/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.16954888]

>Virtue cannot be taught. The tendency toward good or evil is the result of inborn character.
>Characters are determined by nature, not by the environment. Two people who have been raised in exactly the same environment will exhibit different characters.
>Character does not change. It remains the same throughout life. This is presupposed whenever a person is evaluated as a result of their past actions. Given the same circumstances, what was done once will be done again. Behavior, however, can change when a character learns how to attain its goal through a different way of acting. The means change, but not the ends. This is the result of improved cognition or education.

Would you agree? Does this mean no matter how much buddhist or stoic morals i read i wont attain more empathy? Because i read seneca, aurelius, epictet, thich, watts and im the same ego driven person who feels no remorse, regret or guilt for past crimes and would do them again under good conditions. How can you judge me? How can i judge me? Does good or evil even exist if all of this shit is inborn and there is no free will?

[Anonymous No.16954960]

>>16954888
No, it's not true, but reading seneca still won't make you a larger and more loving person. Your genes certainly do play a strong role in determining your personality, but only so far. Free will is an illusion if thought theoretically, but it's necessary for us to have faith in it.

[Anonymous No.16954961]

>>16954888
>>Characters are determined by nature, not by the environment.
I love scho but this is bullshit

[Anonymous No.16954970]

>>16954961
Refute it

[Anonymous No.16954975]

>>16954888
>Two people who have been raised in exactly the same environment will exhibit different characters.
I'd like to see scientific evidence for this. Of course, being the usual philosopher pseud, he has none.

[Anonymous No.16955005]

>I'd like to see scientific evidence for this.
Just look at any siblings you dumbo

[Anonymous No.16955323]

>>16954888
Where did he say that?

[Anonymous No.16955336]

>>16954888

this is true, and similar to a simple saying "a person can change ideology or religion, but they can't change their personality"

[Anonymous No.16955337]

>>16955323
WWR

[Anonymous No.16955466]

>>16954888
That's not necessarily true.
1. Two people can never be in the exact same circumstances, so this is impossible to test. They can be similar experiences but never the same.
2. I'm certain that there are some things which affect one's feelings of remorse, guilt, and virtue (sociopathy, for instance, is based largely or even exclusively on shit genetics). But, it's not all exclusively based on genetics. There are some actions which can increase or decrease one's empathy (I just looked it up, and medical training has been shown to decrease empathy, oddly enough).
Citation for 1:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2922855/
Citation for 2:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5513638/

[Anonymous No.16955569]

>>16955337
Is that a direct quote?

[Anonymous No.16955579]

>>16954888
That's bullshit. People can and do change. This is true specially if you wish to see things from a Buddhist perspective.

[Anonymous No.16955599]

>>16955579
Not an argument

[Anonymous No.16956723]

>>16954888
Neuroplasticity disproved the notion that people cannot change.

MRI scans of monks meditating proved that brains do change and the change is permanant.

[Anonymous No.16956742]

>>16954888
The quotes are fake. He did not say this and OP is a fag.

[Anonymous No.16957506]

>>16955599
Read the basic philosophy of Buddhism. It's a central tenet that there is no permanent self and even beliefs and thoughts are not "you".

[Anonymous No.16957710]

>>16955323
>>16955337
It's actually from On the Basis of Morality

[Anonymous No.16957910]

>>16956723
>the brain having anything to do with virtue
never gonna make it

[Anonymous No.16957996]

that is correct untill people level up i.e understand their true nature as pura Consciousness. At that point they understand their unchangeable nature as Will, and whilst their 'character' in the great play might have a personality such and such, it will be fully under control of the Spirit (here defined as 'Awareness after condensed and differentiated, but before intellect and form are added')

[Anonymous No.16958025]

>>16957996
> yfw Schop was into the esoteric and his philosophy is actually occult knowledge

[Anonymous No.16958028]

>>16954888
>Two people who have been raised in exactly the same environment will exhibit different characters.
same environment doesn't mean same experiences. therefore i disagree. in my opinion more than half your character is defined by experiences and early influences.

[Anonymous No.16958077]

Strange that Schopenhauer never realized how many gays were sexually molested early in childhood,

[Anonymous No.16958232]

>>16954888
>Would you agree?
Virtue, character, etc. yes. I don't think this is even debatable.
More mundane aspects of personality are left up in the air though.

[Anonymous No.16958350]

>>16954888
Yes reading is useless. This is why academia both the atheist and the greek one are full of glorified impotent assholes. And you end up with journalist and truth keeper and intellectuals, experts saying they know what they are talking about when all they do is read reports by other assholes.

If you want to change, you have to put the teachings into practice, a lot, until you die.

[Anonymous No.16959045]

>>16954888
>Would you agree?
Yes, there is a genetic element to empathy.

