"I'm not a racist, I'm a 'culturist'!"

[Canarr]

Probably, since moral absolutists tend to view things, well in absolutes, they would oppose American society (for giving the death penalty for murder) on the same grounds as they would oppose a hypothetical society giving the death penalty for working on the Sabbath.

Hypothetically speaking, of course.

[wolfie]

Of course ya' don't normally see anyone calling themselves an "-ist" of some type.

Really? How about "typist", "scientist", "artist", "phlebotomist" (person who takes blood samples), "taxidermist", etc.?

[FArchivist]

So when he said he wasn't racist, I was half expecting him to follow that with a qualifier like "some of my best friends are Muslim/Mexican" or something along those lines. But calling oneself a 'culturist' is one I actually haven't heard before. Not that it's any less transparent.

Culturist. Just yet another form of the word "racialist", when you get down to it. Go troll through Stormfront some time and you'll easily hear it thrown around.

The biggest problem I have with cultural anthropology is that it focuses on culture rights and not human rights. What good is a culture if they spit on human rights?

Well, what if you don't believe in human rights?

I truly believe human rights are just made up fantasies. The only right we have is to die; that's the right nature gives us. Every other "right" is just a privilege granted to us by our government of choice. If human rights other than "You're going to die some day." actually existed, then they would be like the law of gravity; immutable natural forces.

I just can't sit back and say "Well that's not really wrong. Right and wrong are subjective". As much as I hate to be moral absolutist, I think there are some basic things everyone should agree on. We don't all have to be the same, but come on.

Ah, I can definitely engage in moral relativism. To me, good and evil is all a matter of where you stand because "good" and "evil" are nothing more than personal perceptions. There is no Universal Good; if there were, then everyone would be able to have the same moral standard.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

You seem to be taking human rights outside of proper context.

The idea isn't that they're truths of the universe, rather, things that belong to you intrinsically because you're human, and not because anyone gave them to you.

However, as with anything else you own, they can be taken away from you against your will if not sufficiently safeguarded. This in no way detracts from the 'fact' that they're YOURS to have regardless of government and/or society.

And while there aren't any clear-cut moral absolutes, there are some pretty clear guidelines.

It's immoral to commit crime over following the law, it's moral to spare someone's life instead of take it. The complex way they interact in given circumstances is debatable, but each on it's own is pretty clear-cut.

[FArchivist]

The idea isn't that they're truths of the universe, rather, things that belong to you intrinsically because you're human, and not because anyone gave them to you.

Correct. And I believe that nothing except death belongs to me intrinsically as a human. And not even the promise of a quick death; just that I will die some day, quick or slow, painlessly or torturous.

It's immoral to commit crime over following the law it's moral to spare someone's life instead of take it.

I would immediately argue that this is not necessarily so, as morals are merely the culmination of the your personal opinions filtered through the canalization of your societal, religious, and cultural taboos in your psyche. It is immoral because you say it is; it is moral because you say it is. It is not objective but totally subjective.

[Rageaholic]

Well, what if you don't believe in human rights?

Fine, but they shouldn't interfere with those who believe in their basic rights and they better have a damn good reason for why they don't believe in basic human rights.

I truly believe human rights are just made up fantasies. The only right we have is to die; that's the right nature gives us. Every other "right" is just a privilege granted to us by our government of choice. If human rights other than "You're going to die some day." actually existed, then they would be like the law of gravity; immutable natural forces.

Ah, I can definitely engage in moral relativism. To me, good and evil is all a matter of where you stand because "good" and "evil" are nothing more than personal perceptions. There is no Universal Good; if there were, then everyone would be able to have the same moral standard.

I'm not talking about natural laws, I'm talking about about rights and laws constructed by humans. Should humans have the right to take away the rights of others? More specifically, do things like slavery, discrimination, rape, and murder make the world better or worse? I think the answer is obvious. We don't need any god to know that all those things suck.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

Correct. And I believe that nothing except death belongs to me intrinsically as a human. And not even the promise of a quick death; just that I will die some day, quick or slow, painlessly or torturous.

