tfw this made me interested in ethics

[Anonymous No.11193487]

I dismissed ethics as completely hollow and unworthy of pursuit. That is, as a concept. A mere historical product removed from reality and practice, aside from when it was more greatly embedded in the cultures of ancients, more of a reflection or aspect, rather than a divorced discipline. I had little education in it, mostly implicit. Though the basic ideas are extremely easy to pick up. This book was so clear and easy to follow (yet still left much room for deepening) that I genuinely wanted to study ethics in full, to better grasp what was being said. There were no leaps or reasoning or ideas, that I missed or was unable to follow. Thus far, ethics as a discipline seems to lack obscurity or obfuscation. Despite the fact that essentially nothing in it has a concrete basis.

Recommend ethics texts.

[Anonymous No.11193492]

>>11193487
A Short History of Ethics, Alasdair Macintyre

[Anonymous No.11193519]

Currently working through ethics. My plan looks something like this in order

>Nicomachean Ethics
>Discourses of Epictetus
>Meditations of Marcus Aurelius'
>Confessions of Saint Augustine
>Works of Love by Soren Kierkegaard
>The Ego and It's Own
>Thus Spake Zarathustra
>Beyond Good and Evil
>Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious
>After Virtue

I am looking to add in a few things. Can someone recommend any thing I missed, especially if I overlooked an entire viewpoint?

[Anonymous No.11193532]

>>11193519
a n s c o m b e

[Anonymous No.11193612]

JL Mackie - Ethics
Jonas Olson - Moral Error Theory
Richard Joyce - The Myth of Morality

[Anonymous No.11193644]

>>11193487
Iris Murdoch - The Sovereignty of the Good
Philippa Foot (all her work is ethics stuff)

[Anonymous No.11193707]

>>11193519
>Discourses of Epictetus
>Meditations of Marcus Aurelius'
>Confessions of Saint Augustine
>Works of Love by Soren Kierkegaard
>The Ego and It's Own
>Thus Spake Zarathustra
>Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious
Skip these; they're far from essential. Read Genealogy of Morals instead of Zarathustra. As for what you should read:
Utilitarianism by Mill
Critique of Practical Reason, Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals by Kant
An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals by Hume
The Methods of Ethics by Sidgwick
Modern Moral Philosophy by Anscombe
Reasons and Persons by Parfit
Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy by Williams
Principia Ethica - Moore
Analects by Confucius
Practical Ethics - Singer
A Theory of Justice by Rawls

[Anonymous No.11194203]

>>11193707
Not sure if you've read any of these but they are definitely important. I'm not dropping them. Thanks for the other recommendations though

[Anonymous No.11194259]

>>11193487
>Despite the fact that essentially nothing in it has a concrete basis.
It seems like that if you break the link between philosophy and theology. You should read some Aquinas. Virtue is rooted in our natural telos, because as rational beings we have virtues that point us towards knowing God as the first cause

[Anonymous No.11194350]

>>11193707
I want to clearify my earlier statement a little, actually. I had posted >>11194203 and now I think I sure explain why I chose some of them.

Discourses explains the stoic understanding of virtue, and how one should behave themselves.
Meditations is how Aurelius was able to behave himself.
Confessions is similar, but gives more insights into the nature of good and evil
Works of Love argues for improving the self rather than focusing on virtue so directly.
The Ego and It's Own at least to some extent argues there is no absolute virtue, a claim I will have to be able to argue against if doing my work at all.
Zarathustra is required to understand Nieztsche, which held an entirely different take than I have built up to this point; I will need to address his arguements as well.
Archetypes of the collective unconscious builds on this. Jung's idea of the shadow or id, albeit profound, too easily leads to a loose "be yourself" sort of morality.

I'm not sure if you can get the direction I am going with from that, but all of these are essential at least to my work.

[Anonymous No.11194354]

>>11194259
there is no god or heaven

[Anonymous No.11194363]

>>11194354
>doesn't know the necessity of a hierarchical causal series

[Anonymous No.11194381]

Summa Theologica I-II qq. 90-97 are essential.

[Anonymous No.11194580]

i want to know how a naturalist can be a moral realist at the same time.

[Anonymous No.11195469]

bump

[Anonymous No.11195504]

>>11194203
You sound like a cunt

[Anonymous No.11195526]

>>11195504
I saw that, too. I already apologized for that post, and it's poor iteration of what I was trying to get across. See >>11194350 I was not trying to come across that way, only explain why I thought they were essential to the modern understanding of ethics and virtue. I have put a considerable amount of work and thought into this subject already, and finding the right balance of that and humility is a little difficult at times. I do apologize for coming accross hostile. And I do not say any of this sarcastically if I have once again failed to come across clearly.

[Anonymous No.11195548]

>>11193519
Great list man. You should add Seneca's letters as well.

[Anonymous No.11196303]

>>11193519
>>11193707

Good recs, but don't forget Reasons and Persons

[Anonymous No.11196319]

>>11195526
Dude fuck that guy he's just throwing out a list of bullshit that hasn't been in vogue for years.

>Utilitarian ethics

Seriously fuck that other guy.

[Anonymous No.11196758]

>>11196303
Pure weapons grade autism in book form.

[Anonymous No.11196772]

I think a majorly overlooked work, at least in the English-speaking world, is Max Scheler's Formalism in Ethics and Non-Formal Ethics of Values.

[Anonymous No.11196810]

>>11196303
>>11196772
I'll look into them and see about expanding my list. Thanks for the suggestions. We'll have a proper flowchart made up on ethics soon.

[Anonymous No.11197761]

bump

[Anonymous No.11197767]

If you like MacIntyre I'd recommend Charles Taylor.

[Anonymous No.11198106]

>>11196319
Utilitarianism is ted to a lot of real world situations. It's pretty important to understand.

People only read the stoics to LARP as a Roman. It's usually only done by the most pathetic people.

[Anonymous No.11198115]

>>11196772
My professor, Dr. Gregory Sadler, suggested this book.

[Anonymous No.11198246]

>>11193519
you understand nothing about ethics if you don't understand human evolution. ethics are not merely abstract arguments, they have a reason grounded in evolutionary patterns. read some gregory bateson or marcel mauss or gabriel tarde

[Anonymous No.11198396]

>>11193487
only bored hedonists care about being moral

[Anonymous No.11198944]

>>11197767
Thanks
>>11198106
I've seen people acting like stoics but not LARPing as a Roman, but as somewhat of a stoic myself I agree they should read more ethic theories than the stoics.
>>11198246
I'm actually studying some biology as well right now, and I certainly agree. Thank you for the recommendations.
>>11198396
You ever read moral philosophy?

[Anonymous No.11198954]

>>11193519
>Works of Love by Soren Kierkegaard
Wut?

[Anonymous No.11199001]

>>11193519
>No utilitarians, kantians, or neo-kantians.
I'm not saying you have to agree with them, but these are big schools you should at least be familiar with if you want to say you've studied ethics.

