuitive. However, that you have, in essence, discovered exactly that without yet knowing it, does not constitute the required argumentative thrust to trump *mere consensus (;))*. In other words, the axiomatic mantra that there is no truth, or fundamental basis for the concept, whilst being a beautiful, sensuous and powerful Woman, does not negate the reality of truth as *created* and *maintained* via the Social Contract. More to the point, absent a substantive couter-example on your behalf, you are looking for solidity to Moral Rights and Wrongs that you, yourself, are utilising in your mantra, and yet fail to provide any fundamental basis for.


If I then go on to argue that there are cases in which it is a moral truth that "rape is right", I would contradict my very point, which is that reality is beyond right and wrong, beyond good and evil, and there is no truer stance, only an attitude.

This Monster of Energy that we call the world has birthed Morality. If the world is Will to Power, and nothing besides; and you, yourself, are this Will to Power and nothing besides, it follows that the moral stamp of a people, as seen in the Social Contract of a people, as composed by the individuals that constitute that people, are *making* their truth in a manner that can be no other way. Ergo, Rights and Wrongs as proposed by this dynamic are self-justifying representations of the Highest Made truths, as contained in the repository that is the Social Contract.


Carve yourself (Nietzsche).

[Lutiferre]

SuuT, I am certainly open to your perspective. I am not a Nietzsche expert, but I am interested in your interpretation of him, though I can't say I understand it right now.

you are still looking for some 'out there', be that 'out there' Form or Nihilism or whatever, that is truth;
Well, no. I don't believe there is any point in "looking" for it, because I don't believe there is or can be constructed truth in any meaningful sense on moral issues, like many other areas we can talk about, but which have no truth value except in relation to our preferences and psychology.

I feel that the positivists are more or less correct that taken as "truth statements", the expressions "right", "wrong", "good", "evil", etc, are meaningless. Their only meaning lies in subjective interests and that is how they are to be understood.

I understand that the idea that Truth is a construct whose truth is not lessened by that fact is intensely difficult to grasp if not counter-intuitive.
An idea I do understand - without God or other worlds and ghosts, there are only humans to construct truth, there is no truth in itself existing somewhere apart from our creation of it. But this doesn't mean that, as you say, it's truth is lessened due to the necessity of constructing it.

Nor does it mean, as I see it, that it is meaningful to construct a "moral truth", simply because morals are not truths, just like many other things are not truths.

My preference for a colour is not a truth about the colour, my favourite dish does not make that dish "right", the dishes I hate does not make those dishes "wrong" in any truth-related sense.


This Monster of Energy that we call the world has birthed Morality. If the world is Will to Power, and nothing besides; and you, yourself, are this Will to Power and nothing besides, it follows that the moral stamp of a people, as seen in the Social Contract of a people, as composed by the individuals that constitute that people, are *making* their truth in a manner that can be no other way.
That is correct. Because what is cannot be other than it is.

But that applies to all morality, including all kinds of slave morality. It's all, even Christianity, ultimately an expression of the will to power.

This does not make Christian morality, master morality, or any other consensus a moral truth.

[SuuT]

Well, no. I don't believe there is any point in "looking" for it, because I don't believe there is or can be constructed truth in any meaningful sense on moral issues, like many other areas we can talk about, but which have no truth value except in relation to our preferences and psychology.

When attempting to get at the nature of some thing, it is, as Aurelius suggests, paramount to ask, 'What is this, in itself?'. This is a tool. I believe another part that you are finding troubling in the circumnavigation of Nietzschean nuance is the primacy of the thing that we are discussing being an organically and primarily Emotive phenomenon, to which you are attemping to make logical in its primacy as opposed to emotive. When you are unable to do so, you are finding a lack of Truth in the thing discussed, as opposed to your own approach - your arguments flow thus.

In itself, Morality is an emotive biologism which can never be *less* true than your assertion that it lacks a fundamental basis for truth.


...the expressions "right", "wrong", "good", "evil", etc, are... subjective interests and that is how they are to be understood.

Fixed.


Nor does it mean, as I see it, that it is meaningful to construct a "moral truth", simply because morals are not truths, just like many other things are not truths.

Truth: O.E. triewð (W.Saxon), treowð (Mercian) "faithfulness, quality of being true," from triewe, treowe "faithful" (see true). Meaning "accuracy, correctness" is from 1560s. Unlike lie (v.), there is no primary verb in English or most other IE languages for "speak the truth." Noun sense of "something that is true" is first recorded mid-14c.
"Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter." [Milton, "Areopagitica," 1644]

Source (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=truth&searchmode=none)

You, like the Positivists, are constructing an exclusivist philosophical notion of what truth is and then going after strawmen. Rape is morally wrong, and I have presented my assay as to why.

[Piparskeggr]

@ Lutiferre...

Bed time...I'll reply more fully tomorrow.

I think I see your points...not much by way of agreement, as you might expect.

Things came up, back to normal...comments tomorrow.

[Brynhild]

I can't even begin to emphasise how horrendous this experience is for the person who has been on the receiving end. It's a lifetime of trauma, guilt and shame that has been inflicted upon. It's a very long process of recovery when a huge can of worms is opened and addressed in such excruciatingly painful ways - in the hope that the person can recover and move on.

