has studying moral philosophy helped you overcome uncertainty?

[Anonymous No.16251564]

(as the title says: this thread is not for people who never read any ethics texts, and/or never struggled with moral dilemmas)

Once in a while, I am assailed by guilt - what if many things that I do that I think are okay are actually grossly immoral? That causes me a lot of anguish, and also prevents me from holding strong political opinions (which I would like to do).
I sometimes read philosophical books or essays on morality and I feel hopeful - these people struggle with the same things I do and have found a solution! But it's daunting. Everyone there is smarter than me, and has read all of the arguments and counter-arguments to counter-counter-arguments, and still hasn't reached a consensus. The texts are very complex and the deeper I get into them, the more difficult it becomes to understand.

Has anyone come out on the other side? i.e. read so much ethics that you've finally formed a stable opinion (even if that opinion is "we can't really know")? How long did it take you? What was the breaking point?

Pic related - it's not a great show but I could really relate to Chidi.

[Anonymous No.16251577]

>>16251564
Yeah don't start w ethics start w metaphysics so you can actually have a method of contradicting ethics

[Anonymous No.16251584]

>>16251564
Picrel

[Anonymous No.16251585]

>>16251564
Don't fucking post that garbage show ever again

[Anonymous No.16251597]

>>16251564
if you relate to "le book smart vs street smart" liberal meme then you're as deep as anything by Hollywood

[Anonymous No.16251643]

[Anonymous No.16251678]

You already know what's right and wrong. What you're really doing now, is just searching for excuses. Reading, thinking - it's all just an attempt to delay the inevitable.

That guilt inside you will never go away, no matter what. It's already too late.

[Anonymous No.16251710]

>>16251597
This

[Anonymous No.16251714]

>>16251597
That's not really his central personality trait.
The question is non-trivial, though. People who are well-read do seem to be more successful in live than people who aren't, but not by a long shot. How would you convince someone who's never read a non-required book that reading is a good way to spend their time?

[Anonymous No.16251737]

>>16251714
>that reading is a good way to spend their time?
It isn't. Reading is just a way to experience life for those that can't.

[Anonymous No.16251748]

>>16251564
yes but not analytic moral philosophy

[Anonymous No.16251754]

>>16251748
Can you be more specific?

[Anonymous No.16251771]

>>16251714
It has to be a book which addresses what they want. If they have motivation for something they will put themselves into anything given no major contradictions. It can be in stages of course. To read a book on stealing can only help in that the analysis is good or better for example a book on sleight of hand is going to be better in depth perhaps but it's about finding what they want

[Anonymous No.16251795]

>>16251564
To act morally is to maximize global well-being. The exact details on how to do that are open to question.

[Anonymous No.16251888]

>>16251564
Morality is a matter of instinct. I hope whatever you've been reading was entertaining, as it surely taught you very little.

[Anonymous No.16251910]

Nope, mostly because I don't read moral philosophy and if I did, the fact that it's supposed to make you ok with uncertainty means I am vehemently against it.

[Anonymous No.16252127]

>>16251564
Use maximum force and let God sort them out

[Anonymous No.16252178]

>>16251888
Morality is a matter of rationality, not instinct.

[Anonymous No.16252195]

>>16252178
Good luck having any morality without empathy and love first.

[Anonymous No.16252411]

>>16251585
What are you talking about? It's pretty good.

[Anonymous No.16253216]

>>16251714
Reading is nothing more than a medium for communication, the only relevance lies in what you read, urging people to read more or celebrating 'books' for their own good is like telling people to talk or engage in conversations or any other form of communication
This strange reverence of 'le book' (in that people worship reading and books for no other reason than it is a book) is quite a strange by-product of the modern age. I suppose it's even considered an achievement now in modern times to sit down and read the written word without being fixated by your bland Netflix series blaring out of your TV speakers or any other form of mindless modern entertainment

[Anonymous No.16253243]

>>16252195
Virtue comes from an internal sense of justice, a higher thing than instinctive and bestial empathy

[Anonymous No.16254068]

>>16251564
Good news - your terrible fear of doing anything wrong is the greatest indicator that you have in fact never done anything wrong. It is the same dread an obsessively hygienic person might feel at the prospect of having to stick their hand in something dirty for the first time. You can keep your clean hands, and try to derive some pride from them by pretending they are that way by choice or duty, but the rest of the world knows from long experience that there isn't much you can do without getting your hands dirty, and will be able to smell from your anxious demeanour, the fear and impotence that are the real source of your "cleanliness".

