I guess my main point in this is that I do not see any subjective data as relevant in the sense that it should be considered in any decision making process short of personal effect. I will not take an action which will hurt myself unless it will serve a greater purpose such as opening an avenue of thought/action which would otherwise be closed to me. I see the entire study of ethics to be somewhat of a joke only in that it has no real answer to any questions which you cannot find through self realization. Ethics, virtue, good, bad, right, wrong, all exist in the mind and the mind alone. As such, conversation of these topics will reveal nothing to an individual save for what they are already capable of contracting from their own experience.

Nihilism, as you explain it is still not wuite what I am talking about. I am not a pessimist as you might think according to my theory. I am actually a great optimist. The trick, as always, is how you look at it. I affirmed earlier that all of my action is incorrect as well as all of your action and the action of others. This does not mean that I am going to quit acting as I can never be correct. on the contrary, this means that I will act more and do more things which I would have never considered doing had I a grasp of right and wrong similar to others. I already know that my actions will not be correct and therefore, there is no point in not completing the actions which would normally be considered a fools endeavor. As a matter of fact, I have more reason to take the action then not if only to see the resulting data. As such, I am free of the complicated nature of false judgement. I allow natural processes to make the determination of such. If I commit a "good" act then a positive result should present itself. If not then it will not. Even with this, a positive action may result in a negative result. So the way I see it, any sort of judgement on right, wrong, etc. is the equivalent of trying to find the final digit in π. A useless endeavor as the calculation goes on forever.

I do not consider all emotional input to be worthless. I simply see it as contingent data not necessary for most choices of action.

Prime example: I know a girl who acts like a complete airhead all of the time. It drives many people crazy just to be around her but it gets her attention from guys. Problem is it is the wrong type of guy and even she knows it but it is something which she has learned to do subconsciously. I did not know her all that well at the time but I knew that she was smarter than that by how she addressed certain questions. Thus, I told her that I would really appreciate it if she would stop playing the role of stupid blond because it wasn't doing her or anyone else any good as was really a shame because I knew she was smarter than that. This is an action which no one else would take because they felt that it would be rude and terrible. They were using judgement based on emotion and the local virtue of accepting someone for who they presented themselves to be. I refused to follow that practice. She cried for two days and didn't call anyone. After two days, she came back and had dropped the dumb blond act. This was almost 8 months a go and her friends are still thanking me for it because it has really helped her out a great deal.

Had I listened to the local morals and virtues, I would have kept my mouth shut and she would still be doing it. Being that I refuse to subscribe to everyone else views of morality, I do this sort of thing quite often. I have become somewhat known for it and now people come to me when they have problems which they do not know how to address. Virtue, morality, ethics, all ideas which get in the way of living life. Concerns which you should not have to bother with. If you calculate the consequences, determine your desire to deal with them and output an action accordingly without the concern for right and wrong, you will be amazed how well you can do for yourself.

I am not saying that my way is right because i know that it is wrong. It is this realization that allows me to live free of concern and free of judgement. I challenege anyone who doubts that to try it if even for only 2 weeks and tell me how it goes.

Be honest, refuse judgement, understand that all action has consequence and future effect, deny the idea of right and wrong, and tell me what you conclude.

I think this thread morphed from a topic about virtues to a topic about right and wrong actions. Most ethics threads tend to do that...

I think that's a significant observation, because virtue ethics focuses on agents, rather acts, a point I was trying to get Icon to address by asking Icon to supply a definition. Saying what something isn't and saying that something doesn't make sense is not helpful, analytically, unless you first identify precisely what that something is. If you define a virtue as something used to measure the goodness or badness of an action, then you are not talking about virtue ethics.

...What I really like about virtue ethics is the fact that unlike the various telelogical and deontological ethical approaches, virtue ethics isn't rigid. Virtue ethics is a very flexible approach to the complexity of the field of ethics. It can also be used in some applied ethics, like business ethics and others.

Would you please stop being insulting and dismissive? I am trying to understand your point. If you really want me to assume that you do not believe the term "virtue" can be defined, then you leave me no choice but to point out that your position can be immediately refuted by consulting a dictionary. The whole point of my question was to find out how you define the term itself. Shall I guess? Icon's defintion of "virtue" is: "an erroneous and meaningless concept, commonly held, in the context of philosophical ethics, to provide standards for measuring good and bad actions."