[Anonymous No.16959117]

>>16956742
>hasnt read basis of morality
Lol retard. Are you mad that schopy doesnt share the same views as you anymore? Suck a dick and grow up

[Anonymous No.16959213]

>>16957910
Ascendent post

[Anonymous No.16959234]

nietzsche debunked all that crap in human all too human

[Anonymous No.16959269]

>>16954888
Yes. Moral people seek for moral ideologies. Immoral people seek for immoral ideologies.

Christians going on about how you can't have morality without Christianity all became Christians because it fits with their already existent moral framework.

[Anonymous No.16959279]

>>16959234
Based

[Anonymous No.16959370]

>>16954888
The same way a good dog trainer can identify on a puppy its personality and characteristics, and it won't change through his life, its true for humans too, a murderer or psychopath has no redemption and should be put on death for everyones good, we are no exception

[Anonymous No.16959417]

>>16954888
stoics knew this, thats why they say that the perfect stoic has never been "born", their philosophy is just a manual for people who are already born prone to virtues, its a shortcut so they don't have to figure it out all by themselves again and again
>empathy
t. midwit

[Anonymous No.16959435]

>>16954960
>Free will is an illusion if thought theoretically, but it's necessary for us to have faith in it.
Hello, PSEUD department? Yeah, i just found your new CEO.

[Anonymous No.16959465]

>>16958077
"gay" isn't character, unless you're talking about a stereotypically flamboyant person, and that has nothing to do with being molested

[Anonymous No.16959470]

>>16959370
Humans are way more complex than dogs.

[Anonymous No.16960647]

>>16954888
Both genetics and environment determine personality, anyone who says otherwise is actually retarded or extremely misinformed.

[Anonymous No.16960842]

>>16954888
Reading about morality will not make you a more virtuous person regardless of the truth status of these paraphrasings of Schopenhauer.
As to the points themselves, if you can't see the logical flaws made in their assumptions I would recommend you read the relevant works again. Dude treats the poorly defined feature of "Character" as some kind of monolithic force and expects to take it on the strength of his voice and tone that he is correct. Drawing hard conclusions from this work is pretty fucking dumb as they can be in no way verified - empirically or otherwise. Combine this with the human capacity for self-deception, vanity and pattern recognition and you're left with what is the equivalent of "inspirational" Pinterest quotes for pseuds who want to magic away personal responsibility.

[Anonymous No.16960922]

this anti social bookworm is not looking at people like they are individuals but like they are some essence as described in the theory of forms

[Anonymous No.16960936]

I agree for the most part. When I listen to stories about me from the time I was 3 or 4 or watching videos from that time, my behaviour and character was pretty much identical to how it is now. Environment does affect you, but how you react to events in the environment will still be determined by your nature. I would say that your nature constraints the range of possible characters, but there is some range, and where you fall into specifically will be determined by environmental factors. That is why people can watch hundreds of self-help videos and read tens of books but they will stay the same, the environment must be changed if you want to change, you cannot change otherwise, you are part of this world.

[Anonymous No.16960949]

>>16954975
Jim twins

[Anonymous No.16961000]

No character can change slightly with the accumulation of experience and a lot with trauma, both psychological and especially physical trauma. We have cases of people getting brain damage following an accident and that damage completely changed their personality.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20180108-when-personality-changes-from-bad-to-good

[Anonymous No.16961084]

>>16954888
>Virtue cannot be taught. The tendency toward good or evil is the result of inborn character.
Retroactively refuted by the Protagoras dialogue. Great trips though, checked

[Anonymous No.16961097]

>>16954960
Based. Ignore the other reply

[Anonymous No.16961123]

>schopenhauer
>strg+f = nero
0 hits.
german:
Wenn Erziehung und Ermahnung irgend etwas fruchteten, wie könnte dann Senecas Zögling ein Nero sein?
Neue Paralipomena 20
english:
If education and admonition worked, how could Seneca's pupil be a Nero?
New Paralipomena 20
based google translator

that btfo's the Pedagogian

[Anonymous No.16961154]

>>16954888
I reconcile the illusion of agency with our inability to see the future from our perspective. Under this uncertainty, our consciousness learns the delusion that the future is undetermined, when the truth is that it is set in stone, but we know it not. So you can say, "no matter how many stoics I read I won't attain more empathy," but it changes nothing; you will read what you will read, you will attain what you will attain, it's no question really as to whether this is a mistake, because no mistakes happen. Only sure things

[Anonymous No.16961226]

>>16961154
Prove it.

[Anonymous No.16961239]

>>16961226
Which part?

[Anonymous No.16961283]

Maybe you don't feel remorse, but God will definitely judge you according to an objective standard. You're just a sociopath. It's extremely rare to feel no guilt at all.

[Anonymous No.16961297]

>>16961239
The assertion that the future is set in stone.

[Anonymous No.16961313]

>>16961297
The past is all composed of events that were surely determined, and the future is only the past ahead of the present that we're conscious of.