You're still treating rights as facts, which is entirely fallacious as rights have everything to do with 'just claim' and/or 'moral ideal' as defined by a society (which can be anything from a specific issue-based group's local chapter's higher-echelon's opinion or as large as global society) and nothing at all directly to do with fact. Ultimately everything we experience is subjective including death and the measure of objective to subjective is the relative distance from some sort of objective observation, and there is always at least a little.

That you are going to die eventually is not a right, it's a fact. What you're saying is that you don't believe anyone has any rights, and so technically there's nothing but the threat of repercussion stopping you from infringing on the 'made-up' right.

But, oh look, consequences are societies medium by which it enforces the rights of it's population, so really, it doesn't matter one iota that you don't believe anyone has rights as it's up to society to decide what those are. If you participate then you'd have a say, but I guess that's small-potatoes.

I would immediately argue that this is not necessarily so, as morals are merely the culmination of the your personal opinions filtered through the canalization of your societal, religious, and cultural taboos in your psyche. It is immoral because you say it is; it is moral because you say it is. It is not objective but totally subjective.

Again, everything is subjective on some level. However, the very things you list as reasons why morals are subjective are in fact objective things. My observation of the values of the people around me are all at least somewhat objective. That I've based my values on those in turn make my values somewhat objective. To say nothing of the fact that most if not all original opinions are based on some objective observation even if need be, through the process of evolution as with such things as 'sex is good' 'pain is bad' and so on.

You seem very much in love with this idea that, because something can't be touched or seen or smelled means it isn't real. Well, wake up professor, because many things exist that can't be touched. The people on this planet are real, and they're interactions are real, so therefore the sum total of those interactions are real.

[FArchivist]

Fine, but they shouldn't interfere with those who believe in their basic rights and they better have a damn good reason for why they don't believe in basic human rights.

*shrugs* I am of the opinion that any reason for subjective reasoning is fine, since subjective items are devoid of any connection to reality itself on the objective level. Or more succinctly, I care not for reasons, just for effects of absolute reality.

I'm not talking about natural laws, I'm talking about about rights and laws constructed by humans. Should humans have the right to take away the rights of others? More specifically, do things like slavery, discrimination, rape, and murder make the world better or worse? I think the answer is obvious. We don't need any god to know that all those things suck.

Except the answer isn't obvious. Take Machievelli's The Prince and The Discourses which discuss ruling as an absolute ruler and in a republic respectively. He lays out very practical reasons for depriving people of liberty and whatnot.

I am also reminded of Thomas Aquinas' elaboration on "just war" in his Summa Theologica, wherein it is shown that it can be perfectly moral, just, and right to commit genocide if God wants you to.

You're still treating rights as facts, which is entirely fallacious as rights have everything to do with 'just claim' and/or 'moral ideal' as defined by a society (which can be anything from a specific issue-based group's local chapter's higher-echelon's opinion or as large as global society) and nothing at all directly to do with fact.

And since I regard all "just claims" and "moral ideals" as equivalent and equally valid, such items become invalid when dealing with them outside of a personal point of view and on a universal scale.

What you're saying is that you don't believe anyone has any rights, and so technically there's nothing but the threat of repercussion stopping you from infringing on the 'made-up' right.

Entirely correct. Technically, there is nothing stopping me.

But, oh look, consequences are societies medium by which it enforces the rights of it's population, so really, it doesn't matter one iota that you don't believe anyone has rights as it's up to society to decide what those are.

Also correct. Per Machiavelli: "Men are always wicked at bottom unless they are made good by some compulsion." In the case of legally-granted rights, that compulsion is force of law.

But those rights are artificial constructs, not natural entities. Absent a government or other such ruling body, such rights do not exist. Rights, ethics, morals - these are all just some kind of make-believe, a complex set of rules and recommendations that represents nothing real and is seen is a socio-religio-cultural construct. It is not natural. It is actually very UNnatural. I would agree to calling them unnatural rights, but a better term is "granted privileges".