By moving on, the person has to re-learn about being trustful and vulnerable, about opening the doors to deep levels of intimacy that they had otherwise never known and never understood. By moving on, that person must also reach the understanding that it was never their fault, it isn't their cross to bear.

If anyone ever dares say to my face in real life that there is an instance for rape to be justified, that bastard will be out cold before he hits the fucking deck!:mad:

[Lutiferre]

If anyone ever dares say to my face in real life that there is an instance for rape to be justified, that bastard will be out cold before he hits the fucking deck!:mad:
Exactly due to moralists like you, no one does dare to say such things in real life because no one is ignorant of the censure against non-moral standpoints.

Besides, I never claimed that rape is ever "justified"; I simply disputed that rape is necessarily "always wrong" as a fact. That doesn't mean I believe it's a fact that "rape is right" (ever), but I consider that option as likely as the opposite, at least as an exception (consider the negative consensus against Hitler and the lack of sympathy in such cases if it were to happen).

[Lutiferre]

SuuT, I will reply later.

Maybe I should say that this discussion for the last many pages hasn't been about rape, but about morality in general, rape being simply an example. It has nothing to do with this threads subject, anyway, which is sexual lifestyles.

It would be more appropriate to put those pages in a separate thread entitled "Nietzsche and moral facts" or something, perhaps? Anyway, it's up to the mods.

[Piparskeggr]

(snip)
It would be more appropriate to put those pages in a separate thread entitled "Nietzsche and moral facts" or something, perhaps? Anyway, it's up to the mods.

I was going to suggest starting a new thread, myself. :thumbs up

[Jarl]

I never claimed that rape is ever "justified";

I disputed that rape is "always wrong" as a fact.

Well then... aren't these two sentences contradictory? Either rape is "always wrong" or there are instances when its "justified"?


If you say:


the expressions "right", "wrong", "good", "evil", etc, are meaningless

Then how can it be they are without a meaning? Particularly that you said yourself that:


Why should I? It would be fundamentally opposed to what I have been arguing for, which is that there is no "truth" about right or wrong, that includes "right".

You are still using the very word "right" and "wrong" to convey some belief that you/we have. Let's put it simply and drastically - is you raping your mom and then chewing her head off, right or wrong? Or is it "meaningless"? Can killing a random stranger for no reason be justified in some circumstances?


Are you really certain that the distintion between what is good and what is wrong is a mere subjective, personal "pick and choose" issue?

[Lutiferre]

Well then... aren't these two sentences contradictory? Either rape is "always wrong" or there are instances when its "justified"?
No. That may be hard to understand for a dualistic EITHER-OR mind, but it doesn't have to be either.

Rape does not have to ever be "justified" for the statement that "rape is always wrong" not to be true.

Nor does that statement have to be false to be simply not true; it can be not true and not false; it can be without a truth value, just like many other things you can say, like "it is wrong for you to wear this shirt".


If you say:
No. You cut the critical part out. I said that:


Taken as "truth statements", the expressions "right", "wrong", "good", "evil", etc, are meaningless



Let's put it simply and drastically - is you raping your mom and then chewing her head off, right or wrong?
It is of course, wrong in my opinion, because I love my mom very highly.

But that doesn't make it a truth that "it is wrong" in some absolute sense.

The issue is that when something is wrong from my perspective, it is wrong because it goes against what I value and love, my feelings, my interests, my beliefs, not because it violates a "moral truth".


Or is it "meaningless"? Can killing a random stranger for no reason be justified in some circumstances?
Just because he isn't violating some moral truth, doesn't mean he is justified. Quite to the contrary - no one could ever be morally "justified" in an absolute sense if there are no moral facts.


Are you really certain that the distintion between what is good and what is wrong is a mere subjective, personal "pick and choose" issue?
I am certain that it is not; with my expression, I simply encouraged picking your stance as natural, I did not claim that it was just a mere "pick and choose" issue, which sounds like the decision is random.

It is not random - for conscious people, anyway - the choice is based on values, on what you feel and think and value, on your psychology, on your interests.

[SuuT]

Maybe I should say that this discussion for the last many pages hasn't been about rape, but about morality in general, rape being simply an example. It has nothing to do with this threads subject, anyway, which is sexual lifestyles.



It would be more appropriate to put those pages in a separate thread entitled "Nietzsche and moral facts" or something, perhaps? Anyway, it's up to the mods.

We must clear-up terms and conditions as they pertain to your implication that there are instances in which rape is morally right. This is what is now happening. I have only injected Nietzsche, as it was clear by your PM that that is your current interest; and what has been said thus far with respect to Nietzsche, does not justify a decrease in our magnification of your implication, terms and conditions to (yet) warrant a thread split, let alone something as broad as 'Moral facts as understood by Nietzsche'.

[Lutiferre]

We must clear-up terms and conditions as they pertain to your implication that there are instances in which rape is morally right. This is what is now happening. (...) and what has been said thus far with respect to Nietzsche, does not justify a decrease in our magnification of your implication, terms and conditions to (yet) warrant a thread split, let alone something as broad as 'Moral facts as understood by Nietzsche'.
I feel you are now repeating something I have already responded to, so I will just refer to what I have already responded with - that what I have criticised is absolute moral statements, my project is not to construct a positive case for rape. Rape, is only an example of a case where you might make such absolute moral statements which pretend to factuality.

