/lit/ - Literature

>>18917698
>coming to the only place on the internet which culturally mandates anonymity to be an "individual"
Is this how a lack of status in the social dominance hierarchy manifests?

>>18814446
I might be biased, brother, but I would have to say that because they lack a coherent system of morality, epistemology, and spiritual development, they are left in a state of quasi-adolescence. Sadly, they are unable to reflect on how they are proving our point - that things act in a less-good way when they are deprived of the ultimate good, God.

>>18814459
>Your argument is logically consistent, but I do not consider it sound.
Thanks for the charitable assessment, I'm happy to debate this further with you.
>You have not given an argument as to why I should reject the reality of negative intentions
My argument is that because a negative intention is subjectively perceived as less-or-more good based upon its degree of deprivation of good (eg. an intention to rape one's daughter is "less-good" than an intention to rape a stranger), that the quality of the intention being "negative" is actually a result of a deprivation of good - hence, intentions are all good, and their "negative" aspect has no existence independently.
>Why even bother saying everything is good without its contrast?
Because it is a metaphysical necessity (a privation does not have independent existence), and because it is the most accurate way to describe moral actions, even if it seems counter-intuitive. Somebody injecting heroin is not performing an "evil" action, but rather, is seeking the Good in a disordered way.
>if everything is good, then there is no argument for how one "ought" to do the things that are "more good"
One argument, among many, would be that one ought to do things which are "more good" than "less good", because they lead to a more stable experience of eudaimonia, and properly order desires in a hierarchy which prevents against becoming vicious or incontinent by becoming consumed by one's desires.
>Most of them draw a line at God's commandments; God created evil for whatever reason.
No Thomist would hold to this position - but many Americans are Protestants, who are less likely to subscribe to Aristotelian logic/Thomism, so this might be why you encounter this position more online.
>If anything, you are twisting St. Thomas Aquinas' arguments to become more Advaitan, Frankist Sabbatean, or Freemason like.
I wholly disagree that I am twisting his arguments, I am only presenting them as Thomas himself did, but with rebuttals tailored to the specific objections in this thread.