I'm sorry, but what do you mean when you say that the study of ethics has no answers to which you can't find through self-realization, and when did self-realization have nothing to do with the study of ethics? Also, what do you mean by saying that you know that your actions are always incorrect? That really doesn't seem to make any sense.

I certainly don't think it solves all the problems, and I do concur with Icon and others that subjectivity and relativistic issues make it hard (perhaps even impossible in some cases) to define "virtue" and "the virtues" precisely. But a principle or idea does not necessarily lose its meaning or validity just because it is subject to varied opinions or lack of precision. Some opinions may be ignorant and others well-informed. Some opinions may be illogical. Similarly, a principle or idea does not necessarily lose its meaning or validity merely because, by its nature, it can be expressed as lying along a continuum. The fact that a person can be more or less brave does not lead us to conclude that there is no meaning in the word "brave."

I certainly don't think it solves all the problems, and I do concur with Icon and others that subjectivity and relativistic issues make it hard (perhaps even impossible in some cases) to define "virtue" and "the virtues" precisely. But a principle or idea does not necessarily lose its meaning or validity just because it is subject to varied opinions or lack of precision. Some opinions may be ignorant and others well-informed. Some opinions may be illogical. Similarly, a principle or idea does not necessarily lose its meaning or validity merely because, by its nature, it can be expressed as lying along a continuum. The fact that a person can be more or less brave does not lead us to conclude that there is no meaning in the word "brave."

"...as it states in the Meno, all men believe that they are committing right action. No man wishes to be evil. In this way, all men are virtuous as all men believe themselves to be so and act accordingly."

I think this is demonstrably false. I have personally met dozens and have read or heard about hundreds, if not thousands of people who choose to be evil. By evil, I mean (at the very least) deliberate habitual acts and habits that harm others. All people do not believe themselves to be virtuous. There are plenty of people who truly do not care about self control, so they become gluttons or drunks, for example. Many of them will admit such a choice, and admit they have no self-respect. Some of them are resigned to a life of evil, some go to their graves refusing to admit it, and some of them seek to become better. So, if the argument (that virtue is a sham) rests on this pre-supposition, then I think it fails from the outset.

Let me first apologize if I was coming off as dismissive as that was not my intent. I had made my point very clearly, so I thought, and felt no need to repeat myself. Let me make my point a little mor clear in this way...

A definition of a word and what the word means are all too often completely different. There are many examples of this in the english language alone. I could certainly go out and fetch the websters definition for you if you would like but that will not explain virtue, only a common understanding of the word itself.

I have no definition for what virtue, itself, means to me because I do not feel that virtue is in any way related to the nature of mankind and feel that it is a superfluous word. When looking into virtue, during my study of ethics, I came upon many descriptions of various virtues and yet, I found no one who could give a good standard definition of virtue as an idea. It seemed to me that, as it states in the Meno, all men believe that they are committing right action. No man wishes to be evil. In this way, all men are virtuous as all men believe themselves to be so and act accordingly. What you have here is a word with such a variable meaning that it can only hold value on an individual level. It can have a common basic understanding but can never hold value such as the words inch or pen. I do see virtue as a measurement set forth by man to determine the good or bad, positive or negative nature of an action or event. I see it this way because, when you boil it down, that is what the word means to most people.

"Is that man virtuous?" is a direct analysis of the man's actions. Not of the man himself. Of course, it could be argued that without action, a man is not a man as he cannot exist.

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I tried to explain, in great detail, what I mean by this. Ethics is the study of what? It is the study of morality in human beings. More specifically, it is the philosophy of morality. The attempt to create a unifying theory of morality is even more precise. This cannot be done. But if you wish to know about ethics then you must only take a long look at yourself. If ethics is the philosophy of morality, then you have the only test subject you'll ever need. Yourself. You are capable of the full gambit of human emotion and you have the free will to act in any way that you see fit. Therefore, to understand ethics, you must only understand yourself. This is especially true because ethics, virtue, morality, are all completely subjective which is a point we have agreed upon. If they are all subjective then the only way to study ethics is to understand yourself as that will define it for you and answer any questions you might have.