So the issue for me at least, is not about the rightness of rape, but about whether there are moral facts.

[Psychonaut]

Rape does not have to ever be "justified" for the statement that "rape is always wrong" not to be true

Pardon me, but...

If all instances of R (rape) are outside the domain of C (correct):

http://www.theapricity.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=4345&stc=1&d=1271534566

But if that proposition is false then some instances of R are within the domain of C:

http://www.theapricity.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=4346&stc=1&d=1271534566

No? How are you making this out to not be an either/or situation? Fuzzy logic? Maybe logic?

[Lutiferre]

I believe another part that you are finding troubling in the circumnavigation of Nietzschean nuance is the primacy of the thing that we are discussing being an organically and primarily Emotive phenomenon, to which you are attemping to make logical in its primacy as opposed to emotive.
I disagree. I am precisely opposed to pretending that moral interpretations are logical, and more importantly, factual.


In itself, Morality is an emotive biologism which can never be *less* true than your assertion that it lacks a fundamental basis for truth.
Moral feelings or interpretations are not "less true" than any other emotion or attitudes which aren't concerned with truth.

Our true conflict is what we mean by truth itself, and the broadness of that definition.

I don't believe most statements of preferences, like right and wrong, are a matter of truth, not because they are false, but because they referring to something other than truth, namely our interests, which can be opposed to others' interests, and to elevate one as truer than another is to misunderstand the issue.


Truth: O.E. triewð (W.Saxon), treowð (Mercian) "faithfulness, quality of being true," from triewe, treowe "faithful" (see true). Meaning "accuracy, correctness" is from 1560s. Unlike lie (v.), there is no primary verb in English or most other IE languages for "speak the truth." Noun sense of "something that is true" is first recorded mid-14c.
"Let [Truth] and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter." [Milton, "Areopagitica," 1644]
Truth, etymologically speaking, comes from a word which means being faithful; I know this from the Danish language, in which the word tro means faith, like in "den kristne tro" (the Christian faith), or "at være tro" (to be true [e.g. to yourself]).

But the modern meaning of english truth is not that of Danish tro: faith. It is rather a derivation which uses "faithfulness" as simply a metaphor for something like fathfulness to what is real, what is the core or the essence - that is where the etymological change lies, from tro to truth.

Truth refers to what we in Danish call sandhed, not to tro, not to faithfulness in general.

I am not thereby saying you are wrong, I am just saying we are misunderstanding each other because we are using different semantics. Your definition of truth as simply "faithfulness" is interesting. But faithfulness to what? Faithfulness to some immoral impulse, for instance, would not support your idea of "moral faithfulness".

[Lutiferre]

Pardon me, but...

If all instances of R (rape) are outside the domain of C (correct):

http://www.theapricity.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=4345&stc=1&d=1271534566

But if that proposition is false then some instances of R are within the domain of C:
I don't propose that it is false that all instances of rape are outside the domain of "correct", nor that it is true that they are so. I propose that there is no fact about it, I propose that no instance of rape is subject to the moral category and dichotomy of "correct" versus "not correct".

Or at least, I don't propose that there is a fact about it, I don't propose your dilemma.

You constructing this dilemma is narrow morally dualistic thinking.

[Lutiferre]

As an addition, I might ask you SuuT: are there moral facts?

[Lutiferre]

SuuT, I feel you haven't actually succesfully responded to my argument against your argument.

You argued that:


This Monster of Energy that we call the world has birthed Morality. If the world is Will to Power, and nothing besides; and you, yourself, are this Will to Power and nothing besides, it follows that the moral stamp of a people, as seen in the Social Contract of a people, as composed by the individuals that constitute that people, are *making* their truth in a manner that can be no other way.

I responded that this applies to the slave morality of the masses and to Christian morality as well, and that by this argument, you make slave morality morally factual, just because it is an expression of the will to power and can be no other way.

Just because morality is an expression of the will to power or that people do not make their morality another way than they do, does not mean that their morality is "true" or factual in any sense but a descriptive one.

[Psychonaut]

I don't propose that it is false that all instances of rape are outside the domain of "correct", nor that it is true that they are so. I propose that there is no fact about it, I propose that no instance of rape is subject to the moral category and dichotomy of "correct" versus "not correct".

Or at least, I don't propose that there is a fact about it, I don't propose your dilemma.

You constructing this dilemma is narrow morally dualistic thinking.

Both domains do exist as moral/juristic fictions (in Vaihinger's sense) and are differentially defined according to the moral/juristic schema in question. Neither exists, I think, absolutely, but both exist as fictions. In many parts of Africa, for example, the social contract does not necessarily exclude sphere R from C, thus in terms of their fictional schema, overlap exists in a consistent manner.

[Lutiferre]

Both domains do exist as moral/juristic fictions (in Vaihinger's sense) and are differentially defined according to the moral/juristic schema in question. Neither exists, I think, absolutely, but both exist as fictions. In many parts of Africa, for example, the social contract does not necessarily exclude sphere R from C, thus in terms of their fictional schema, overlap exists in a consistent manner.
I don't deny that. I find your initial presentation to be unfitting in a philosophical discussion, because you presented this as a dilemma that I had to answer within the bounds of, as if it had an absolute character. You didn't even mention the option of simply failing to propose this moral dualism.