[Anonymous No.11199041]

>>11193519
Take
>>11193707
Into consideration, his list is much more along the lines of a survey ethics course. Nobody reads Keirkigaard in academic ethics classes anymore (not that you shouldn’t read him anyways)
The book that shaped my ethics the most was The Crooked Timber of Humanity by Issah Berlin

[Anonymous No.11199331]

>>11199001
I'm looking into it.
>>11199041
Already considered it, and I'm not removing those works. Many of my selected pieces hold very important arguments when it comes to structuring an ethic.

[Anonymous No.11199451]

>>11193487
Read the next two books.

[Anonymous No.11200031]

>>11193519
>>11199331
I'm going to say that this list is pretty bad as an introduction to the field of ethics. You have a problem I see some people have but especially people on this board. Philosophy can be literary but it's not the goal and most isn't. You are too wrapped up in some sort of canon of texts that you need to read. You need a work of modern scholarship which is meant as an introduction to the field, or a work that outlines the history of ethical thinking in the west.
The reason why your approach is going to lead to many extremely distorted views and a seriously malformed understanding of ethics is that you just picked a bunch of works seemingly at random because you lack the knowledge to make a good list because you are not familiar with ethics. The two main branches of normative ethics is completely missing from your list. Literally the vast majority of all ethics done today will be alien to you because you did not read a single work from either camp.
I won't fault you on the Nicomachean Ethics thought Discourses is an awful idea as a second text because the work is only meant as a practical handbook which requires an understanding of stoicism already, it's why most people who read it mangle its meaning. Meditations is even worse, it's a private diary. You need a solid understanding of stoicism to make sense of it and even then the point isn't to teach you anything. Confessions is a great work of philosophy but not a very foundational one for the current ethical landscape in academia. Then you have an existentialist, a sort of ethical thinker that should only be approached with care and understanding of what came before them and to what they are reacting against. Then you have Stiner who is largely a meme (though not completely a meme but it makes me ask why is such a fringe figure on your essential list) followed by the single worst possible book of Nietzsche to start one. Beyond Good and Evil is a good place to start with Nietzsche except that any understanding of Nietzsche is predicated upon a reasonable knowledge of the history of philosophy. Jung is great but if someone said I'm wanting to get into ethics and I don't know much about it and I'm going to read Jung I would probably scream at them. Your mileage may vary with After Virtue. It is fairly easy to read and since he isn't actually making a case of virtue ethics per se in this book his lack of argumentation isn't really a problem though the book would be helped immensely but knowledge of deontology, utilitarianism and emotivism.

By trying to read these books first you are putting the cart before the horse. You need to have a general understanding to give you an idea about which books to read rather than just picking a bunch of books and hoping to become good at it.

[Anonymous No.11200436]

>>11200031
Which of MacIntyre's books does he lay out a real case for virtue ethics?

>>11193487
I didn't find After Virtue to be particularly enlightening. It seems like he appeals to common ethical sentiment pretty often to justify what he says. For example, he says that, shifting to a more narrative understanding of ethics, it is clear that Americans are responsible for their past as slave-owners and Germans are responsible for Nazi crimes (220). But this is after he spent time critiquing the incommensurability of moral demonstration, so he precludes himself from impacting his points. Further, he fails to provide a meaningful criteria for which Americans should be held accountable, what ought to be done about that, etc. He doesn't explain why we haven't inherited every "injustice" committed by every being in the evolutionary chain.

In other words, he begs the question pretty often and he likes to slip in his own moral prejudices. Another example is when he says that there is a problem with recognizing the unity of the virtues because it would have to concede an "obviously evil" person like an intelligent Nazi possessed some virtue, such as courage. It is clear that he not only employs a so-called demonstration, something that is characteristically failed-Enlightenment-project of him, but that his argument even affirms the antecedent and is a poor one by its own right.

Also, his treatment of Alan Gewirth is a laughable strawman. His big punch-out argument is that "rights" are historically relative and cultural artifacts. I don't see how as a philosopher of ethics he fails to understand that Gewirth's argument is a normative claim, not a claim about history or how things are; that is, if his argument stands, it is not a claim that a) rights have always been recognized as what-they-are or b) that they have always been legislatively honored, but that a claim about rights are always made and if the claimer would be consistent, he would extend that same property to others.

As a last criticism, he believes that facts are fictions outside of theory (81) and there can be no self-evident truths (69). But theory cannot be constructed without an immediate intuition of logical truths: if the measures of truth are not indemonstrable and self-evident, then no proposition will ever be demonstrated as every premise will always presuppose a premise that itself relies on other demonstrations; MacIntyre refutes himself.

MacIntyre's arguments are just way too rhetorical and rely too much on his own creative hermeneutic of the moral history of the West. He might even be guilty of obfuscating his weak arguments with redundant historical references and platitudes about that time A and B had a disagreement and it concluded in some aftermath. Strange how he remains just vague enough to appeal to all folks on the political spectrum, enough to reinforce all of the Anglosphere's prejudices and mentality.

[Anonymous No.11200985]

>>11200031
Really annoyed that I have already seen this kind of post before. I already have the foundation of ethics and a lot of the theories. I know the stoic philosophy, and I know a lot of the backgrounds. I have understanding in both Nieztsche and Jung, and I never encouraged anyone to start reading this list without any of that. Furthermore, I left out a lot of works and schools unintentionally, and because as I said, I was putting this list together. Please note the "-ing" ending of "putting" implying I am not done. I specifically asked for additional recommendations, and was very thankful people made good suggestions. The only suggestions I disregarded were when people proposed removing works I had already carefully selected. I believe I have already said this when asked about Kierkegaard, but a lot of these works do not deal with ethics as explicitly buy offer suggestions I find useful. Again, this is MY plan based on work I am doing, and has been picked as such. It is not such a typical ethics beginners guide, because it is not one. I do not lack the understanding of ethics as you have tried to claim, I have simply already worked through most of the beginning stuff, and I did not cater this list to beginners.

[Anonymous No.11201938]

>>11200436
>Strange how he remains just vague enough to appeal to all folks on the political spectrum, enough to reinforce all of the Anglosphere's prejudices and mentality.
To be fair, there should be at least some significant common ground on ethics across the political spectrum, right?

[Anonymous No.11202059]

>>11201938
Hey, one would hope so I suppose. He doesn't actually say much about what is right for particular issues. That he avoids that discussion for the most part has a lot to do with it I think. Regardless, I think one of the strengths of the virtue ethics position is that it recognizes that virtues are, in some sense, empirical, at least as to how we come to know them and practice them. In other words, it doesn't matter much if you've fabricated the most consistent and legitimate law of social ethics out there (ignoring for the moment the fact that two different systems can be consistent and logical, which is MacIntyre's point) because laws and rights always presuppose a stable social institution that can not only educate men of those laws but defend them. Virtue ethics is strong in it recognizes the importance that, whereas political or theoretical acumen is necessary for the laws, it is only prudence that can meaningfully apply those laws and fulfill them. Prudence cannot be read, it must be taught.

