RE: Morality - Subjective or Objective?
I agree with you on that. However, I would have to ask you which source of knowledge you use and how you alone can answer such questions when someone around you asks you: Where do you get the strength to do the right thing in a very difficult moment? What are your sources of strength, what principles do you apply to attain this mastery? Where do you turn in times of despair and insecurity?
Whoever seeks help from you needs some kind of label and traditional source. No one will believe you that you have developed your inner strength and wisdom all by yourself. So the question is legitimate to ask about the influences so that a person seeking your help can rely on what you say offers him the way to draw strength and wisdom. He must bring it to the test himself and make sure that what you tell him can be explored by him. In some ways, therefore, we all need some form of guidance and recognition that there are norms out there that form a community.
As long as such a question is not asked and someone feels comfortable in your presence as a matter of course, you have consensus, it is unnecessary to tell someone his sources without being asked. But what if someone wishes this? What do you tell him what has helped you personally? From my point of view it is not enough, for example, to list the great philosophers. It does indeed need a methodology and a conclusive concept. The only thing I have found so far is Buddhism. I wonder why you don't mention it because much of what you say seems to come from these teachings.
Hi! I want to answer your question satisfactorily, but you may have to help me understand precisely what you mean. It is rather easy to see that it's preferable to live in an environment of holistic peace and prosperity, rather than trying to create such a pocket of existence amidst a dangerous, zero-sum world.
This leads us to ask how that can be achieved. The behaviors that would produce this environment are equally obvious - people need to cooperate for mutual uplift, rather than live in selfish competition. Of course, for this to happen, each individual must exhibit this behavior; and I, being one of those individuals, must thus exhibit it myself. For me, that recognition provides adequate motivation for moral behavior.
I can mention teachers who have helped me come to this realization, but it seems your question is not served by listing names (the great philosophers, etc.). I do not mention Buddhism because I do not know much about it. Of course, I've come across it in my investigations, but I would be hard-pressed to describe the belief system thoroughly.
My personal philosophy is born of innumerable disparate areas of study, and the personal contemplation they've inspired. It is the work of many years, and I could not describe it as a step-by-step process that another could follow. I'm not sure this would serve as well as someone following their own inspiration and interest anyway. Though, this does require that they seek Truth in earnest, and not merely seek to justify their preconceived conclusions.
Please tell me if I have approached a sufficient answer to your question. If not, perhaps this reply can at least move the discussion forward toward the desired end.
I suppose the key question from me is whether you really "own" a personal philosophy or whether ownership is not rather a problem. So I would provoke you by saying that if you believe that you own it, you also own other things like "guilt", "doubt", but also "generosity" and "goodness of heart". What if you are not the owner of these and other sensations?
By this I mean the view that everything in life is a process, an alternating vibration always in its second of emergence between living systems. No matter what quality I just call "mine" in these rapidly successive processes of interaction, it is always problematic to want to hold on to a quality like "anger" when I hang that anger on a subject, either myself or the one facing me. Or someone on whom I mentally project it. Because holding on to it already threatens to miss the next step in the incredible fast process and I actually always come "too late" when I want to carry an angry point home.
So what if you don't attribute a subjective weakness to the one or those you formulate in your mind because they don't want to recognize an objective moral truth? In other words, not seeking to find a subjective goal of subjectivity, neither towards you nor the others.
You may know the following experience: Someone in your presence has angered you so much that it was your turn either to raise your hand against him or to shout at him or to offend him caustically. But even though your pulse was racing and your inner excitement was threatening to overpower you, you suddenly paused and reconsidered.
What did stop you?
And further: Whose morals did you just save? Your own, that of the other, both?
Isn't it also more of a saving aspect/experience than that of a defining one?
To practice such in a less pronounced form, to always assume a probability that moral insight can always occur at the moment of a phenomenological event. It doesn't matter what law I use as objectively true, it's a coherent experience I make, isn't it?
When I write "LVOE I OUY": What do you see and what does your brain make of it? It goes the way of the strongest probability, doesn't it? It's so incredibly fast in its response, all the already determined patterns of recognition have been practiced through long lasting habit.
If one can no longer wonder about gravity, then "gravity" has become such a self-evident phenomenon that it is no longer suitable for good philosophical narration. It has long been scientifically overwritten and empiricism seems not necessary.