[Germanicus]

Arguably the healthiest arrangement: it fulfills the need for closeness - (nearly?) everyone's need - which is hard enough to achieve with a single person, while not entailing the often jeopardizing sense of claustrophobia and restriction of personal freedom that strict monogamy brings, in addition to minimizing the risk of said relationship falling into boring routine.

I take it by reading this that you put it about a bit then?....:):):)

[Psychonaut]

I don't deny that. I find your initial presentation to be unfitting in a philosophical discussion, because you presented this as a dilemma that I had to answer within the bounds of, as if it had an absolute character. You didn't even mention the option of simply failing to propose this moral dualism.

I presented it as a dualism because that is how, within the contexts of fictional schemas, these options are presented. To question the rightness or wrongness of any action is to do so within a cultural/juristic context, unless you believe in ethical absolutes, which I don't think you do.

[Lutiferre]

To question the rightness or wrongness of any action is to do so within a cultural/juristic context,
There lies perhaps the misunderstanding; I did not question rape for the sake of questioning that specific issue, but simply the absolutist character of how rape was condemned in this dualism. It could be any other morally pertinent issue.
I presented it as a dualism because that is how, within the contexts of fictional schemas, these options are presented.
I am aware. But this schema is not an absolute one, nor is it a necessity for a higher mind which has advanced itself beyond unquestioning acceptance of absolutisms accepted by the masses. I myself don't find it as useful as certain other ways of thinking (some of which I have presented).

[Psychonaut]

There lies perhaps the misunderstanding; I did not question rape in specific, but simply the absolutist character of how rape was condemned in this dualism. It could be any other morally pertinent issue.
I am aware. But this schema is not an absolute one, nor is it a necessity for a higher mind which has advanced itself beyond unquestioning acceptance of absolutisms accepted by the masses. I myself don't find it as useful as certain other ways of thinking (some of which I have presented).

If you are not proposing an ethical absolutism, why question the absolute character of rape?

[Lutiferre]

If you are not proposing an ethical absolutism, why question the absolute character of rape?
A question which regards only negative reasons (why question); preceding it is the positive issue, why propose and why accept it if you have another schema of thought which is more useful to you?

[Jarl]

It is of course, wrong in my opinion, because I love my mom very highly.

But that doesn't make it a truth that "it is wrong" in some absolute sense.

The issue is that when something is wrong from my perspective, it is wrong because it goes against what I value and love, my feelings, my interests, my beliefs, not because it violates a "moral truth".


It is wrong not just from your perspective, but from the perspective of vast majority of people. But how do you know it is not some REAL universal moral truth that indeed exists? You cannot and you will not know in your lifetime. You always need to assume and believe.

Lets assume you are not going "against what I value and love, my feelings, my interests, my beliefs". You are given the opportunity to kill your enemy. Someone whom you do not value, do not love and do not have any warm feelings for. Totally the opposite. You hate him. Now do you follow the instinct? Or do you follow this other "voice"? And spare him?

There is a simple moral rule - you should act the way you would like other people to act. It by no means gives us the knowledge of what is right and wrong, but perhaps gives us a means to learn and experience it in reality. And the "irrational" non-materialistic character of such reasoning that goes against the nature, against an inborn egoism constitutes its virtue. And it seems to me that there is in every human some general, strong need to believe in such a "irrational", absolute Good. Perhaps there is good, and there is right and wrong that exisits, is real, and independent of ones perspective. And you can discover and experience it in your lifetime. There are only two extreme ways through life - absolute selfishness and absolute denial of yourself. It comes down to materialism versus spirituality. Lack of faith versus faith. But you need to make a blind choice.

[Psychonaut]

A question which regards only negative reasons (why question); preceding it is the positive issue, why propose and why accept it if you have another schema of thought which is more useful to you?

I don't want to start going around in semantic circles with you here...

I was simply harping on this sentence:


Rape does not have to ever be "justified" for the statement that "rape is always wrong" not to be true.

[Lutiferre]

I don't want to start going around in semantic circles with you here..

No need to. I believe we understood each other and you have no arguments as to why I have to accept your dilemma/dualism/schema/fiction, or why I would want to if I find more merit in an alternate way of thinking.

[Psychonaut]

No need to. I believe we understood each other and you have no arguments as to why I have to accept your dilemma/dualism/schema/fiction, or why I would want to if I find more merit in an alternate way of thinking.

You accept juristic fictions by being subject to the jurisdiction responsible for their creation. The same is true for social fictions, and ethical fictions, etc. You do not have to accept any of them, but to do so is to make yourself an outlaw from whatever fiction you're deviating. You are certainly free to do so! For there is no overarching imperative other than pragmatism and traditionalism that ties us to moral fictions.

[Lutiferre]

You accept juristic fictions by being subject to the jurisdiction responsible for their creation. The same is true for social fictions, and ethical fictions, etc. You do not have to accept any of them, but to do so is to make yourself an outlaw from whatever fiction you're deviating.
I believe there are practical social agreements (perhaps compromises) with regards to standards for behaviour in social situations which are based on mutual egoistic interest and a part of voluntary interactions, that do not require any kind of theoretical or stable subscription to moral fictions. It is simply a question of will to power and power interactions which occur regardless of theoretical moral maxims. It is usually the weaker person, the weaker power, which resorts to moralism to try to apprehend the other from overpowering him/her - which is exactly why it is slave-morality and ressentiment to employ absolutist dualistic fictions and claim their indisputable "truth", it is a tool to attain power by compelling stronger people from within, turning their psyche against itself (pity, bad conscience, etc).