You seem very much in love with this idea that, because something can't be touched or seen or smelled means it isn't real. Well, wake up professor, because many things exist that can't be touched. The people on this planet are real, and they're interactions are real, so therefore the sum total of those interactions are real.

No, the idea I profess has nothing to with reality, but is instead that there is no such thing as inherent good or evil. NOTHING is inherently good and evil; it just is. Only our perceptions make them good and evil.

While most variants of ethical subjectivism and moral relativism allow for moral statements to be true or false in a non-objective sense, my variant is more widely known as "moral nihilism". In it, moral statements can only have static truth-values, thus being universal and absolute. For murder to be evil, you would have to have NO possible situations where killing someone would be good - including self-defense or to stop a genocide.

Moral nihilism is mainly formed from error theory in expressivism. Error theory is built by three principles:

1. There are no moral features in this world, nothing is right or wrong.
2. No moral judgments are true (This is believed because of the first rule; since nothing is moral then there is no way to judge things as it being right or wrong).
3. Our sincere moral judgments try, and always fail, to describe the moral features of things.

Thus we always lapse into error when thinking in moral terms. We are trying to state the truth when we make moral judgments. But since there is no moral truth, all of our moral claims are mistaken. Hence the error. These three principles lead to the conclusion:

4. There is no moral knowledge. Knowledge requires truth. If there is no moral truth, there can be no moral knowledge. Thus moral values are make-believe.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

Does it never occur to academics that no matter how many pieces of solid logic they stack onto an assumption, it's still just an assumption?

The morality of an act is derived from both the morality of related acts AND practical factors. For instance, the immorality of killing is derived from the practical fact that the species would suffer, while the contrasting positive morality of self-defense killings derives from moralities basic dichotomy. If killing someone is wrong, than stopping it is right. That's about as objective as anything can possibly be.

Which is something you still haven't addressed, resorting instead to simply regurgitating you're previous statement. Do you deny that morality is derived at least partially from objective observations or base impulses?

Moreover, you continue to insist that morals aren't real because they're constructed. Which flies in the face of even the most rudimentary logic, because if this were true than no one would follow them or bother conceiving them in the first place. Every time society's sense of morality affects someone's behavior, it has essentially become real in the same way as previously unreal objects in a carpenter's mind become real when he fashions them.

And, since it's coded into human nature to draw together for our individual and collective benefit, the medium by which we achieve this is also natural. Wherever you have humans, you will have society. Where you have society, you have morality. Human social development is just as natural as, say, wolves social development. They too are compelled to draw together and live by a rudimentary set of rules based almost entirely on the most objective of motives. That ours is more complex in no way makes it any less real, and it's all just as natural as any other trait we inherited from our ancestors.

Furthermore, you, like so many in modern academia, seem to forget that government is not some kind of odd, alien construct laid atop the otherwise natural order of things. It's just the next step along a progression. Individuals form groups, groups form communities, communities form societies which in turn form governments. Each step is not so different from the last except in size. And it's all not only part of who we are but what we are.

I've seen you throw around a lot of opinions from so-called 'great thinkers' and 'theories' but not one of them isn't full of gaping holes. They mistake construction from the world around us for fabrication out of the blue, they mistake dichotomous relationships as conflicting to say nothing of a lack of understanding of the difference between a broken rule and a nonexistent rule.

All of which leads me to the following conclusion: The people who originally came up with all this were self-important quacks who got a stiffy over the thought of turning people upside down and/or are too busy dicking around in their whatever-material-towers (diseased horse shit for all I care.) to acknowledge the fact that the very existence and operation of the things they seek to dismiss proves them wrong. Therefore, I say, fuck them and let's get back to real life.

Scaffolding wouldn't be real if we didn't construct it, so we did, and now we have scaffolding. It's handy, but not pretty, so we'd better get started on spray paint.

[FArchivist]

Does it never occur to academics that no matter how many pieces of solid logic they stack onto an assumption, it's still just an assumption?

I wouldn't be able to say. I'm not an academic.

Which is something you still haven't addressed, resorting instead to simply regurgitating you're previous statement. Do you deny that morality is derived at least partially from objective observations or base impulses?