Despite MacIntyre attacking Edmund Burke, this is a type of Burkean argument that can be extrapolated from the kind of foundation MacIntyre lays. You can take things into the conservative route by appealing to the notion that genuine ethics requires sanctioning of particular practices for this reason. It provides a reason not to advocate radical change of those institutions that preserve the standards of practice. And of course this is a direction early reactionary thinkers took regarding the dissolution of the guild system that functioned as a locus of education, security and sustenance. You can even go further into the direction of thinkers like Carl Schmitt and Joseph de Maistre if you argue that not only ought these institutions be sanctioned but exempt from criticism in a fundamental sense, and that all reasoning of ethics eventually becomes the unchecked prejudices of posterity, dissolving the illusion not only that liberalism is effective or real, but that all states require the sanctioning of prejudice. Of course, MacIntyre tries to wrestle away from drawing these conclusions by saying traditions become dead when they are no longer debating their ends and purposes (222).

This can kind of demonstrate what I mean that some of his arguments will appeal strongly to men on the reactionary side of things, whereas reparations is more of a left-liberal talking point yet somehow he is able to account for that as well.

[Anonymous No.11202069]

>>11202059
Makes more sense. Thank you for the response.

[Anonymous No.11203022]

bump

[Anonymous No.11203033]

I am (distantly) related to this guy and have not read his books because Virtue Ethics smacks of teleology to me, does he confront the issue?

[Anonymous No.11203110]

>>11203033
Introduce him to /lit/ for us.

[Anonymous No.11203128]

>>11203033
>Virtue Ethics smacks of teleology to me
That's like saying utiltiarianism "smacks" of consequentialism.
Virtue ethics require either teleonomy or teleology in order to function properly. But that's not a problem, on the contrary it is a strength.

[Anonymous No.11203129]

>>11203110
I don't know him but he is my grandmother's cousin. She told me about him but i am sure if i wrote him i would have nothing to say since i am a thorough pleb.

[Anonymous No.11203134]

>>11203128
>it is a strength
I don't understand.

[Anonymous No.11203140]

>>11203134
It's not a negative, it's a positive. It doesn't detract from the theory, it makes it stronger.

[Anonymous No.11203147]

>>11203140
How does it strengthen it ffs

[Anonymous No.11203168]

>>11203147
Read the book maybe?
MacIntyre goes on and on about how criticisms from various philosophers (say Humen or Nietzsche) directed at morality (moral realism) work precisely because teleology has been removed from the frame, which effectively makes it disabled since moral language and reasoning were developed within a system that acknowledged teleology as something fundamental.

[Anonymous No.11203290]

>>11203168
I need to read the damned thing i guess.

[Anonymous No.11204544]

>>11203290
That would help

[Anonymous No.11204565]

>>11193487
>Anscombe
>Foot
>Rawls

These are all that you should read to revive your faith in reasonable ethics and politics without ideological and speculative shit

[Anonymous No.11205321]

>>11204565
>Rawls
>Revive your faith in ethics and politics
Pick one.

[Anonymous No.11205737]

>>11203129
Ask him to mentor you towards philosophical greatness anon!

[Anonymous No.11206360]

bump

[Anonymous No.11206659]

>>11202069
You are very welcome anon!

[Anonymous No.11207639]

>>11193519
Nice start.

[Anonymous No.11207780]

>>11196758
You weren't shaken by those final passages on the self and death? What kind of philosophy do you enjoy?

[Anonymous No.11207993]

>>11207780
Not really. Parfit is generally pretty autistic though. All sorts of philosophy, why do you ask?

[Anonymous No.11207997]

>>11193487
You sound like a crackhead, i dgaf about your pedigree. No thanks bro.

[Anonymous No.11208012]

I am working on a novel that deals with some ideas of virtue ethics. I was wondering if some of you could point me to your favorite works or authors that argue for consequentialism and deontology.

[Anonymous No.11208051]

>>11208012
Sounds interesting. Keep us posted? Could use this thread and then maybe make a similar one should this one die out.

[Anonymous No.11208087]

>>11208012
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-deontological/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/consequentialism/
Between these two ways of thinking they make up almost all modern literature on normative ethics. It really isn't hard at all to find books on them. These two articles a filled with citations for various philosophers.

[Anonymous No.11208564]

bump

[Anonymous No.11209220]

>>11207993
What's autistic about it?

[Anonymous No.11210415]

>>11209220
>He doesn't comprehend how autistic analytics can get.

[Anonymous No.11210516]

>>11208087
Is virtue ethics really that unpopular? I thought the three of them were roughly equal?

[Anonymous No.11210582]

>>11210516
Yeah they became unpopular because of Luther; he hated Scholasticism and paved the way for the Enlightenment. Those philosophers attempted to rationalize our moral beliefs without the idea of a telos to be met(virtue ethics is geared towards a teleology). But they failed and gave us Atheism and nihilism.

[Anonymous No.11210650]

>>11210582
I understand a movement towards deontology then from that, but is consequentialism not also based on the telos?

[Anonymous No.11210998]

>>11210650
It based on that, but consequentialism has no concern for virtue. Like we could eradicate HIV by killing off all those who carry the virus. This is a good outcome achieved by an evil action. Consequentialism would affirm something like this.

[Anonymous No.11211008]

>>11198246
BEHAVIORALISTS REEEEEEEE ME WANT ROMAN VS GREEK DICHOTOMY ARGUMENT REE REE REE GET OUT OF HERE SUSSER REEEEE

[Anonymous No.11211054]

>>11210998
I understand that. My question is why consequentialism did not suffer the same way virtue did when the telos was uprooted? Should not deontology be the only thing that holds any water if the telos is taken at complete disregard? Why did virtue suffer any more than did consequentialism?

[Anonymous No.11211197]

>>11211008
Kek

[Anonymous No.11211738]

bump

[Anonymous No.11211804]

>>11211054
Not gonna lie man, I don't feel greatly suited to answer your questions. I would highly suggest you read After Virtue.

V ethics is concerned with the rightness or wrongness of a person's conduct and utilitarianism is concerned with whether or not the outcome of the conduct is pleasurable or painful. V ethics would justify the moral standing of one's conduct by relating it to telos, but utilitarianism can't really justify why an outcome should be pleasurable or not. Utilitarianism/consequentialism is teleological in a sense yes, but it doesn't utilize a telos like virtue ethics does.

V ethics is about the agent, deontology about the action, and utilitarianism about the result.