However, when such agreements are not made, that is, when one violates the interests and personal liberty of another and denies a practical social compromise (perhaps because it isn't in his self-interest), there thereby isn't any morally abominable character to it, either. It just is what it is.

[Brynhild]

Exactly due to moralists like you, no one does dare to say such things in real life because no one is ignorant of the censure against non-moral standpoints.

The only part I could actually understand.


Besides, I never claimed that rape is ever "justified"; I simply disputed that rape is necessarily "always wrong" as a fact. That doesn't mean I believe it's a fact that "rape is right" (ever), but I consider that option as likely as the opposite, at least as an exception (consider the negative consensus against Hitler and the lack of sympathy in such cases if it were to happen).

I see an interesting pattern happening here - or should I say, several. By claiming that I'm a moralist (and I am, but I've also racked up quite a bit of experience along the way), you are trying to defend yourself with this accusation against me. Unfortunately for you, you've dug yourself a hole so deep that you have no hope of getting out of it. Why? Because you have contradicted yourself with each passing statement. You can't explain yourself properly and your paltry defence is the only action you have!

Another problem I see for you is how you construct your arguments. You try to pass yourself off as somebody who is more intelligent than you actually are. Or maybe this is some intellectual jargon that I haven't been able to grasp.:confused:

Let's go back to school for a moment. The student asks this question:

"Sir, what does rape mean?"

"Well son, one meaning here has it that it is to take by force. Another meaning will have it as saying any act of sexual intercourse that is forced upon a person. Oh, but wait, here's another. an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse; despoliation; violation. Oh deary me, I've found another. the act of seizing and carrying off by force.
My, what a question you've asked today. I hope this clears matters up for you."

One final matter. After my previous remark, you were all too quick to jump in on it. I don't recall pointing my finger at any one person in regards to this subject matter. As I see it, this is an inadvertent admission of guilt.

[Piparskeggr]

From reading the intervening repartee since my last actual contribution, wow, there is way too much vocabulary slinging going on here...which is not to say I do not understand the thoughts being expressed. :D

I will accept that my views herein are moralistic, but not slavish.

I like to think and believe that moral and ethic are what sets us somewhat apart from other animal species. That social compact we have that does constrain the strong from predatory impulse.

Such is the nature of compromise if one wishes to truly be a part of the surrounding community.

No organism is truly an independent actor.

[Lulletje Rozewater]

No need to explain.
Philosophizing Lut's way is playing with words of which there are maximum 50.000 words to chose from,but the average usage is about 10.000
While non-verbal words or expressions are 700.000.
The law of nature tells it all
If a lioness is not ready to copulate it will bliksem the crap out of a Lion.
No Lion dares to go further,in fact no other male animal dares to even force the issue. All female animals have a built in chastity belt to prevent rape.
But the human male seems to have less instinctive feelings on this subject than his animal counterparts.

Rape is wrong in all circumstances.

[Nodens]

First: A thought occurs. Both 'rape' and 'murder' are legal terms (denoting criminal activity) that seem to, from a linguistic perspective, contain inextricable value content. 'Murder' is a criminal case of 'homicide', a value-neutral term. No such value-neutral corollary exists for 'rape'. It seems that the English language itself contains a negative value judgment of 'rape'. If an act is not criminal (or 'wrong', if you prefer), then it cannot be 'rape'.

Second: I felt inspired to create an alternative diagram (of Lutiferre's position) for clarity of argumentation:

[Lutiferre]

First: A thought occurs. Both 'rape' and 'murder' are legal terms (denoting criminal activity) that seem to, from a linguistic perspective, contain inextricable value content. 'Murder' is a criminal case of 'homicide', a value-neutral term. No such value-neutral corollary exists for 'rape'. It seems that the English language itself contains a negative value judgment of 'rape'. If an act is not criminal (or 'wrong', if you prefer), then it cannot be 'rape'.

Second: I felt inspired to create an alternative diagram (of Lutiferre's position) for clarity of argumentation:


Exactly right. Perhaps you are the only one with a truly philosophical mind here.

[Lulletje Rozewater]

First: A thought occurs. Both 'rape' and 'murder' are legal terms (denoting criminal activity) that seem to, from a linguistic perspective, contain inextricable value content. 'Murder' is a criminal case of 'homicide', a value-neutral term. No such value-neutral corollary exists for 'rape'. It seems that the English language itself contains a negative value judgment of 'rape'. If an act is not criminal (or 'wrong', if you prefer), then it cannot be 'rape'.

Second: I felt inspired to create an alternative diagram (of Lutiferre's position) for clarity of argumentation:

Rape is a common form of sexual assault.

Assault is a crime of violence against another person.
Assault is often defined to include not only violence, but any intentional physical contact with another person without their consent.

Dworkinss natural law.


The law can be and is valued neutral in cases of rape.
There is a vague interpretation as to husband-wife relationship
Here a site.

http://www.lectlaw.com/def2/q097.htm (American)
Rape = Assault=criminal=is death by hanging from the highest tree by your penis.:puke:

[SuuT]

Exactly due to moralists like you, no one does dare to say such things in real life because no one is ignorant of the censure against non-moral standpoints.

