Farren

Thats very poetic (honestly, it is, and I like poetry) but I don't know WTF you are trying to say, although I detect a hint of sarcasm. Pliz help. I am an ignorant firriner.

dk

Just a sarcastic rant meant to project a tower of bable.

Farren

I see. So what's your take on morality again?

long winded fool

An inspiring, if sobering, post. Not many could elicit these two emotions simultaneously. Sobering because so many humans truly are completely directionless and incapable of value judgment. Inspiring because identifying and labeling the problem is the first step towards solving it.

Absolute morality is science. An imperfect science at the moment, but mistakes don't make things subjective. Two plus two is four even if everyone mistakenly thinks it's three. We have to go in some moral direction. Even mistakenly going in the wrong direction is preferable to going nowhere. Taking risks and learning from mistakes is the only path to wisdom. Refusing to judge and act is refusing to think. Subjective ethics and relative morality are the equivalent of being directionless. We ought to use wisdom and logic to the best of our understanding and then pick a direction. "Anything goes" or "whatever we feel like whenever we feel like it" is not a direction and results in intellectual stagnation, overpopulation, moral conflict, and chaos. We claim to care about our children, yet we are so afraid to think critically that we can't even honestly answer their simplest questions without wondering what we're "supposed" to say based on the accepted axioms of our equally cowardly peers who are equally incapable of judgment and intolerance. Our kids want to know what's right and what's wrong. What's courage and what's cowardice? We'd better find out and let them know before they too abandon wisdom and reason in disgust and selfishly embrace the instant gratification of instinct, and the sciences and social systems that promote it, the way we have.

The planet is not big enough for all conflicting moral systems to have a place. (No planet is.) I don't care which one we pick, but let's use our ability to reason and pick the most reasonable one before we lose our last shred of true intellectual virtue and sapience and blindly dive headfirst like lemmings over the cliff to extinction.

That was my much less eloquent take on dk's wise observation, anyway. We all like to be on the cutting edge of modern science and social theory, but absolute tolerance and moral subjectivism based on detached societal research are neither cutting edge, nor scientific, nor in any way logical. This is the same lazy ignorance that's been around since the first human societies formed on the Earth, (sans the technology.) It's just now called "enlightenment."

Guillaume

While both absolute morality and science are effectively two systems created to discover what is true, only one so far has demonstrated it’s validity. Indeed, science’s claims can be verified with observation, experimentation and predictions. Absolute morality, however, cruelly lacks such link with reality. This, along with the overall lack of a rational justification of the validity of absolute morality, seem to inadequate that the answers given by absolute morality are irrelevant.



An incorrect science produces mistakes. Absolute morality, however, does not even produce that : all the tools we currently have to discover truth are incapable to tell us if the answers of absolute morality are right or wrong. This lack of support from other sources of knowledge makes absolute morality a mere belief, akin to religion.


Such “journey” seems to be doomed to fail from the start, as it is quite clear that “mistakes” are simply impossible as nothing can contradict a moral direction. The “traveler” through seems condemned to follow the same path forever, a conclusion further supported by the apparent stagnancy of most moralists.




If philosophy teach us one thing, it’s that questions are more important than answers. As such I view answering the questions of a child a good way to destroy his intellectual curiosity, as answers are inherently limitative. Perhaps, instead of condescendingly giving answers you should trust children more, for they may be more philosophers then you are, they who question everything….

dk

Originally posted by Guillaume: (snip)
If philosophy teaches us one thing, it’s that questions are more important than answers.
(snip)
dk: I can’t let this go. I might postulate philosophy teaches us one thing... leads to another, causes another, becomes another, contradicts another, explains another, questions another, balances another, facilitates another, justifies another.... forming an endless chain of possibilities.