Morality is not derived from objective observations or base impulses, no.

Returning to your specific example, you say "For instance, the immorality of killing is derived from the practical fact that the species would suffer."

Really? Are you sure the species would suffer?
Can you think of no scenario where killing would benefit the species at all? No scenario wherein the killing of a person would help a species out? Or even be totally neutral, neither helping nor hindering the species? I can construct several. Heck, I can pull a dozen off the top of my head out of history itself, where assassinations and murders of individuals DID help us as a species. The execution of criminals is a prime example.

So your premise, that the immorality of killing is derived from the fact that the species would suffer, is incorrect. Why? Because there are instances of killing wherein the fact does not occur. Therefore, it cannot be assigned a static truth-value, it cannot be held as inherent.

Also, if you specify the act of killing, are specifying a type of killing? Personal or state-sanctioned? How does "just war" fit into it? How is it different from murder? What makes it different?

Moreover, you continue to insist that morals aren't real because they're constructed. Which flies in the face of even the most rudimentary logic, because if this were true than no one would follow them or bother conceiving them in the first place.

We have evolved to believe moral propositions because our believing the same enhances our genetic fitness (makes it more likely that we will reproduce successfully). However, our believing these propositions would enhance our fitness even if they were all false (they would make us more cooperative, etc.). Thus, our moral beliefs are unresponsive to evidence; they are analogous to the beliefs of a paranoiac. As a paranoiac is plainly unjustified in believing his conspiracy theories, so too are we unjustified in believing moral propositions. We therefore have reason to jettison our moral beliefs.

Every time society's sense of morality affects someone's behavior, it has essentially become real in the same way as previously unreal objects in a carpenter's mind become real when he fashions them.

You're confusing the ideal with the end result. When you give to charity, you may be doing it out of moral impulse. Let's say that when I give to charity, I'm doing it solely for the tax break and I could give a shit less about the morality of it. Is my action moral? Was I informed by morals? Or did I act in a moral vacuum? And how would anyone be able to tell if I didn't mention my reasoning?

Wherever you have humans, you will have society. Where you have society, you have morality.

I would alter that to say, where you have society, you will have a set of taboos, customs, and beliefs shaped by the societal, cultural, religious, ideological, and philosophical trends within that society, codified into a rigid set of acceptable behavior deemed "morals" or "ethics" that is filtered through personal perception. No set of morals will be the same as anyone else's and it will not be truly universal, although there will be surface similarities.

Human social development is just as natural as, say, wolves social development. They too are compelled to draw together and live by a rudimentary set of rules based almost entirely on the most objective of motives. That ours is more complex in no way makes it any less real, and it's all just as natural as any other trait we inherited from our ancestors.

I will need a citation for this assumption. I assume you're coming from an evolutionary psychology viewpoint.

Furthermore, you, like so many in modern academia, seem to forget that government is not some kind of odd, alien construct laid atop the otherwise natural order of things. It's just the next step along a progression. Individuals form groups, groups form communities, communities form societies which in turn form governments. Each step is not so different from the last except in size. And it's all not only part of who we are but what we are.

First, I'm not in modern academia and never will be. Didn't choose that path in life. Second, you seem to have misunderstood me; I hold there is NO natural order of things, outside of the patterns that occur in nature for biological and evolutionary reasons. It's all chaos. Government, religion, philosophy, morals, ethics - these are systems of order that we place on that chaos so that we can control and conform to our benefit.

But there's no inherent good or evil in any of it. It's neutral, gray and void.

I've seen you throw around a lot of opinions from so-called 'great thinkers' and 'theories' but not one of them isn't full of gaping holes. They mistake construction from the world around us for fabrication out of the blue, they mistake dichotomous relationships as conflicting to say nothing of a lack of understanding of the difference between a broken rule and a nonexistent rule.

Um. The stuff I'm pulling out all dates back to the Greek philosophers. It's not exactly new.

But OK, you disagree with a postmodern deconstructivist viewpoint, fine. *shrugs* No great shakes to me.