As far as why I am always wrong. It doesn't make sense to you because you are getting a good deal of your knowledge from books it seems and yet, you have not read every book there is to read, nor have you had the chance to explore these concepts outside of a structured environment. I can tell by how you approach definitions as well as ideas. Most of your concepts are solidified in theory and symantics rather than practicality and comprehension. This is not an insult and is notmeant to be offensive in any way. It is simply a different way to learn the same subject. I did not sit in a class room and study this for test grades or for study this subject as one might have in school. I study philosophy with much more than philosophy in mind and much more than a sinlge philosophy in mind. By this I mean that I combine philosophy with psychology, language arts, sociology, and self experimentation. So attempting to look at it from all of those points of view at once, I cannot ever take right action as defined by my own subjective understanding of the term "right action". Right action is: "the most correct course of action for the given event". I cannot know everything about an event and thus cannot take the most correct action. I can only take the most correct action that I can perceive at the time. This is not right action. Keep in mind that I do not truly subscribe to right and wrong. I do not believe in right and wrong and have already gone over this. Right and wrong are subjective evaluations made by the human mind in order to facilitate blame or emotional attachment to action and results. I do not do this when at all possible. But, you have told me that I must take a stance on right or wrong and so I have taken the stance of wrong. I cannot be right. If I cannot be right then I must be wrong. You keep saying that I need to look at this as an "and" situation rather than an "or" situation but right and wrong are mutually exclusive. You cannot be both at the same time and you cannot be neither unless you take no action at all. (quite impossible)

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Perhaps I am by your standards but in a subjective environment, mine are the only standards which matter.



Who is the judge of what is right and wrong? Virtuous or not?

I certainly don't think it solves all the problems, and I do concur with Icon and others that subjectivity and relativistic issues make it hard (perhaps even impossible in some cases) to define "virtue" and "the virtues" precisely. But a principle or idea does not necessarily lose its meaning or validity just because it is subject to varied opinions or lack of precision. Some opinions may be ignorant and others well-informed. Some opinions may be illogical. Similarly, a principle or idea does not necessarily lose its meaning or validity merely because, by its nature, it can be expressed as lying along a continuum. The fact that a person can be more or less brave does not lead us to conclude that there is no meaning in the word "brave."

Your arguments reflect the misconception of those who adopt relativism as a meta-ethic. Please stop using the term subjectivist as if it is synonymous with relativist? I am also a subjectivist, in the sense that I hold any statements of value to be of a subjective nature. Subjective meaning mind-dependent, objective meaning mind-independent. You are arguing from a relativist standpoint, not merely a subjectivist one. Everytime you use the word subjective you should replace it with the word relative.

My complementing you on being virtuous in your act towards the girl was not simply by my relative standards. The emotive and prescriptive forces behind the judging of good and bad actions and their consequences are not relative. I've said this before and I will say it again - I justify my value of a virtue because of its universal and impartial applicability. I also justify my virtues with the criteria of compatibility and maximality. Though I proudly admit that virtue ethics mainly deals with the character of the agent, I do not isolate the capacity and tendency for good or bad outcomes from the consideration of a virtue as such. All of this is how we judge what is right or wrong, virtue or vice.

How is my approach to ethical problems impractical and incomprehensive? You said that you base your ethics on the outcome of an action. Well that is exactly what I'm doing except for the fact that I also recognize intent as important because every action has an intent behind it, and resorting to interpreting the consequences of an act only after an act has been made presents a number of dangerous problems if you think it through. What is impractical is resorting to an ends justifies the means ethical philosophy and paying no attention to the intent of an act before the act results in an unpredictable conclusion. I don't just get my ethical ideas from reading books. I get them from thinking them through.

On right and wrong -Right is the accordance of a decision or outcome with ultimate (and not just proximate) goodness. Wrong is the discordance of a decision or outcome with ultimate (and not just proximate) goodness. When I said that you need to look at this as an "and" situation, I was saying that you need to look at both the intent of a decision and the outcome of a decision as equally impotant.

Now I'm not trying to make you adopt virtue ethics, or make you agree with everything I say, but it appears that you refuse to get my point. If you refuse to see my point then you refuse to see my point, but I believe that my point has been stated clearly. If you continue to miscomprehended or ignore my points then I believe it to be willful.

When men do evil, it is because they believe themselves to be assiting a greater good.