[Anonymous No.11211954]

>>11210516
Virtue ethics was dead in academia until Anscombe. The problem virtue ethics has had is its rivals have had hundreds of years of development where it had to start from scratch only 70 odd years ago. Anscombe knew that she couldn't create a system that could stand up to the rigor of utilitarianism and deontology by herself so she just sought to create a case for the need of it and outline some problems with the other systems that virtue ethics could address. MacIntye took this rough idea and fleshed it out further. However it takes more than just a couple of philosophers to create a corpus of arguments for a completely different system of normative ethics so the thinkers that followed in the 80s and 90s were rather insular, creating a body of work for virtue ethics with little to no engagement with anything else. It wasn't until the 2000's that virtue ethics began to actually engage in the bigger debates in ethics. It still has a long way to go to have anything approaching an equal footing with either other branches either in terms of its arguments or its prevalence.

[Anonymous No.11212022]

>>11211954
How big of a role do you think Thomists or even neoThomists will have in the revitalization of virtue ethics?

[Anonymous No.11212127]

>>11212022
Considering that Both Anscombe and MacIntye are Thomist so maybe a metric fuck tonne. However the virtue ethics revival is in full swing already and is multifaceted, so perhaps not as much as you would expect for the progenitors being Thomists.

[Anonymous No.11212471]

>>11211954
>>11212022
>>11212127
Read a bit about the history of Thomism lately so this seems like an interesting development to explore further.

[Anonymous No.11212528]

>>11212471
You should read Étienne Gilson's The Spirit of Thomism. It's a collection of lectures by Gilson and quite short. But it is a wonderful little overview of some of the main concepts that Aquinas had. I highly suggest it. You can find it on Amazon or even at a public library or typically a university library.

[Anonymous No.11212640]

>>11211954
Do you know of any unanswered arguments against virtue ethics? Part of my work is going to be arguing for it, so I want to cover the other sides' critiques.

[Anonymous No.11212647]

>>11212640
Only philosophical system that justified one's moral beliefs. Enlightenment thinkers failed. That's why Nietzsche put the justification in the individual (not sure if he ever really addressed Aristotle intently; he saw the decline of Christianity in society and was pragmatic in his philosophy because of it). It's also why MacIntyre famously proposed "Nietzsche vs Aristotle"

[Anonymous No.11212805]

>>11212528
Thanks. Any other suggestions? I figure it's not exactly my cup of tea but through secondary readings I could probably grasp things better.

[Anonymous No.11213012]

>>11212805
I'm doing exactly what you're doing hahah. I've been reading secondary material beforehand. But I have also read through Aquinas's first 5 questions and a few regarding the fall. You can find the Summa here:
>http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/aquinas/summa/index.htm

But for more suggestions on books, I plan on reading Thomistic Realism by Gilson (I wanted to learn more about Thomas's position in relation to Realism and Plato). There's Kreeft's Summa of the Summa (haven't read it, but I trust Kreeft). You ought to research Feser as well. I believe he has a book on Aquinas, but he also has a book on proofs of God—which really is the basis of Thomism.

Hope I could help man. But that Spirit of Thomism book will really help you. Regarding virtue ethics, it will touch upon some concepts, but I wasn't really reading it for that stuff though.

[Anonymous No.11214080]

Bump

[Anonymous No.11214241]

Suggesting environmental ethics for anyone who might be interested

[Anonymous No.11214463]

>>11205321
>I clearly haven't read a very profound author but I am going to denigrate him anyway

[Anonymous No.11216288]

Bump.

[Anonymous No.11216775]

The ethics of an individual are always flawed. It's the wrong approach to burden yourself with a moral way of living. A personal point of view in ethics or a single string of argumentation will always be erroneous. Humans are flawed. I have always mistrusted humans including myself. And on top of that I have always mistrusted society as a whole. Bullying, terrorizing, greed, envy, resentment, aggression on a physical and psychological level are ingrained human behaviour because of natural or evolutionary principles which can't even be eliminated with our current state of culture, communication and medicine. Things might have even got worse because of some technical and economical developments, who knows.

But at this point I realize the basic mistrust in society wrong. The state and its whole bureaucratic machine might be annoying, exhausting, ineffective, time-consuming and cost-haevy on the surface. But it seems like all this is necessary to tame our natural instincts and thus enable community and security. This not only counts for the state but all cultural traditions and conventions descended through time and hardship. I know that all these things at least to me seem stupid and nothing more than a illusionary facade to overlay the problems of life, suffering. But the point is that this facade is necessary and actually serves a good purpose and in doing so it really does make a difference not just an imaginary difference.

[Anonymous No.11217272]

>>11214463
>If someone doesn't love an author then they haven't read them.
I've read plenty of Rawls for your information.

[Anonymous No.11218179]

>>11193612
Seconding the Mackie recommendation.

[Anonymous No.11218684]

>>11216775
Interesting take.

[Anonymous No.11218977]

>>11216775
This seems to me a more common take on ethics than a lot of people think. I am the anon trying to write on virtue ethics, and I was planning on addressing this argument, but it was made difficult for me because most of my philosopher friends do not hold this same view, and thus I cannot necessarily gain an accurate representation of it. Would you mind laying out your reasoning for it, specifically the first part of your comment?

[Anonymous No.11219335]

>>11193532
Seconding this

[Anonymous No.11219777]

>>11212647
Interesting. Nieztsche's ethics have been puzzling to me recently. If I am not mistaken, he claims morals are ultimately relative, which is usually a deontology claim, but that we should still try to rise ourselves to some "good", not believing in anything concrete so to say eliminates virtue, and leaves him with something like consequentialism, but still with an underlying deontology. Can anybody explain him a little better? I haven't finished BGE yet so maybe that's why I am lost.

[Anonymous No.11219788]

>>11193532
dude
intentions
lmao

[Anonymous No.11221180]

>>11219788
Best critique of virtue ethics I ever heard.

[Anonymous No.11221540]

>>11219788
>>11221180
Virtue ethics BTFO'd! How will they ever recover?

[Anonymous No.11221920]

>>11219777
>he claims morals are ultimately relative, which is usually a deontology claim
???

>not believing in anything concrete so to say eliminates virtue, and leaves him with something like consequentialism, but still with an underlying deontology
I really don't understand what you mean because it doesn't make sense. While Nietzsche's epistemology and metaphysics make calling him a moral non-realist a little tricky (which is a debate for another time) he is for all intents and purposes of a quick understanding a moral non-realist. This precludes any ability for him to be called a consequentialist or deontologist as both systems are predicated on moral realism. He's somewhat of a precursor to the revival in virtue ethics. He sees a similar problem with the history of ethics in philosophy that you see Anscombe and MacIntyre make and his solution is mildly related to theirs. From Nietzsche's misguided criticism of stoicism it is easy to see that he, like everyone else at the time fundamentally misunderstood virtue ethics because they had been so corrupted by the teleology lacking approach to ethics he couldn't conceive of any other way of doing it. So his solution seems more like a naive feeling out of a kind of virtue ethics not based on human nature, but self nature (as in John's individual nature rather than a grand human nature which applies much more broadly), though it is a form of moral non-realist pseudo virtue ethics.