There are no "non-moral standpoints" in a debate as concerns Morality. Denying that Morality has existence of any kind and/or posing a hypothetical scenario in which rape may not be morally wrong as Morality is but a fiction, negates your argument insofar as all action aginst an existing moral schema transmogrify that Morality as it is Phenomenologically. Ergo, one may say that one refuses acceptance of the dilemma by stating that there is no dilemma; but, one must enter the dilemma to reject it.


I feel you are now repeating something I have already responded to, so I will just refer to what I have already responded with - that what I have criticised is absolute moral statements, my project is not to construct a positive case for rape. Rape, is only an example of a case where you might make such absolute moral statements which pretend to factuality.

Please illuminate the 'grey area' of rape. I do not think that you can.


So the issue for me at least, is not about the rightness of rape, but about whether there are moral facts.

You do understand that there is moral interpretation of the rape phenomenon, yes?


As an addition, I might ask you SuuT: are there moral facts?

Moral facts exist in the moral interpretations of phenomena, whilst simultaneously not existing as phenomena in themselves.


SuuT, I feel you haven't actually succesfully responded to my argument against your argument.

You argued that:


I responded that this applies to the slave morality of the masses and to Christian morality as well, and that by this argument, you make slave morality morally factual, just because it is an expression of the will to power and can be no other way.

Just because morality is an expression of the will to power or that people do not make their morality another way than they do, does not mean that their morality is "true" or factual in any sense but a descriptive one.

Cf. Edmund Husserl, Brentano, Max Scheler, Marcel, Ricoer, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Martin Heidegger, etc. etc.

[Lutiferre]

There are no "non-moral standpoints" in a debate as concerns Morality.
That is right. I used the wrong term; I meant rather "immoral", or at least deemed-to-be.

Denying that Morality has existence of any kind and/or posing a hypothetical scenario in which rape may not be morally wrong as Morality is but a fiction, negates your argument insofar as all action aginst an existing moral schema transmogrify that Morality as it is Phenomenologically. Ergo, one may say that one refuses acceptance of the dilemma by stating that there is no dilemma; but, one must enter the dilemma to reject it.
One may simply have another morality (even if deemed by others to be a lack thereof) which doesn't propose this dilemma to explain or deal with a given situation.

I don't have to actively reject each time I don't propose it.


Moral facts exist in the moral interpretations of phenomena, whilst simultaneously not existing as phenomena in themselves.
An interpretation is itself a phenomenon insofar as it is an act and not a static state of affairs.

But my question was really more; do moral facts exist, as "universal facts" in an absolute sense? What you said earlier seems to me to be, moral absolutism.


Cf. Edmund Husserl, Brentano, Max Scheler, Marcel, Ricoer, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Martin Heidegger, etc. etc.
What about them?

And you haven't answered my most significant objections to your view, by the way.

I believe there are practical social agreements (perhaps compromises) with regards to standards for behaviour in social situations which are based on mutual egoistic interest and a part of voluntary interactions, that do not require any kind of theoretical or stable subscription to moral fictions. It is simply a question of will to power and power interactions which occur regardless of theoretical moral maxims. It is usually the weaker person, the weaker power, which resorts to moralism to try to apprehend the other from overpowering him/her - which is exactly why it is slave-morality and ressentiment to employ absolutist dualistic fictions and claim their indisputable "truth", it is a tool to attain power by compelling stronger people from within, turning their psyche against itself (pity, bad conscience, etc).

However, when such agreements are not made, that is, when one violates the interests and personal liberty of another and denies a practical social compromise (perhaps because it isn't in his self-interest), there thereby isn't any morally abominable character to it, either. It just is what it is.



I disagree. I am precisely opposed to pretending that moral interpretations are logical, and more importantly, factual.

Moral feelings or interpretations are not "less true" than any other emotion or attitudes which aren't concerned with truth.

Our true conflict is what we mean by truth itself, and the broadness of that definition.

I don't believe most statements of preferences, like right and wrong, are a matter of truth, not because they are false, but because they referring to something other than truth, namely our interests, which can be opposed to others' interests, and to elevate one as truer than another is to misunderstand the issue.

Truth, etymologically speaking, comes from a word which means being faithful; I know this from the Danish language, in which the word tro means faith, like in "den kristne tro" (the Christian faith), or "at være tro" (to be true [e.g. to yourself]).

But the modern meaning of english truth is not that of Danish tro: faith. It is rather a derivation which uses "faithfulness" as simply a metaphor for something like fathfulness to what is real, what is the core or the essence - that is where the etymological change lies, from tro to truth.

Truth refers to what we in Danish call sandhed, not to tro, not to faithfulness in general.

I am not thereby saying you are wrong, I am just saying we are misunderstanding each other because we are using different semantics. Your definition of truth as simply "faithfulness" is interesting. But faithfulness to what? Faithfulness to some immoral impulse, for instance, would not support your idea of "moral faithfulness".

[SuuT]

That is right. I used the wrong term; I meant rather "immoral", or at least deemed-to-be.

And thus the Moral one, and the Moral other: All Immorality is a Moral matter; not all Morality is an immoral matter.


One may simply have another morality (even if deemed by others to be a lack thereof) which doesn't propose this dilemma to explain or deal with a given situation.

One can only abstract Morality just so far before they are no longer speaking of anything, as Morality is/acts as a practical endeavor between agreeable parties. This "one" you speak of that "simply [has] another morality" is, I presume, that dude who roams-about with his similarly minded henchmen in a rape-fest hoard terrorising females because they, like you, feel that there is no fundamental basis upon which to have a moral *standard*? It's them, correct? - The one's we hear about now nightly inbetween stories of volcanos and Tiger Woods...?


But my question was really more; do moral facts exist, as "universal facts" in an absolute sense? What you said earlier seems to me to be, moral absolutism.

Well, now I'm speechless.


What about them?

They are a segment of the afore mentioned philosophical tracts that you have leapt over, and must go back to: You are constructing your first wheel with respect to the matter(s) you raise in this thread, whilst a good part of that bunch are building faster Ferraris.


Part of me really does want to spell it all out and tell you exactly where you should look, but to be honest I just don't enjoy the forum if it makes me feel like I'm working.

[Lutiferre]

One can only abstract Morality just so far before they are no longer speaking of anything, as Morality is/acts as a practical endeavor between agreeable parties.
The practical social agreement and transaction you are describing has no need for moral "truths" and fictions: as I described here (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?p=197797#post197797).

Further, though morality is usually between people, it isn't thereby limited to the herd/slave morality of the masses; there is also morality which is constructed apart from the moral attitudes accepted by most people, individually or in groups differentiated from the majoritys process.


This "one" you speak of that "simply [has] another morality" is, I presume, that dude who roams-about with his similarly minded henchmen in a rape-fest hoard terrorising females because they, like you, feel that there is no fundamental basis upon which to have a moral *standard*?
No. Just because I don't view it as a truth that there are moral truths, doesn't mean I consider it acceptable to rape people, or that I have any interest or derive any pleasure therefrom, or that raping people is what my morality consists of just because I don't condemn it as "wrong" absolutely.

Which is something you can't seem to comprehend. I do have morality and a moral attitude, even though I don't take it as a set of "truths" about the dilemma of "correct" and "incorrect" actions, but rather as just a reflection of my own experience, my own instincts and intuitions, and what I believe is good and in my own interest (and thereby also in the interest of others I care about, which is itself my self-interest insofar as I value other people).


They are a segment of the afore mentioned philosophical tracts that you have leapt over, and must go back to: You are constructing your first wheel with respect to the matter(s) you raise in this thread, whilst a good part of that bunch are building faster Ferraris.
You may be right. But so what? I did the same before I studied Nietzsche or any others. I think starting from bottom up and understanding philosophers based on your own thought process before that gives you a better disposition.

[SuuT]

The practical social agreement and transaction you are describing has no need for moral "truths" and fictions

"Need" is not the matter, though. That moral "truths and fictions" arise organically out of moral discourse is pretty plain. Just as you are representing the perspective of the fiction of moral truths, and the existentiality of Morality more generally.


Further, though morality is usually between people, it isn't thereby limited to the herd/slave morality of the masses; there is also morality which is constructed apart from the moral attitudes accepted by most people, individually or in groups differentiated from the majoritys process.

Yes, and that would constitute a Social Contract in itself, which is compatible with other Social Contracts, and incompatible with still others. As Social Contracts as I have described them in no way constitute anything Absolute, these Social Contracts allow for self-auditing: The assimilation and/or expulsion of elements that serve - or prove a disservice - to the refinement of a People's moral reality.


No. Just because I don't view it as a truth that there are moral truths, doesn't mean I consider it acceptable to rape people, or that I have any interest or derive any pleasure therefrom, or that raping people is what my morality consists of just because I don't condemn it as "wrong" absolutely.

I am still waiting for the 'morally right' rape to be described.


Which is something you can't seem to comprehend.

What I comprehend is that your series of assertions are groundless outside of the mantra (for which you have also provided no argumentative basis) that there are no moral facts. To which, I have agreed for reasons found in the implications which inhere in the moral facts that are to be found in the moral interpretation of phenomena. In short, not only have I made your essential argument for you, but I have also provided the counter-argument - you have yet to respond in a way that deals with it directly.


I do have morality and a moral attitude,

You do? :confused2: I thought that Morality didn't exist in any "meaningful" way?

Do you see how one must enter the dilemma to reject it, or no?


even though I don't take it as a set of "truths" about the dilemma of "correct" and "incorrect" actions, but rather as just a reflection of my own experience, my own instincts and intuitions, and what I believe is good and in my own interest (and thereby also in the interest of others I care about, which is itself my self-interest insofar as I value other people).

And? You are describing things that constitute the aggregate that is Morality and there isn't a single thing capricious about it. Nor is it arbitrary, as your personal moral possibilities are limited to, first, what is probable; and second, what is possible. You are not going to become the amoral man who rides about in the rape hoard because you believe that there is no fundamental basis for the truth of Morality. Morality and the study and application of Ethics are - be their very nature - practical concerns. It stands to reason, therefore, that whilst intellectual excercises such as this thread can envigour the mind, they are by-and-large academic and have little to no applicability outside of the mind.

[Lutiferre]

You do? :confused2: I thought that Morality didn't exist in any "meaningful" way?
No, I said that with regard to moral facts or "truth statements".