All of which leads me to the following conclusion: The people who originally came up with all this were self-important quacks who got a stiffy over the thought of turning people upside down and/or are too busy dicking around in their whatever-material-towers (diseased horse shit for all I care.) to acknowledge the fact that the very existence and operation of the things they seek to dismiss proves them wrong. Therefore, I say, fuck them and let's get back to real life.

All philosophy, religion, and ideology originates from self-importance, namely, the self-importance stemming from the thought that humanity actually has any worth or importance in the space-time quanta of the universe. ALL of it. The idea that we are more than just temporary bacteria in the lifespan of this galaxy is arrogant self-important.

But I'm not arguing that. My basic argument can be boiled down into three sentences: There is no such thing as inherent good or evil. There is no such thing as Absolute Good or Absolute Evil. Good and evil both are simply viewpoints that change depending on where you stand.

[Wingates_Hellsing]

I wouldn't be able to say. I'm not an academic.

And yet you cite academia constantly to support your views.

Morality is not derived from objective observations or base impulses, no.

And yet you consistently fail to show how this is true. But as you're still trying, let's take a look at the attempt:

Returning to your specific example, you say "For instance, the immorality of killing is derived from the practical fact that the species would suffer."

This is a base value. It can be modified by any number of conditions but none of that changes the reality of this base value. If you want me to get overly verbose I suppose I could have said "Killing under normal circumstances which is to say without any modifying factor is basically negative but nevertheless subject to subsequent modification.

Really? Are you sure the species would suffer?
Can you think of no scenario where killing would benefit the species at all? No scenario wherein the killing of a person would help a species out? Or even be totally neutral, neither helping nor hindering the species? I can construct several. Heck, I can pull a dozen off the top of my head out of history itself, where assassinations and murders of individuals DID help us as a species. The execution of criminals is a prime example.

Yes, as above the loss of any member of a society which is contributing more than it is detracting would damage the well-being of the whole because it would represent the loss of a net gain. In the case of convicted criminals and those actively harming or killing those around them, they represent a net loss as they're immoral acts not only fail to contribute, but also significantly detract from the well-being of the whole. In those instances the base value is modified to the point where it is reversed and therefore killing or otherwise harming the problem individual is positive because of the positive effect it has on one or more individuals the problem individuals is or would eventually harm.

Only you didn't have to have this explained to you because you know damn well that this is how it works. Any rule is modified by it's context part of which is the interplay of countless other rules. You seem to imply that, because a rule isn't static, it's therefore useless which is a fallacy because it's static rules that are useless. If one were to instigate such a static rule it would be self-defeating because it's lack of flexibility doesn't fit with the chaotic world around us. Rules are meant to create stability but since perfection does not exist they must be flexible enough to accommodate the complexity of the world around them. Which is why this:

So your premise, that the immorality of killing is derived from the fact that the species would suffer, is incorrect. Why? Because there are instances of killing wherein the fact does not occur. Therefore, it cannot be assigned a static truth-value, it cannot be held as inherent.

Is a gross oversimplification, which would obviously look like it disproves itself because it isn't by definition correct. Boiling down the morality of any general action to a single sentence is a good way of conveying how that rule works in a vacuum of other rules, in essence zooming in to the simplest part. This is necessary because to understand the whole you must first understand the parts it is made from but they are not accurate definitions of that rule because each rule has a slightly different definition when combined with the existence or lack thereof combined with the following or disregarding of every other rule AND every combination of other rules as well. The result for any one rule looks a mess and is basically impossible to define in words and the same is true of the sum total of all rules in a given society, but this is just the natural result of complexity.

Also, if you specify the act of killing, are specifying a type of killing? Personal or state-sanctioned? How does "just war" fit into it? How is it different from murder? What makes it different?

These are all potential modifiers. Cruel killings are negative at base because of empathy, something that's programmed into the majority of us and also pretty logical "if I wouldn't like X to happen to me, other people wouldn't like X to happen to them." Personal vs state sanctioned is probably the most diverse and therefore weakest as there's a certain division between those who think that personal disputes should stay personal and those who believe that the resolution of all disputes should fall to the mechanism society has created specifically for dispute resolution. 'Just war' is an acknowledgment of the existence of modifiers, usually followed by an enumeration of those modifiers and those are pretty consistently something related to either empathetic or sympathetic motivation or the practical idea of net gain.