I'm probably annoying you with it, but I'd like to know more about your practical experience than your theoretical considerations.
... And maybe ... I just was not agreeing with your headline as I think morality is always having the potential to be both, objektive and subjective at the same time as the carrier of positive outcomes as well as negative.
Hmm... Well, first, I find no annoyance in your commentary. Never concern yourself with that, as I always seek to investigate my position thoroughly to ensure it is sound. My writings represent the best of my understanding so far; a sort of snapshot, as it's an ongoing process.
I don't know that I have a full grasp on what you're pointing to... I would not describe my current understanding as something "owned", as ownership is exclusionary (my owning it means you don't). That being said, we can both own two instances of the same thing (e.g. we both have an iphone 6, or an identical opinion), but a philosophy is really a perspective; a position from which we see the world. It would be odd to say that I own my perspective, treating it as an object, as it seems more like something I'm doing - the action of viewing from a certain point of view.
But, to your larger point, yes, it behooves us to allow the fluidity of conscious experience to remain unfettered by static intellectual positions (and their corresponding emotional conditions), and not to identify with them in the particular. "Truth-seeking" as an overall habitual action is an effort to remain authentic to what we truly are, so perhaps that could be said to be relate to our identity; but saying "I am an anarchist" is a bit inaccurate, as it does not really describe what we are, but what we are doing - viewing the world from that point of view.
Historically, I've had a "quick to anger, quick to laugh" temperament, though I admit to being less quick to laugh as of late, due to righteous indignation. I am a bit battle-scarred by having my efforts to uplift others (by sharing what I found uplifting) met with scorn and ridicule. This is what I'm working on currently, and I am finding it very difficult.
If others are doing wrong, and greater understanding is required for them to change that behavior, then their resistance to receiving that understanding is an act of wrong - and wrongs are to be defended against, as a ubiquitous moral imperative. And if raising a hand is an appropriate means of defense to stop an imminent immoral act, then is not forceful speech equally justified? Is there no place for it? I can't help feeling that there is, and yet, I also feel that I am misaligned by taking this approach.
Unable to resolve this, I feel rather stuck. I am capable of letting my anger go, and being compassionate and patient. What's stopping me is that this other person is actively causing harm, and so it seems wrong that the aggressor should be enabled by this soft approach, while their victim derives no such benefit from them (even if due to misunderstanding, rather than malicious intent). They must desist NOW, whether they understand or not. If they refuse the opportunity to change willingly, then more forceful means seems appropriate, as immediacy is imperative, by whatever means that requires.
In this way I hold on to my anger. If we are speaking of political support, for instance, it is not commonly thought justifiable to resort to physical force - were I to attack someone for attempting to vote, I would be demonized and punished. So words are all that remain. Soft words may begin the conversation, but if this is rejected, or due consideration of them is deferred, then stronger language - anger - seems necessary, to make the unacceptable nature of their actions more likely to be understood.
Morality is an extant construct in this reality - it is objective. We know it subjectively, we abide by it or deny it subjectively, but particular actions have particular effects, and that is not subject to alteration by us in any way. It is no different than gravity. Is there some other sense in which you would say it is both objective and subjective?
I still feel as though I have not addressed your question adequately. If not, please try again. I have patience to pursue it, and if you do as well, another attempt at directing me toward your point may prove profitable.
Battle-scarred:) yes, that's a feeling I also know, but which I now try to experience less often, because I try to solve it alternatively. Which of course doesn't always work. Thanks for the honesty. It was the same with me recently, when I shared a wholesome experience and it was answered with ridicule, just two weeks ago. It hurts, but I told myself: My friends answer reflected more her own difficult relationship to the matter - and in the end it had nothing to do with me.
But why you also seem to be less inclined to report about an experiential dissolving of an angry impulse, I suspect, that people react much more strongly to your pain (anger) than if you don't offer them any of it. People usually react a lot more to expressions of anger and sorrow than to equanimity. You can hardly write an article with equanimity, people often don't know what to do with it. They only want to read about love too if it is really romantic or heartbreaking. The great stories and metaphors, as beautiful as they are. However, they are not real but illusory, even if they are well suited to represent the theatre of life.