But if philosophy teaches us anything it’s that truth connects life to reality else all the questions have no meaning at all. .

long winded fool

A thought provoking reply, Guillaume. Certainly current level reasoning is no more in possession of absolute morality than science is in possession of absolute physical laws. In fact, we may never be fully in possession of either. What seems absolute right now could become false in the future. This doesn't mean we ought to assume that no physical or moral laws are absolute. Until we learn differently, the first law of thermodynamics is absolute. If following logic and reason tells us that categorical hatred based on race is bad, we ought to teach this to our children as a moral absolute until logic and reason tell us differently, and that those who disagree are wrong. When and if reason tells us differently, we will be aware that we have made a mistake in our moral direction and will change it. This has occured in our society in the recent past when we went from assuming Africans were something less than people with inalienable rights to assuming that they are nothing less than people with inalienable rights. This ought to be assumed a moral absolute and taught to our children as such until rationally proven otherwise.

If philosophy teach us one thing, it’s that questions are more important than answers. As such I view answering the questions of a child a good way to destroy his intellectual curiosity, as answers are inherently limitative. Perhaps, instead of condescendingly giving answers you should trust children more, for they may be more philosophers then you are, they who question everything…

Questioning everything and learning from mistaken answers is definitely a virtue. However, questioning everything, arriving at no answers, and assuming that there are no answers to be had is not. Answers are what make questions worth asking. I agree that the journey to the answer is more constructive than being handed the answer itself, but without answers, there can be no journey. Children should be taught to think for themselves. They should not be taught to distrust answers as subjective and relative things, as no answer is either. Answers are always either right or wrong. There is no third choice, therefore answers are logically very limiting and encourage critical thinking and rational judgement as opposed to indiscriminate refusal to judge right and wrong that results when answers are assumed to be subjective. It's much better from both an intellectual and a survival standpoint to be wrong in our assessment of our answer than to fail to assess an answer as either right or wrong. When a child "doesn't know," he tries to find out, even when what he doesn't know is a moral issue. He asks why. He doesn't assume that, since he doesn't know, no one knows and so whatever it is must be unknowable and can logically be ignored as neither right nor wrong and safely be placed into the category of arbitrary religious belief. In this respect, many children are better philosophers than many philosophers, since moral relativism is a notion that no child could entertain.

VivaHedone

Again...

What do you base this on? In countries where education and contraception are freely available, population is stable. In countries where education and contraception are not available, population is increasing. Therefore your cherished 'reason' would suggest that the solution is to make education and contraception freely available in all countries. If you educate people about the negative consequences of sex, and give them means to avoid these negative consequences, they will use them - why wouldn't they? This stands a far greater chance of success than atempting to teach universal abstinence.

You compare giving the third world contraception to giving food aid - and say that both are inadequate. The two are totally different. Food aid is just a short-term stciking laster over the underlying problems. It is not sustainable for the developed world to feed the developing world. Contraception, however, can be imported cheaply and easily, and can be produced in developing countries. It is not unsustainable, as fairly few resources are required. Government education programs can be set up easily, with relatively few people needing to be educated by us. Contraception can provide a long-term solution to problems of over-population, because once the education and infastructure is there, it's there. This is unlike food aid, which needs to be repeated every time crisis strikes.

Sex is an act with huge positive and negative consequences. We can either act to eliminate the negative consequences alone, leaving the positive ones for us all to enjoy, or try and eliminate both.

Sabine Grant

Salut Vivahedone.... I believe that the degree of enjoyment of sex resides mostly in the emotional state two individuals share that intimacy. Is it a myth or reality that sex becomes more enjoyable as we grow older? as we perfect our relationships and attribute a sexual act to an emotional commitment? it looses then its "instinctive" aspect and becomes a culminating stage in a relationship.
If I consider my personal sexual experience in my life and my age ( 46), I can assert that I am now fully sexualy content as my emotions guide my senses in those moments of intimacy with my husband.
So I think there is no general rule to the enjoyment of sex... there is the individual need of each person and whether he or she is stimulated by the human libido or by the emotional rapport.

dk

(sorry double post)