[Anonymous No.16254567]

>>16251577
>>16251748
I just got back from a full night's sleep and the thread still has 2 responses that are at least vaguely answer my question.

Is it so much to ask that you people stay on topic?

[Anonymous No.16254715]

>>16251564
Yes, i've reached my own broad metaethical conclusions about morality. And these conclusions have normative implications.
I would say i reached a stable opinion ~18 months ago after 4 years of reading in adjacent topics. Though that study wasn't specifically directed towards the subject—it came more as a byproduct. It's not like i've solved ethics by any means, but at the moment it has convinced me enough to act on it without reservations.
also, ignore >>16251748 analytic moral philosophy is fine.

[Anonymous No.16256006]

>>16251564
you learn ethics by action, experience, and example not by thinking hard lmao

[Anonymous No.16256184]

>>16253216
What a beautiful painting.

[Anonymous No.16256203]

>>16252195
Practical rationality requires empathy with respect to future time-slices of your "self". Morality is just a more generalized, abstract version.

[Anonymous No.16256213]

>>16256006
Utter nonsense.

[Anonymous No.16256322]

>>16256213
pseud

[Anonymous No.16256341]

>>16251564
You are ankle-deep in ethics. This is the exactly conclusion the vast majority of young people come to since the 1950's when studying ethics, and is almost necessarily a result of being raised in our system of moral relativism and then encountering the idea that the things you do actually have consequences. This response you're having is so common is a meme trope - there was an episode from some 90's or 2000's sitcom where someone gave all their money away because of kid's starving in Africa or some such.
>Has anyone come out on the other side?
Everyone does. Again, this response is nothing more than an almost-necessary reaction to being raised in a global urbane culture of moral relativism and then encountering the fact there are actually consequences and that not everything is just some shade of gray.
The solution you're going to eventually find, so long as you are actually looking for a solution to this ethical problems and not simply your own moral discomfort, is going to be the same solution we've known (and rediscovered) since the beginning of human history - if you want society to function and anything good to happen at all, you must make the deliberate effort to categorically define what is good and what is evil, what is right and what is wrong, and then make the deliberate effort to be good and do right and to not be evil and to not do wrong. In other words, to establish a standard and stop over-rationalizing everything.
You'll come to the conclusion that it isn't very hard to define these things, either, once you stop trying to make yourself feel better about your own short-comings and instead try to figure out what is the truth for a functioning society. For instance, is it wrong to kill someone? Absolutely, in all circumstances. The difference is that, in some sets of circumstances, we forgive that wrong (such as self-defense, true accidents, occasionally during war, abortion, the death penalty, etc.) for whatever reasons we've arbitrarily defined as sufficient for forgiveness.

The big point you're missing, the cognitive dissonance that's happening for you, is coming from the fact that you are absolutely a moral relativist trying to find an objective set of moral and ethical guidelines. You won't be able to do it, not because it's impossible, but because you're a moral relativist who is seeking personal comfort. Let that shit go, and the whole thing becomes a lot easier.
And before you get hung up on it, let go of any criticism that is remotely close to, "It's a construction/It's just arbitrary!". EVERYTHING is a construction. Human rights, human wrongs, good, evil, you're entire moral dilemma and agitation - all of it is a construction. Everything that isn't fulfilling a basic biological function is literally just some shit we invented as a result of social forces. If you're going to disregard an ethical/moral standard for being a construction, you should disregard all of it and stop feeling so fucked off.

[Anonymous No.16256344]

>>16251564
No. But metaphysics and ontology did. Read Plato (pbuh).

[Anonymous No.16256418]

>>16256341
thx

[Anonymous No.16256446]

>>16251643

Fucking gingers

[Anonymous No.16256465]

>>16256341
>For instance, is it wrong to kill someone? Absolutely, in all circumstances
Hahahhahahaha

[Anonymous No.16256479]

>>16256465
lmao

[Anonymous No.16256494]

>>16251564
Yeah. Shafer-Landau convinced me of moral realism.

[Anonymous No.16256939]

>>16253216
Nobody says to give books an all encompassing free pass but even lecture aren't as good as books in terms of information density and pop sci shit on YouTube is a perfect example of the loss in density in different mediums