We have evolved to believe moral propositions because our believing the same enhances our genetic fitness (makes it more likely that we will reproduce successfully). However, our believing these propositions would enhance our fitness even if they were all false (they would make us more cooperative, etc.). Thus, our moral beliefs are unresponsive to evidence; they are analogous to the beliefs of a paranoiac. As a paranoiac is plainly unjustified in believing his conspiracy theories, so too are we unjustified in believing moral propositions. We therefore have reason to jettison our moral beliefs.

Actually, the more a moral is based on some objective observation, the more powerful it becomes because following it enhances cooperation AND adapts that appropriately to the situation where a false moral would only enhance cooperation, which, without proper adaptation would cause harm because we rely on our ability to adapt behavior to our environment to thrive and any moral that adapts poorly enough to lead in the entirely wrong direction fails on a practical level. For example, when a society creates a moral whereby consuming high doses or arsenic is considered good manners, that society will die out pretty fuckin fast unless they change it, which the survivors most probably will when they discover the deaths of everyone who chose to follow it which is the very definition of responding to evidence.

You're confusing the ideal with the end result. When you give to charity, you may be doing it out of moral impulse. Let's say that when I give to charity, I'm doing it solely for the tax break and I could give a shit less about the morality of it. Is my action moral? Was I informed by morals? Or did I act in a moral vacuum? And how would anyone be able to tell if I didn't mention my reasoning?

Irrelevant, the objective of the moral was to encourage i.e. cause some person or persons to make a charitable contribution. When that happens, that end result is proof of the cause. The cause may have been belief in the moral itself or an attempt to associate with the moral, but either way, what happened is exactly what that particular moral 'wanted'. Whether or not you have to 'mean it' for it to be good is a highly connected but nevertheless separate moral and on much less firm ground which is precisely why it's a subject of greater contention and in the grand scheme of things not much of a factor.

I would alter that to say, where you have society, you will have a set of taboos, customs, and beliefs shaped by the societal, cultural, religious, ideological, and philosophical trends within that society, codified into a rigid set of acceptable behavior deemed "morals" or "ethics" that is filtered through personal perception. No set of morals will be the same as anyone else's and it will not be truly universal, although there will be surface similarities.

Right here you seem to be agreeing with me. Morals are both the results and creators of all those things. Customs are very strong morals that have reached probably the highest possible level of pervasiveness and acceptance. Taboos are the negative morals and the manifestation of the lack of positive morals. For instance, the morality of remaining clothed created the taboo of nakedness because of the negative reaction when norms are broken. In that sense taboos are the other side of the coin. And beliefs are the weakest morals as they are the least objectively considered and these all feed into what we call morals, or ethics, or societal norms or any number of synonyms. It's true that no two people have 100% similarity within two persons, but this is in no way necessary for the moral to function. Hard numbers are impossible to gather in this arena, but suffice it to say that a moral achieving enough % similarity within it's intended arena to have it's intended effect is a 'true moral' and the more % similarity it has from there, the stronger it is and therefore more of a 'true moral' compared to others. If two people's concept of what constitutes murder is 50% similar, it may not be functioning ideally but it is nevertheless functioning. Our pursuit of perfection, in this case, cohesiveness, is a big part of what shapes morals. Since perfection is impossible we will never reach that goal but this is not necessary as the resulting pursuit of 'as much as we can' is more than sufficient to keep everything spinning.

I will need a citation for this assumption. I assume you're coming from an evolutionary psychology viewpoint.

Allow me to cite myself via my own observations made up of first hand via recordings and second hand via experts. Unless you have some proof that wolves are in fact not social and their behavior cannot be described as a set of rules, I fail to see why I should seek further verification as you provide none, not even a single iota of your own observations to contradict this point. As soon as you do I'd be happy to dig up the wikipedia article on wolves for you but this is something I'm fairly confident you could to for yourself.

First, I'm not in modern academia and never will be. Didn't choose that path in life. Second, you seem to have misunderstood me; I hold there is NO natural order of things, outside of the patterns that occur in nature for biological and evolutionary reasons. It's all chaos. Government, religion, philosophy, morals, ethics - these are systems of order that we place on that chaos so that we can control and conform to our benefit.

If you draw from something and support it's machinations, you're a part of it. Maybe not a full-bird member, but a part none the less. I understand you perfectly clear. I'm saying that the natural order of biology and evolution is tied directly into out 'artificial' constructions as it's through those that we are compelled to make them so that we better perform against the 'competition'. The construction of shelter is an evolutionary adaptation, seeking strength through numbers is another, and the higher thought processes we have access to also give us an edge because the abstract thought mechanics allow us to out-think other creatures. Out of chaos comes order is the way of the world. Government is one of our social adaptation for the blue-footed boobies' adaptation to dive as a group for food to overwhelm their prey. Working together, is a natural occurrence.

But there's no inherent good or evil in any of it. It's neutral, gray and void.

Good and evil are merely the most abstract form of beneficial and harmful we have yet created. And while it may be more ambiguous, it's still based on the step before it and the step before that until you work your way all the way back to the natural world.

Um. The stuff I'm pulling out all dates back to the Greek philosophers. It's not exactly new.

But OK, you disagree with a postmodern deconstructivist viewpoint, fine. *shrugs* No great shakes to me.

Doesn't have to be new to be stupid, and it is.

All philosophy, religion, and ideology originates from self-importance, namely, the self-importance stemming from the thought that humanity actually has any worth or importance in the space-time quanta of the universe. ALL of it. The idea that we are more than just temporary bacteria in the lifespan of this galaxy is arrogant self-important.

Now that's just presumptuous. We don't need to have worth to the galaxy to do any of this shit. All we need to have is importance to ourselves because ultimately that's all that matters. Nothing is important 'to the universe' or the 'space time quanta'. Neither of those things are a springboard for measuring importance and attempting to use them as such is nothing less than a pale justification for the exact sort of insipid emo wailing that has nothing to do with the reality of the world we live in and everything to do with some people's inability to reconcile themselves with the world around them. What you're doing here is trying to twist the perceptions of others around by implicating things you don't understand in a way in which they don't at all apply, and calling it logic, as if that somehow stops it from being bullshit.

But I'm not arguing that. My basic argument can be boiled down into three sentences: There is no such thing as inherent good or evil. There is no such thing as Absolute Good or Absolute Evil. Good and evil both are simply viewpoints that change depending on where you stand.

First of all, following an argumentative statement with "I'm not arguing that" is self contradictory. and I shall respond to your three sentences with three of my own.

There is if you look for it. There doesn't need to be. Which does nothing at all to demonstrate that they are either unreal or invalid.

[FArchivist]

And yet you cite academia constantly to support your views.

If you consider philosophy dating the past two millennium to be academia, I suppose. All knowledge is academia, if you look at it that way. Unless you're using some definition of academia that I am completely unfamiliar with.

This is a base value. It can be modified by any number of conditions but none of that changes the reality of this base value.

And here is where you seem to have missed my fundamental disagreement. You say this is a base value. I say "Why?" What if I have a completely different base value that disagrees with the one you state? In fact, what makes your base value so universally absolute that it is a base value for everyone? Sure you say this base value is 1, but what makes it 1? Why can't it be two? Or negative pi?

Yes, as above the loss of any member of a society which is contributing more than it is detracting would damage the well-being of the whole because it would represent the loss of a net gain. In the case of convicted criminals and those actively harming or killing those around them, they represent a net loss as they're immoral acts not only fail to contribute, but also significantly detract from the well-being of the whole. In those instances the base value is modified to the point where it is reversed and therefore killing or otherwise harming the problem individual is positive because of the positive effect it has on one or more individuals the problem individuals is or would eventually harm.

*shrugs* Interesting reasoning which I might agree with if I agreed with your base value.