Prime example: Suicide bombers.

Also, I would hear your argument that drunks are evil. Or gluttons.

But, you see how difficult it is to deny the principle of evil. The fact that some evil is committed (as you admit above) by people who do not think it is evil does not prove that evil does not exist.

I do not use deliberate drunkeness or gluttony to illustrate evil, but rather the lack a of virtue, namely self-control. I would not argue that vices are necessarily evil. My points were made to argue against your assertion that all people think themselves to be virtuous. I personally knwo people (and I find it hard to believe that you don't) who deliberately choose to practice their vices knowing they are vices. I do it myself sometimes, and I recognize it as a lack of self control, and I regret it. You cannot identify with this?

It is obvious that what I am talking about, you have no reference for understanding. You are still arguing symantics rather than addressing my ideas. You insist on defining my approach and have defined it three different ways now. Perhaps the reason you are having such a hard time understanding me is that lack of a point of reference. My ideas do not come from a book. I am not a relativist. I am not a nihilist. I am not a subjectivist or objectivist.

So I will make this as simple as possible for you to understand and as direct as I possibly can.

1) Right and wrong do not exist outside of the mind. Mind-Dependent

2) Because they do not occur in nature, they are additional attributes given to action or intent for a human purpose.

3) This purpose is to attach emotional merit to an action or intent.

4) When you get back to the natural order of things, there is only action and consequence without human judgment.

5) Human's are inherently flawed which also means that human judgement is inherently flawed. This also means that human judgment on right and wrong are inherently flawed.

6) A mind dependent, inherently flawed, un-natural judgment created to suppliment emotional desires with no impact to the action, intent or consequence but ultimately affects perception according to the desire of the individual who makes the judgment is a sham. It is a self created illusion.

Ethics is the philosophy of these self created illusions.

It does if we have agreed that the measure of virtue is subjective.




I do not agree that self control is a virtue and I do believe that the ability to let loose and enjoy your vices is a virtue. Prove me wrong.

Before I address all of your numbered statements, let me tell you why you don't come across clearly. You say "I don't get my ideas from a book" (i.e. you don't read?). You go on to say "I'm not a relativist. I'm not a nihilist. I'm not a subjectivist or an objectivist." Either you don't like any of these terms or you just don't know the definition of the terms. You've used the word subjective I don't know how many times, and now you're are not a subjectivist? Let's first find out what an ethical subjectivist is, shall we? An ethical or axiological subjectivist is a person who holds that statements of right and wrong do not exist outside the mind, and that all values are mind-dependent. Wasn't that your 1) point in your last post? You also say that you're not a relativist, but you say that something is only right or wrong based on individual standards. That my friend is relativism, and it can be easily discredited. If you don't want to use these terms then fine, but you fit the definitions.

Maybe you just didn't know what these terms meant (like when you said that you were a deontologist, which is the opposite of your ethical approach) and there's nothing wrong with that. Reading a book or looking up the definition of these terms would be useful.

I will respond to your statements with corresponding numbers:

1) I agree that moral sentences of right and wrong are mind-dependent, which means that they are subjective, which makes you and I subjective non-cognitivists.

2) Agreed.

3) Indeed, the reason why people attach value to something is because of its emotive or prescriptive underpinnings.

4) Agreed.

5) Just because human beings are not perfect by our subjective standards doesn't mean that we cannot make sound judgments. The ability to reason is what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. I think that we can reasonable judge the rape and murder of a child as being wrong. I think that we can judge the saving of a drowning child's life as being right. I think we can judge the killing of innocent civilians in war as wrong. I think we can judge that slapping a polite person for saying hello to you is wrong. I think that we can judge saying hello to a polite person who greets you as right. I can go on and on with examples, but I think you get the point.

6) So just because something is not objective that makes it a flawed sham?!! For someone who claims not to be nihilist, you sure argue like one. You argue against perceptions of right and wrong, and yet you clearly have perceptions of right and wrong. Why do you think that you care about the consequences of an action? Why do you think that you cared about the way that girl was behaving? In this sense, ethics represents the rationalization of one's subjective appetites and emotions. Stop arguing against something you are also guilty of. That's called hypocrisy. If you're going to continue by saying "I know I'm wrong, I can't be right," then let's just stop this debate now.