[Anonymous No.11222053]

>>11219777
>>11221920
I had an embarrassingly profound misunderstanding of deontology, as I had confused it with another term I have forgotten, but is in no way the same. The term I was looking for describes someone that rejects morals altogether, such as Stirner arguing you should live for yourself. This line of thought is usually the natural conclusion of rejecting a universal ethic, and I am confused how Nieztsche first rejects the universal, and then argues that people can be in any way objectively good in their own right. For example, if he argues we should be a higher man, what if my personal morals say it is right to not follow this entirely? Is it better to follow my own initiative, or his, if his is arguing that I follow mine, and mine arguing that I don't follow his. Again, my understanding of him is not superb, but it seems to be reduced into this sort of paradox too easily, and I would like to know how he reconciles this.

[Anonymous No.11222998]

Bump

[Anonymous No.11224118]

>>11222053
Tell me more

[Anonymous No.11224473]

>>11219788
Based

[Anonymous No.11224590]

>>11193487

[Anonymous No.11224681]

Is that the most aesthetic book title of all time?

[Anonymous No.11224997]

>>11224590
Can I get the basic gestalt of this?

[Anonymous No.11225378]

>>11224997
"Everything I believe is very obvious. thus I'm right. What do you mean I'm being uncharitable to your point of view?"
That's basically his entire career, and Ethical Intuitionism is the embarrassing cherry on top of the shit sundae.

[Anonymous No.11225584]

>>11218977
Well sorry, I have studied ethics some semesters before this year and I think I would not make a great job at giving a coherent outline of the topic right now. I can't even suggest you the right authors on this topic but it definitely is not only my personal opinion in this regard. I guess the Greeks are a good start and probably Kant/ Schopenhauer (my favorite writer till this day on ethics) and some others that have been mentioned in this thread.

I want to outline some aspects though. First I think the individual is morally flawed because of his capabilities and physical condition. To compensate this shortage we would need technological substitutions but then again technology and science are devoid of ethics and thus the ethical question arises how we want to use scientific advance and for what purpose.

On a more general note I think that anything regarding ethics always refers to a community and never to an individual. So if you are alone acting morally correct doesn't even make any sense. The subject is neglected epistemically because in the face of ethics it doesn't even exist. Imagine you were all alone on this earth then nothing would matter anymore except to you but that would mean that everything would be reduced to psychology and feeling. Ethics is not a matter of feeling or psychology. This part might be strange especially since I mentioned Schopenhauer who of course arguments that morality is based in compassion and a matter of the will. But if you read him carefully you’ll understood him differently. Even if you are not a man of compassion or empathy psychologically it's key to understand the matter of ethics intellectually and philosophically - and then act according to this rational investigation.

Finally I want to add that even though I affirm the state (operative politics) that it's still important to criticize and question it because even if it already serves a good purpose that doesn't mean that it's the best form. But this criticism must be careful and I think it's actually quite difficult to come to valid points of critique and it's even more difficult to suggest reliable improvements. People often are deeply habitual beings especially when growing older or when doing monotonous work which needs to be done. To simply say that their attitudes are somehow wrong and your own are better because of x is unfair most of the time.
That's why ethics is such a difficult topic because of deep convictions in people to which they (most times) are legitimized no matter how stupid these convictions seem to me.

[Anonymous No.11226135]

>>11225584
Im not conveying my point well probably. The essence of virtue I'd summarize as this: You are not important. Everything that you do is done for someone else; taking care of your body and mind is not good because it makes you feel better but because it helps you helping others. And to me this idea is liberating. I have to take care of myself, know my limits, care about my wellbeing but I can't fail in doing so because I don't do that for me in the end but for someone else - family, friends, community, society. Living a good life personally then becomes a side effect of caring about others.
Finally it's a practice. You will probably be able to attack my reasoning if you tried.

[Anonymous No.11226305]

>>11193519
>no Kant or Mill/Hume

Into the trash it goes.

[Anonymous No.11226997]

>>11225378
Shame. I had heard good things about his work.

[Anonymous No.11227540]

>>11226305
What part of currently working on can you not understand?

[Anonymous No.11227802]

>>11225378
>>11226997
Wow Huemer BTFO'd. How will he ever recover?

[Anonymous No.11227814]

>>11225378
Let me take a guess: You looked at the title and pulled some shit out of your ass. Sound about right?

[Anonymous No.11227865]

>>11226135
We're you saying "The ethics of the individual are always flawed" as in each individual has an at least slightly incorrect interpretation of ethics, or that viewing ethics on an individual level is inhereitly flawed?

Or maybe both.

[Anonymous No.11228121]

>>11227802
>>11227814
Not that person but could someone humour me and actually give me a rundown on Huemer?

[Anonymous No.11228127]

day Lee raw mind that macbook in tired won't jew to pay rap-parade-Sean's to near girls

[Anonymous No.11228959]

>>11228127
Umm wtf?

[Anonymous No.11229510]

>>11227865
Second.
Viewing ethics on an individual level or the individuals' ethics is flawed because categories like 'good' and 'value' can not be conceived without a measure that is to say norm. The unit of this measure stems from a complex observation of culture, society, other people in short the coexistence of humans. If we take into consideration that our observation of the world and especially of such abstract things like culture can never be complete then the individual ethics must be flawed.
The "I" for itself can not know of such things in other words it wouldn't have any measure which allow him to have concepts like "good" and "value". Things like Pain/ not pain, feeling healthy/ ill etc. on the other hand are individual values that are not flawed (we know what we want to feel like immediately). These are psychological values which don't require an object or an external world but instead only the individual in its direct experience without language or social discourse.

Your first point aims at the question: What is ethics? And we don't have an ontological answer to this. There is no universal truth about this question that can be expressed through language. As Wittgenstein would say ethics can only show itself (through aesthetical perception for example) but we can not assert its substance theoretically.
We can say something about ethics logically though, about its form. Ethics always requires someone who refers to something which he considers ethical. Someone has to reflect on the issue of what he finds to be a good life; and someone has to decide about what makes life valuable. As there is no true correct answer to these questions there is no incorrect answer or interpretation neither.

I think the basic question must be: What is there to do in light of our observation of the world? And I think the strongest ethical standpoint we can have is to actually try to answer this question and not just ignore it. The answers to ethics are relative but the responsibility to deal with it is not.

[Anonymous No.11229581]

>>11193487
>ethics as a discipline

This is precisely the thinking that strays far away from what ethos originally conveyed. It originates from the language of herders: ethoi referred to a pen, stable, or shed. An animal's habitat. Ethics can never be separated from practice because that's what is--how you inhabit this world is your ethics.

There is no rulebook, no guideline, and there can be systematization of ethics, for it finds its ground in the ambiguity of freedom. Every scenario has numerous choices and opportunities, and one decides how to act in this space of ambiguity.

[Anonymous No.11229651]

>>11229581
You've bassically made the strawman of the stoics that Nieztsche calls out in chapter 1 of Beyond Good and Evil.