Only you didn't have to have this explained to you because you know damn well that this is how it works.

Correction; that's how it works for you. Assuming I'm playing by the same rules is a bad assumption.

You seem to imply that, because a rule isn't static, it's therefore useless which is a fallacy because it's static rules that are useless. If one were to instigate such a static rule it would be self-defeating because it's lack of flexibility doesn't fit with the chaotic world around us. Rules are meant to create stability but since perfection does not exist they must be flexible enough to accommodate the complexity of the world around them.

Assumes perfection can't exist, assumes that the world is chaotic. 1) I would state that perfection is possible. 2) The world isn't chaotic, it's simply in a pattern that is too large for us to comprehend with the tools we have. Once we acquire better tools through technology, more and more of the pattern will be discernible until it is completely identified and perfectly predictable.

At that point, the remainder of your very cogent argument breaks down entirely for me as I'm going off entirely different base presumptions than you are.

Allow me to cite myself via my own observations made up of first hand via recordings and second hand via experts. Unless you have some proof that wolves are in fact not social and their behavior cannot be described as a set of rules, I fail to see why I should seek further verification as you provide none, not even a single iota of your own observations to contradict this point. As soon as you do I'd be happy to dig up the wikipedia article on wolves for you but this is something I'm fairly Confident you could to for yourself.

We would be quibbling over whether wolves' social behavior derives from a set of agreed-upon rules or is merely pattern derived from their non-thinking instinctual behavior. I personally confine myself to known sentients, which would be humans, when discussing philosophy. Last I checked, wolves had not developed independent logical thought and religious belief systems and so don't count for purposes of philosophical discussion and evolutionary psychology. That's why I asked for a citation, as what you are saying sounds like a construct of evolutionary psychology.

If you draw from something and support it's machinations, you're a part of it. Maybe not a full-bird member, but a part none the less. I understand you perfectly clear. I'm saying that the natural order of biology and evolution is tied directly into out 'artificial' constructions as it's through those that we are compelled to make them so that we better perform against the 'competition'. The construction of shelter is an evolutionary adaptation, seeking strength through numbers is another, and the higher thought processes we have access to also give us an edge because the abstract thought mechanics allow us to out-think other creatures. Out of chaos comes order is the way of the world. Government is one of our social adaptation for the blue-footed boobies' adaptation to dive as a group for food to overwhelm their prey. Working together, is a natural occurrence.

OK, yes, this is evolutionary psychology at its basic. I disagree entirely with evo psych. My reasons for disagreeing with this viewpoint are given here and here. Although Ehrlich gives a decent rebuttal.

Doesn't have to be new to be stupid, and it is.

Stupid, to you. You kind of want to watch blanket pronouncements.

All we need to have is importance to ourselves because ultimately that's all that matters.

Why? Why does it matter? Why SHOULD it matter?

nothing less than a pale justification for the exact sort of insipid emo wailing that has nothing to do with the reality of the world we live in and everything to do with some people's inability to reconcile themselves with the world around them.

*laughs* Wow, you don't get me at all. I despise emos because they're self-important. They think their little angst matters and that prevents them from getting over it.

Well, tell me exactly how I am wrong if I am able, with my particular mode of thinking, to reconcile myself to the world around me without any problem whatsoever? Shouldn't I have SOME problem with reconciliation if it's so wrong?

What you're doing here is trying to twist the perceptions of others around by implicating things you don't understand in a way in which they don't at all apply, and calling it logic, as if that somehow stops it from being bullshit.

How am I twisting things? What exactly don't I understand? If what I am saying is so implicitly wrong, than why haven't I been banhammered by the universe because of it?

There is if you look for it.

OK. There's inherent good or evil? Show me it. I will bet you real money that I can deconstruct every example you provide and show that the perceived good/evil is a product of your POV.

There doesn't need to be.

And yet, you've spent this entire argument promoting it.

Which does nothing at all to demonstrate that they are either unreal or invalid.

That would be a matter of opinion alone. It does nothing at all to demonstrate that they are either real or valid too.