There is nothing wrong with letting loose and enjoying a drink and even some casual sex every now and then. It's all about tempering your natural appetites. Intemperance is the lack of self-control over one's natural appetites and emotions that often leads to bad outcomes. It's called moderation, or as Aristotle called it, the golden mean.

So I am a subjectivistic, relativistic nihilist? Or perhaps I am a relativistic, nihilistic subjectivist? Or perhaps you have gotten your meaning mixed up because you have called me all three and yet, I see this as quite impossible as they have very different and mutually exclusive modes of belief. Hmmm. I think I said this already but you seem to insist that i cannot be correct even though you have still not disputed my point...


Moving on...



Right is the accordance of a decision or outcome with ultimate (and not just proximate) goodness. Wrong is the discordance of a decision or outcome with ultimate (and not just proximate) goodness.

How can one achieve ultimate goodness. What is ultimate goodness? How is it measured? How is it determined? What is it measured against?

If man is not perfect then man can not commit perfect action nor can he have perfect intent. If he cannot commit perfect action or intent then he will not get perfect consequences and does not have the ability to predict consequences perfectly. What this means is that no action can lend itself to ultimate good. If it cannot lend itself to ultimate good then it must be in discord with ultimate good. Thus, you are always wrong as well.

So you agree with 4 out of 5 of my arguments and then tell me that my conclusion (the 6th) is entirely unfounded. Interesting. I never said man was incapable of rationality. I said that man is inherently flawed. This is where you jumped off the train of thought. If man is flawed then so is his reasoning ability. I am not saying he is incapable. I am saying just what I said. It is flawed. Even if we ignore the 5th point and look at the first four we end up with a conclusion that states..

A mind dependent, un-natural judgment created to suppliment emotional desires with no impact to the action, intent or consequence but ultimately affects perception according to the desire of the individual who makes the judgment is a sham. It is a self created illusion.

You cannot refute this because all of the components have been agreed upon save for the final conclusion of it being a sham. The key words to look at here are "according to the desire of the individual who makes the judgment". The desire of the individual. In other words, you are going to argue right and wrong because it is against your desire to be wrong and thus, I must be wrong. Your judgment makes you right and me wrong. My judgment makes us both wrong. Either way, neither of us can win because it is completely subjective.

Right and wrong do not exist save for in a self created, desired form.

Desire is not rationality and should be kept in check I do believe. At least so you say. So where does that stop? When it breaks a desire for pride?



I disagree. I think that alowing your natural appetites to control you is the most virtuous thing you can do because it returns you to nature. Prove me wrong.

I did not say disagree. I said prove me wrong.

I didn't read this entire message, but from what I've read thus far, I've realized that there's just no reasoning with some people. I really didn't feel like responding to this post, but I will try to make it as brief as I can while making a few points.

I said that you were a subjectivist and I explained why you're a subjectivist. I am also an axiological subjectivist, so I know what a subjectivist is. I also pointed out why you're a relativist, and it is because according to your statements you believe right and wrong to merely be a matter of individual or soceital standards. I said that you sound like a nihlist, not that you were a nihilist. No offense, but quite frankly, I think that you are very unsure of your positions on ethics. If you are not a subjectivist or a relativist then please explain why you're not?

Prove you wrong? I should have said this in the last post, but I'll say it now. I would never use the word proof when referring to anything that is axiological or subjective. Proof is more of an objective term referring to proving something to be objectively true or false. I've already told you that I was an axiological subjectivist so why would you ask me to prove you wrong? This is why reading on these subjects is a good thing, because it makes you more knowledgeable of the terms you use.

What I can do is demonstrate to you why intemperence (lack of self-control over your natural appetites) is a bad thing. A vice is a behavior that has the most tendency or capacity for bad outcomes. Gluttony, for example, leads to overeating fats and sweets, which will often lead to obesity and various types of sicknesses. Another example of intemperence is addiction to psychotropics, which will lead to great suffering. Intemperence of one's emotions will cloud their thoughts and lead to dangerously bad circumstances.

I'm going to leave the rest of your response for you to figure out on your own, which I doubt you will do because I don't think you want to. I didn't read the whole, but I expect it to be things I've already mentioned, as most of this debate seems to be us saying the same things over and over again, but in different words.

Thanks

I know I enjoyed watching :popcorn: