please critique me

[amateur No.6387321]

Hey /lit/, friendly neighborhood layperson here. I would describe my understanding of philosophy as cursory at best; I know enough to get by about Kant, Hegel, Marx, maybe Nietzsche and a couple Existentialists, but outside that I don't really know shit...reading is hard amirite? Anyway, check it out:

I believe humanity (and everything else) has innate value arising simply out of its own existence. From this I derive a "moral" code. However, I can not justify this belief objectively or expect anyone else to abide by it...basically it's like moral relativism except I'm being a intellectually dishonest, and I'm okay with that. I mean, almost everything is probably subjective anyway, right?

So basically tell me why I'm wrong. This is not a troll (even though I realize saying that makes it look like even more of a troll).

[Anonymous No.6387373]

>>6387321
>I mean, almost everything is probably subjective anyway, right?
poststructuralist pls

[Anonymous No.6387383]

I'm really more curious about what you think you know about Hegel.

[amateur No.6387392]

>>6387383
not much...i've read a few short analyses and summarizations. So, just the basics, really. I never said I agree with any of it, though. However, I do like the whole thing about the dialectic...except when he says that it ended in 19th century Germany.

[Anonymous No.6387400]

What do you think of anime?

[Anonymous No.6387403]

>>6387392
what are the basics?
you said you know enough to get by about hegel
so what do you know about hegel?

[Anonymous No.6387407]

>>6387392
What would you say are the basics of Hegel's work? You can focus on a particular subject if you feel more confident with it.

[Anonymous No.6387417]

>>6387403
>>6387407
>asshole hivemind

[amateur No.6387447]

>>6387407
Geist = (roughly) universal collective rational consciousness

True freedom of thought is from rational choice --> organic community, etc.

mind creates "reality by observing and describing it --> idealism
-->therefore only reality is in the mind/geist
-->therefore once we know the mind we know ultimate reality (self-consciousness, absolute knowledge)
--->all individual geists are part of the same Geist due to universal rationality

and then other shit about history being the development of the awareness of the idea that freedom lies in natural rationality of though/mind, thus freeing the geist.

i copied most of this from my notes (pic related)

[Anonymous No.6387450]

>>6387417
(but I still want to know what you think you know, OP, don't worry too much about it and just post)

[Anonymous No.6387474]

>>6387447
why did you go for Hegel before going for the much more accessible existentialist, the required reading Kant or the even more required and easy mode Hume?

To continue your OP, why do you think there needs to be a moral code if it's inherent in our nature to be a certain way? It should be codified in our instinctive actions. You might want to read Evolutionary Psychology, ask this guys >>6387251

[amateur No.6387561]

>>6387474
I knew a little about Kant before I read Hegel, ie. the categorical imperative/universal objective rational morality, etc. What really happened was, I wanted to read Marx, but decided I should read Hegel first, and then decided that I should actually start with Kant. So I tried out (read: read 10 pages) the Critique of Pure Reason, which was abysmally written. It was then that I decided that I could keep going back all the way to those Greek dudes predating Socrates, and I really just wanted to know about Marx (I didn't have time for that shit...still began with Hegel, though). Ironically, I didn't end up reading much about him.
I only found out about Existentialism much later, i.e. 3 months ago, but I had been formulating a lot of its core ideas for a while, as anyone should.
I know nothing about Hume, other than the fact that he was an empiricist (or something), which was disproven because the statement "We can never really know anything" is self-contradictory.

I think that, although we are basically fancy chimpanzees, it's silly to discuss morality as if we should still adhere 100% to our instincts. By that logic, it should be moral to fuck/rape everything in sight, which I personally don't think it is.

I will grant that a lot of my "subjective" ideas about morality are remarkably coincidental with western society's...so maybe I'm just justifying prior ingrained beliefs, i.e. backwards reasoning.

[Anonymous No.6387633]

>>6387561
Raping, as ugly as it is, has a ton of uses in desperate situations. You can subjugate a majority through it, you can increase your numbers by force. It's ugly and while I wouldn't say it's justified it is utilitarian for some.
If you want to know what's intrinsically moral you should try to understand the full variety of conditions humans can face.

----
Hume was in a sense the father of Kant. In part he said that Hume inspired him to study philosophy, but in a practical way most of Kant's work is meeting Hume with Descartes, so usually it's recommended to read those two before hand. Hume also had some interesting arguments to validate a ruling bourgeois class and some other things before going the full "you can't know nuffin" route, for example he was one of the first to deal with the concept of beauty without metaphysics. He's also much easier to read, the only issue is that each section of his sentences is separated with a comma. It gets boring quickly.

[amateur No.6387659]

>>6387633
would you mind elaborating on your thoughts concerning the morality of rape?

[Anonymous No.6387671]

>>6387659
The thing is that it goes beyond morality. If you want to make a group fear you surprise massacres and rape will do that, Attila style. If you have very little people you can just take women as birthing machines, like the albanians in Egypt. In some cases it has to do with not considering the other group human or deserving of every possible punishment that can be served, like the huttus with the tuttsis.
Morality is a really hard concept to implement to humanity.

[amateur No.6387683]

>>6387671
well, so in your opinion what is moral is what is useful?

[Anonymous No.6387694]

>>6387683
I don't have a lot of money, killing my neighbor to steal his food would be pretty useful to reach month's end. I wouldn't do it and I wouldn't consider it moral.
Many authors have written about ethics, I'm sure some anons will have deep and complex understandings of not-first-world historically-comprehensive ideas.