I take the liberty of asking you a few more questions:
The first situation you report seems to be personal and it seems to be about people you know?
Have you been instructed by the victim to act, in other words: is it an adult person? If so, then it is not only this person who bears the responsibility for what you then receive as the task of action, but also you. However, you would still have to get the official assignment, since you would be acting on behalf of another person. If words do not reach the perpetrator (which I could understand if I were the perpetrator now and someone with whom I don't want have to do speaks for my chosen victim), I would say that you wish to let fists speak. I doubt whether they will do what you want them to do, but I am playing the devil's advocate and going through a scenario with you. Since you would then commit an immoral act, you would have to bear the consequences accordingly and why not, because in fact we only have these principles because we violate them, otherwise we wouldn't need them.
Is this a life-threatening situation?
But: Are you quite sure that there is a clear separation between the interests of the people here? Are you sure you don't identify too much with the person you want to protect? The mandate of the person you want to protect, however, would have to be very clearly expressed and desired, otherwise you would not be acting on behalf of the person, but merely acting as if it were so, although you actually would want to act for yourself and the other is only a projection screen of your desire for justice.
But of course, I deliberately spoke provocatively, because in fact, if you don't have a personal dependent conflict with a person, but someone else, then it would be appropriate for the person concerned to exhaust all possible options before asking for help, wouldn't it? In any case, I am in favour of clarifying the orders cleanly and then accepting the consequences, which may be "punishment" if you violate a moral rule yourself. Yes, in this sense gravity catches us all.
So do you want to make it your own business or isn't there still a reasonable doubt that the victim presents the situation to you in such a way that it is a really crystal-clear victim-perpetrator business? In my experience, it is usually not so clear.
It could very well be that the matter really doesn't concern you from the perpetrator's point of view and it is logical that he thinks that you can save words anyway. Even the gentle ones. He may not listen to your words, but he may listen to someone else. Who knows?
Are you sure that you do not own your anger? And that you do not work more than the victim works?
I can objectively acknowledge morality as right and subjectively distance myself from explaining it to someone who is ignorant. I can criticize his immoral deed, but I can empathize with his human existence as a sentient being. The potential of another whom I want to encourage to morality can only be awakened if I understand how to communicate this difference perceptibly.
The effect of acknowledging objective morality and subjective absolutism in this matter would be that I do not distinguish action from man and thus make him an owner of a fundamental immorality, i.e. deny him his sensitivity.
It's a challenge, this conversation and I am thankful that you reassure me that I am not stepping over your borders.
It is difficult for me to address these questions in the abstract (and it seems rather silly to do so), though I do not wish to speak of the details publically, and Steemit does not have private messaging.
I understand the idea of the helper adopting undue responsibility for the victim's cause while the victim fails to do all they can to save themselves first, but my situation is not such a case. The level of my participation is wholly appropriate and necessary, as the victim is entirely incapable of affecting their own solution. As for the perpetrator, they are unwilling - perhaps even temporarily incapable - of evaluating their actions clearly, being a person who has never valued such investigation, and thus is not sufficiently inclined or adept.
Do I own my anger? I don't know what's meant by this exactly. Are you asking me if I take responsibility for it? Or if I identify with it? Or if it is something I willingly carry as a possession?
I do take responsibility for it, I do not identify with it, but I do willingly carry it as a possession because I have yet to justify its relinquishment in my own mind. As I've described, it seems warranted, appropriate, and perhaps necessary - though I'm not sure of this. I feel conflicted because I simultaneously believe that though it is appropriate to feel anger temporarily, it does not seem appropriate to express it in its raw form, but rather to transmute it into an expression of a higher vibration. And yet, when a person won't listen to calm reason, is not anger a necessary tool? And if morally necessary, then it is appropriate to express it unmitigated, is it not?
Is it the rational, morally-justified person's responsibility to jump through hoops and appease the transgressor? Isn't it each person's responsibility to earnestly endeavor to align their own perspective with Truth? Many will not do this, so must we do this work for them? I think we should try from a place of compassion, but when immediacy is required, is this not a secondary concern that should be put aside in favor of stopping the immoral action? We do not have time to coax the rapist into acting differently, we must stop them now and sort out the details later, if they become willing.