I didn't thereby say moral attitudes didn't exist, or that I did't have such.



I am still waiting for the 'morally right' rape to be described.

Well, let's say that from my perspective, I haven't come across any situation where I believe rape is right, in a subjective sense. So to argue for something I am opposed to would be arguing against myself.



What I comprehend is that your series of assertions are groundless outside of the mantra (for which you have also provided no argumentative basis) that there are no moral facts.
If anyone needs to prove anything (which perhaps is not the case), I don't need to prove that there are no moral facts because the burden of proof lies on the positive claim that there are so.



To which, I have agreed for reasons found in the implications which inhere in the moral facts that are to be found in the moral interpretation of phenomena. In short, not only have I made your essential argument for you, but I have also provided the counter-argument - you have yet to respond in a way that deals with it directly.
You are correct, and I think we can agree about that, because you illuminated it in a way that it now makes more sense to me. Namely, with this comment, whereby you say that there is a plurality of "moral interpretations" each of which can contain moral facts for the interpretations perspective itself:



Yes, and that would constitute a Social Contract in itself, which is compatible with other Social Contracts, and incompatible with still others. As Social Contracts as I have described them in no way constitute anything Absolute, these Social Contracts allow for self-auditing: The assimilation and/or expulsion of elements that serve - or prove a disservice - to the refinement of a People's moral reality.


Further.. I think I can now make sense out of your view that there are moral facts in interpretations but as "facts for me, or for us", of my our our interests.. not as any kind of detached or absolute "platonic" facts "for all". I described here how morals are facts to us even though I didn't actually describe it as truth related; when truth is truth-to-us/me, not truth-in-itself, this here morality itself becomes truth, and as you said, I describe the aggregate that constitutes moral facts even if I fail to refers to them as such:


Which is something you can't seem to comprehend. I do have morality and a moral attitude [.. which is] a reflection of my own experience, my own instincts and intuitions, and what I believe is good and in my own interest (and thereby also in the interest of others I care about, which is itself my self-interest insofar as I value other people).
To which you commented:


And? You are describing things that constitute the aggregate that is Morality and there isn't a single thing capricious about it. Nor is it arbitrary, as your personal moral possibilities are limited to, first, what is probable; and second, what is possible. You are not going to become the amoral man who rides about in the rape hoard because you believe that there is no fundamental basis for the truth of Morality. Morality and the study and application of Ethics are - be their very nature - practical concerns. It stands to reason, therefore, that whilst intellectual excercises such as this thread can envigour the mind, they are by-and-large academic and have little to no applicability outside of the mind.
And, furthermore:

"Need" is not the matter, though. That moral "truths and fictions" arise organically out of moral discourse is pretty plain. Just as you are representing the perspective of the fiction of moral truths, and the existentiality of Morality more generally.


All in all, I think this debate has been very enlightening for me, at least now I seem to understand what you mean and agree with you to the extent that I interpret your viewpoint.

[Breedingvariety]

Accepting something as truth determines good and bad. Bad doesn't necessarily mean evil.

There are no "non-moral standpoints" in a debate as concerns Morality. Denying that Morality has existence of any kind and/or posing a hypothetical scenario in which rape may not be morally wrong as Morality is but a fiction, negates your argument insofar as all action aginst an existing moral schema transmogrify that Morality as it is Phenomenologically. Ergo, one may say that one refuses acceptance of the dilemma by stating that there is no dilemma; but, one must enter the dilemma to reject it.
Rejecting statement "rape is bad" means there is different truth behind morality, that regards rape as insignificant to morality determined by accepted truth. The dilemma is not of morality vs. no morality. It's dilemma of morality that considers rape bad vs. morality that considers rape insignificant.

Please illuminate the 'grey area' of rape. I do not think that you can.
I'll just hint rape could be strategy of specie reproduction. If survival of specie is good, then rape is good. That's not my view. That's just an example of morality where rape is not just grey, but light.

Moral facts exist in the moral interpretations of phenomena, whilst simultaneously not existing as phenomena in themselves.
There is no moral interpretations of phenomena different with interpretations of phenomena. All interpretations determine morality. But what good and bad is in one interpretation can be non issue in other and vice versa.

[Lutiferre]

I'd also like to note that a moral interpretation doesn't have to be built on a "social contract" or on any social premises/compromises; it can be built on a reevaluation of other-wise accepted values.

[SuuT]

rape could be strategy of specie reproduction. If survival of specie is good, then rape is good. That's not my view. That's just an example of morality where rape is not just grey, but light.

Rape as a reproductive strategy in proto-moral space-time must be viewed in light of exactly that space-time.

Perhaps there is some percentage of today's rapists whose drive to rape is an atavistic appearance of archaic reproductive strategy. However, as Morality is a process of self-censure and refinement, many would agree that flowers and chocolates and sweet words work a lot better in the moral now.

I should note, here, that such a phenomenon (rape as reproductive strategy) could re-appear in post-moral space-time (in instances in which Man is more animal than the moral animal).



I'd also like to note that a moral interpretation doesn't have to be built on a "social contract" or on any social premises/compromises; it can be built on a reevaluation of other-wise accepted values.

The process is certainly dynamic. I imagine one would have to have a time machine and be privy to the anagenesis and ethnogenesis of a people to know what is the chicken, and what is the egg.