[Anonymous No.11229653]

>>11228959
What he's trying to say is, "Daily reminder that Macintyre wants you to pay reparations to niggers."

[Anonymous No.11229798]

>>11229651
>Nietzsche talked about what you said

Are you gonna actually respond to what I said or just post bullshit like that?

[Anonymous No.11230265]

>>11229653
Thank you. I am not very fluent in ebonics.

[Anonymous No.11230426]

>>11229798
>Are you actually going to respond to my strawman?

[Anonymous No.11230469]

>>11229798
I literally gave you where to find it. Pull up a PDF of BGE and go to chapter 1. If I can find that stupid pasta I will post it if you want, but I don't have time to look for it.

[Anonymous No.11230642]

>>11229581
>reads nicomachean ethics once

[Anonymous No.11230689]

>>11230642
everyone probably laughed at your post, just letting you know

[Anonymous No.11231176]

>>11227814
No, I'm actually familiar with his works in general.

[Anonymous No.11231370]

>>11231176
Then give us a basic rundown of them?

[Anonymous No.11231603]

>>11231370
I did, his argumentative strategy is the one I posted above whether he's defending libertardianism or moral realism. He thinks he's the god emperor of common sense like Moore did a century ago.

[Anonymous No.11231827]

>>11231603
It looks like you are the one who is being uncharitable.

[Anonymous No.11232769]

>>11231603
Strawman the Post

[Anonymous No.11232973]

>>11230689
I know I did.

[Anonymous No.11233707]

>>11231603
>Libertardianism
I bet you think you are clever punk.

[Anonymous No.11234933]

bump

[Anonymous No.11235788]

>>11233707
This man, in my country he is everything.

[Anonymous No.11236302]

>>11210415
That's not an answer. What's autistic about Reasons and Persons?

[Anonymous No.11236524]

>>11236302
I love how that's the one thing in this thread that catches your attention and you feel is worthy of comment.

[Anonymous No.11236989]

>>11225378
>>11231176
>>11231603

[Anonymous No.11236997]

Anarcho-capitalism is the only work which has reasonable and just ethics.

[Anonymous No.11237030]

>>11236997
Ahh snap this thread just got happening thanks to Hoppe.

[Anonymous No.11237176]

I used to be really into MacIntyre, but have drifted away from him mostly due to Schmitt as it has become increasingly hard to view humans in a positive light. Is there a synthesis of the two of some kind?

[Anonymous No.11238435]

>>11237176
Also interested in this.

[Anonymous No.11239749]

>>11236997
Any recommendations? A reading list perhaps?

[Anonymous No.11239759]

>>11236997
>a priori

oh no no no no no no

[Anonymous No.11239761]

>>11239749
Hoppe offers a lucid starting point even if you binged all of him and branched out from him. Rothbard offers valuable insight into ethics

and then you read Nick Land.

[Anonymous No.11239836]

>>11239761
Thanks, though is there a version of this chart that wasn't made for ants?

[Anonymous No.11239844]

>>11239836
I have a 2160p monitor and I can read the names off the covers at 100% zoom, weird if its too small for you

[Anonymous No.11240013]

>>11239844
Us phoneposters are people too.

[Anonymous No.11240020]

>>11240013
click on the pic you fuckin idiot retard phoneposter

[Anonymous No.11240028]

>>11240013
Hmm, weird issue with your phone then and I don't know how to work around it. Check the thread later from your PC.

[Anonymous No.11240352]

>>11239844
Zooming in makes it big enough to read individual covers but this breaks the flow of seeing the whole chart laid out before one's eyes.

[Anonymous No.11240946]

>>11240028
Checked it and the chart should still be a lot clearer.

[Anonymous No.11241067]

introductory books about ethics?
where should i start?

[Anonymous No.11241081]

>>11193519
sade and kant

[Anonymous No.11241084]

>>11193487
alisdairposting should not be permitted

[Anonymous No.11241300]

>>11241084
Why? I'm intrigued.

[Anonymous No.11241320]

>>11193487
Ethics are a spoke

[Anonymous No.11241791]

>>11241320
And politics is the wheel?

[Anonymous No.11242025]

>>11241067
Read the rest of the thread, we covered that quite a lot really.

[Anonymous No.11242402]

>>11239759
>>11241084

[Anonymous No.11243106]

>>11241320
Give us a synopsis

[Anonymous No.11243650]

>>11243106
Not that poster but just read it.

[Anonymous No.11243669]

>>11243650
Thanks

[Anonymous No.11243813]

>>11236524
I'm the guy he was responding to, so I'm interesting in finishing the conversation.

[Anonymous No.11243950]

>>11243813
Oh well, good luck on your random internet argument/conversation anon!

[Anonymous No.11244011]

>>11230642
Actually Heidegger

[Anonymous No.11244089]

>>11244011
My deigger

[Anonymous No.11244811]

>>11243669
Seriously though. Kissinger's works are fascinating to read. You should really give them a try sometime.

[Anonymous No.11245233]

>>11241084
Your posting should not be permitted.

[Anonymous No.11245245]

>>11217272
If you read plenty of Rawls you would not have formed such an asinine opinion

[Anonymous No.11245261]

>>11243950
What's your point? This entire board is dedicated to having internet arguments and conversations.

[Anonymous No.11245374]

>>11245261
Just being friendly anon! ;3 <3

[Anonymous No.11245827]

>>11245261
What's the point of you asking him what's the point?

[Anonymous No.11246003]

>>11244811
I was planning on it, but I wanted an idea of what it was first.

[Anonymous No.11246601]

>>11246003
I see, report back to us with your thoughts perhaps? Now I'm reminded of a thread with a guy who was going to upload Kissinger's dissertation for us. I wonder what ever happened with that.

[Anonymous No.11247262]

bump

[Anonymous No.11247636]

Goodnight fellow ethics posters, hopefully I'll see you all again the morning.

[Anonymous No.11247892]

>>11246601
I will if I can find a PDF. I'm too lazy to get my ass to the library right now.

[Anonymous No.11247895]

>>11247892
Oh snap, Kissingerposter you are still around?

[Anonymous No.11248768]

>>11247895
I was talking about giving my thoughts on it. I'm not the one that promised the dissertation.

[Anonymous No.11249256]

>>11248768
Oh sorry, got mixed up there

[Anonymous No.11249257]

http://docdro.id/DR0ArEM
I'm not sure I'm convinced

[Anonymous No.11249636]

>>11249257
Tell me more

[Anonymous No.11251229]

Bump

[Anonymous No.11251334]

>>11251229
You've been keeping the thread alive for the past 10 days. Let it go.

[Anonymous No.11252144]

>>11251334
Its not dying on us

[Anonymous No.11252387]

>>11251229
>>11252144
Based

[Anonymous No.11252674]

>>11249257
Extrapolate

[Anonymous No.11253951]

>>11251334
Let me write down the suggestions then it can die. We'll reboot it after some reading

[Anonymous No.11254127]

>>11253951
Take your time anon, we'll be here waiting for you. This is fun after all.

[Anonymous No.11254490]

Bump

[Anonymous No.11254885]

>>11251334
Mad much?

[Anonymous No.11255701]

>>11193487
God I wish I could have him teach me.

[Anonymous No.11256598]

>>11255701
You could read his book

[Anonymous No.11256805]

>>11256598
I have. Still love studying under the people themselves.

[Anonymous No.11257140]

>>11256598
>People on /lit/ reading the book

[Anonymous No.11257515]

>>11247892
Did you go to the library yet anon? <3

[Anonymous No.11258270]

>>11257515
No, my library card is expired so I've been studying for the written exam

[Anonymous No.11258730]

>>11193519
You only need to read Aristotle and Nietzsche.

Rest are nonsense.

[Anonymous No.11258768]

>>11258730

[Anonymous No.11258774]

>>11258730
Honestly cannot tell if this is bait or not.

[Anonymous No.11259172]

>>11257140

[Anonymous No.11260167]

>12 day thread

[Anonymous No.11260207]

>>11194363
So far I've seen no necessity. Also, I've tried many times to make a clear idea of "hierarchical causal series" but couldn't. Maybe you can clear it to me by giving me examples.

[Anonymous No.11260464]

>>11260167
>Post about how it is a 12 day thread

[Anonymous No.11261154]

>>11260207
Lobsters

[Anonymous No.11261756]

>>11259172
I'm listening, what did you want to tell me anon? ;)

[Anonymous No.11262324]

>>11259172
God, I wish that were me.

[Anonymous No.11262395]

>>11237176
>>11238435
>virtue is good
>but humans are inherently sinful

Have I got a writer for you.

[Anonymous No.11262544]

>>11262395
Amazing. Anything else I ought to know or should I just dive in kind Christposter?

[Anonymous No.11262550]

>>11262544
Just the order of things:

Start with the Confessions, because that's what everyone starts with, and it's very easy to relate to while also being very profound.

Then read the Enchiridion, it's a shorter work but nonetheless very profound.

And if you like those two, then you're ready for the big leagues and can read the City of God. I might also suggest, among his numerous dialogues and treatises, reading "On Free Choice of the Will."

[Anonymous No.11263121]

>>11262550
Thanks again. Anyone besides Hippo which you would recommend for those seeking guidance?

[Anonymous No.11263132]

>>11262395
>Autopanopticon of Hippo
no thanks

[Anonymous No.11263146]

>>11262395
>>11262550
>St. "The world is only 6,000 years old even tho there is already archeological data in my time that disproves this and literally no one thinks that the Creation account of Genesis should be taken literally except for me" Augustine
No thanks. Stay away from this subversive Manichean. Stick with the Apostolic church fathers.

[Anonymous No.11263155]

>>11263146
>Orthotrash

[Anonymous No.11263630]

>>11263155
What do I need to know about this person?

[Anonymous No.11263713]

>>11263630
He will terrify you with how devoted to God he is.

[Anonymous No.11264133]

>>11263713
I'm intrigued, tell me more Sarahnon.

[Anonymous No.11264170]

how much do normative desires play a role in determining an objective ethical system

[Anonymous No.11264485]

>>11264133
It's instructive to look at just how upset he makes certain segments of the institutional Church:

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/02/23/cardinal-sarah-receiving-communion-hand-part-diabolical-attack-faith

[Anonymous No.11265858]

>>11264170
If you subscribe to a telology then they don't, otherwise they are pretty much the base of it.

[Anonymous No.11265905]

Ethics separated from God are implausible.

[Anonymous No.11267101]

>>11265905
I suggest you go stick your hand on a hot stove, immediately.

[Anonymous No.11267866]

>>11265905
*tips religious head wear*

[Anonymous No.11268088]

>>11193487
Read Hilary Putnam's "Ethics Without Ontology."

[Anonymous No.11268678]

>>11268088
Hillary (((Putnam)))

[Anonymous No.11269882]

bump

[Anonymous No.11270044]

>>11265858
But how do you determine a teleological end without normative values coming into play?

[Anonymous No.11270097]

>>11270044
Because a lot of virtue ethicists argue that descriptive terms are themselves value laden, thus the idea of what is a human being for them contains the necessary values for the teleology.

[Anonymous No.11270386]

>>11270097
But what if you don't follow virtue ethics?

[Anonymous No.11270434]

>>11270386
Then you don't value a teleological approach to ethics.

[Anonymous No.11270462]

>>11270097
>thus the idea of what is a human being for them contains the necessary values for the teleology.
Doesnt that create inconsistencies and problems unless you have say a religious dogma or revelation?

[Anonymous No.11270512]

>>11270462
Not in the least. A super basic rundown would be something like if we think of a watch, it contains in the very idea of what it is to be a good or bad watch. You can't define a watch without also talking about what it is that it does. So to describe it as a time keeping device implicitly means that a good watch does this and a bad watch doesn't. Humans are a lot more tricky because we are self-reflexive and much more multifaceted than a watch. But it's the basic starting point.
Just remember that the revival of virtue ethics is an analytic thing. It's autistic to the fuck rather than religious dogma like.

[Anonymous No.11270531]

>>11270512
>Humans are a lot more tricky because we are self-reflexive and much more multifaceted than a watch. But it's the basic starting point.
Thats kind of the problem for me with it because if we use something like a biological view someone like octomum is an extremely virtuous above say Kant or Aquinas.

[Anonymous No.11270670]

>>11270531
Only if you took the absolutely absurdly simple conclusion that the only purpose of a human life is for maximum possible procreation. Teleological approaches to ethics are also never just biological. As I said before it was just a very basic starting point as an explanation. You are pretty much going to have to do your own homework from here since we are now only at the point where we could talk of the teleology of Aristotle, Aquinas, or MacIntyre because there conceptions of what the human telos is is so different. Also I'm not so sure I'm up for the task of explaining it much more detail anyone. It wasn't exactly a topic I focused on at all.

[Anonymous No.11270678]

>>11270670
>Only if you took the absolutely absurdly simple conclusion
It feels like anything complex introduces more subjective valuation.
>Aristotle, Aquinas, or MacIntyre
Are there any non religious teleological writers?

>It wasn't exactly a topic I focused on at all.
I appreciate your help so far nonetheless.

[Anonymous No.11270693]

>>11270678
If you prefer non-religious stuff, you should go with teleonomy rather than teleology.

[Anonymous No.11270762]

>>11270678
>Are there any non religious teleological writers?
Take your pic. Most stoics and Aristotelians, many Platonists. I also don't see why someones religious belief matters if it doesn't effect the element of philosophy in question. It makes about as much sense to ask for a non-religious writer who responds to Frege. Virtue ethics has seen a major revival in the last 70 years in analytic philosophy. That doesn't just happen because a bunch of theologians decide to base a teleology on God. So in light of that the vast majority of all work done in the field is irreligious.

>Aristotle
Aristotle was not religious. Sure he talked about a God but so did Spinoza and he is almost universally considered an atheist.
>MacIntyre
His Catholicism doesn't come into play for grounding of his virtue ethics.

[Anonymous No.11270904]

>>11270762
>I also don't see why someones religious belief matters if it doesn't effect the element of philosophy in question.
Because it provides a workable answer to the problem mentioned in the previous posts but one which works under a pretty special assumption.
>Aristotle was not religious
Unlike his metaphysics can his teleology work with the religious element?
>MacIntyre
How does he get around the normative problem?

[Anonymous No.11270932]

>>11270904
Normative problem?

[Anonymous No.11270940]

>>11270932
determining the teleological ends without letting normative values get in the way

[Anonymous No.11270947]

>>11270940
You'll have to elaborate on that because I fail to see how that's an issue.

[Anonymous No.11270997]

>>11270947
Just the is-ought problem and how virtue ethics deal with it.

[Anonymous No.11271090]

>>11270904
>but one which works under a pretty special assumption
No it doesn't. If the argument is not connected to any sort of religious element then it does not matter at all if the person making the argument is religious. You are literally arguing that all teleological arguments by religious people must be grounded in their religious belief even if it isn't. There is no special religious assumption being made when the persons arguments have nothing to do with their faith.

>can his teleology work with the religious element
There is no religious element to Aristotle's philosophy so I don't understand what you are talking about.

>How does he get around the normative problem?
Check my response to the person below.

>>11270997
That was already discussed when I gave the example of the idea of the watch being inseparable from value judgments. For many, perhaps most, perhaps all (while I believe it is an essential element of it I am not up to date at all with the breadth of work happening in this branch of normative ethics) virtue ethicists think the is-ought distinction doesn't apply to ethics. Their is a conceptual leap you have to make because teleological thinking is so dead that most people can't even imagine what it really means for a system of normative ethics. I can tell you haven't made the leap because after hearing the watch analogy you bring up the is-ought problem when the watch analogy itself is the argument against it. Whether or not you agree once you have made that leap then at least you can understand their position. I highly doubt I can help you make that leap on 4chan. Reading MacIntyre did it for me, reading Aristotle did it for my friend.

[Anonymous No.11271766]

>>11270904
Any other more contemporary philosophers working in virtue ethics that I ought to read, or just MacIntyre?

[Anonymous No.11272226]

>>11271090
I don't think the watch example is a good case for teleology. A watch is an artefact whose end is not its own, that is, something it "desires", but simply what we had in mind when designing it. We, unlike a watch, are natural beings, not artefacts. So the example doesn't get one over the is-ought problem in the least.

[Anonymous No.11272492]

>>11272226
Agreed

[Anonymous No.11272661]

join general lit discord

https://discord.gg/kEmXQYW

[Anonymous No.11272678]

This book seems like fraudulent nonsense. Look at the link and quote below. Is this just some academic trying to sneak in his unfalsifiable beliefs

http://slatestarcodex.com/2013/04/10/book-review-after-virtue-or-somebody-here-is-really-confused-and-i-just-hope-its-not-me/

As far as I can tell, MacIntyre’s central argument works something like this:

1. There are many theories of ethics in existence today
2. The ones that came after Aristotelianism have failed to objectively ground themselves and create a perfect society in which everyone agrees on a foundation for morality
4. Therefore, we should return to Aristotelianism

You may notice a hole where one might place a Step 3, something like “Aristotelianism, in contrast,didobjectively ground itself and create a perfect society in which everyone agreed on a foundation for morality.” This is exactly the argument MacIntyre digresses into a lengthy explanation of how much he likes Greek tragedy to hope we will avoid noticing him not making.

[Anonymous No.11272852]

>>11272661
Fuck off /soc/.

[Anonymous No.11273075]

>>11272678
A lot of this post makes criticisms of MacIntyre that I would say are true and that I agree with: you can read my posts here: >>11200436 >>11202059

I would say that article leaves out the strengths of virtue ethics. Though consequentialism is a theory of total utility, it ultimately fails to leave out the extra-theoretical aspects of ethics, most notably that the prudence to apply a theory and the institutions that sanctify the human relations that educate theory, which are nevertheless empirical. Virtue ethics is also inseparable from a theory of sovereignty that recognizes that those institutions that sanction the capacity for ethical decision must in some sense be removed from theory and deliberation.

[Anonymous No.11273348]

>>11273075
Any recommended readings to fill in the gaps?

[Anonymous No.11274321]

>>11273075
TLDR: check out my blog on 4chan guys.

[Anonymous No.11274342]

>>11272678
macIntyre's argument is just that ethics require a telos. Like that is basically it. He later wrote a more autistic book about like dolphins where he argues that only theories from biology can provide this telos.

[Anonymous No.11274360]

MacIntyre is correct about the problems of the enlightenment and later theoretical groundworks, but the correct and only solution is divine command ethics, especifically Catholicism (the correct religion), not virtue ethics by itself. The problem with him is that he thinks Vatican II and its people are catholic, when they're not.

[Anonymous No.11274375]

>>11274360
Divine command ethics? Care to elaborate?

[Anonymous No.11274422]

>>11274375
"Divine command theory" article on Wikipedia for a brief overview. All non-theological morality is based either on made-up metaphysical starting points or mere individual human preference. In the end it all comes to men-made ethics, which can't be binding in a universal fashion, something different from a divine command ethics. Catholicism being the correct religion, with an institution that is the monopoly of dogmatic understanding (the Church) is the only way to escape from the infinite regress problem.

[Anonymous No.11274474]

>>11274422
Yes but how does this solve the debate about what is right to do? Anyone can claim they were commanded by God in such and such way

[Anonymous No.11274479]

>>11271090
> I can tell you haven't made the leap because after hearing the watch analogy you bring up the is-ought problem when the watch analogy itself is the argument against it.
Do you have another example? Watches dont make for a particularly close analogy to humans which is why its hard to make the leap you speak of and why such a crude biological answer seems to be the product of it without revelation.

Which argument of Mac made the leap for you?

[Anonymous No.11274501]

>>11274474
God doesn't command people individually to do things, except in very few cases - miracles - that need to be recognized by the Church as true. Other than that, all rules are laid down on the Bible and the dogmatic pronouncements of the Church. You have a full system of ethics from Catholicism with very little rooms for discussion and detailment, which came from recognized theologians such as Aquinas.

[Anonymous No.11274578]

>>11274501
But rules and dogmatic pronouncements of the Church are still "man-made" demonstrations with strictly Christian premises and axioms. This doesn't avoid the problem MacIntyre lays out about incommensurable but mutually consistent and logical systems.

[Anonymous No.11274608]

>>11198106
>People only read the stoics to LARP as a Roman. It's usually only done by the most pathetic people.
So you're a pretentious twat?

[Anonymous No.11275262]

>>11274608
t. a pretentious twat who is just projecting

[Anonymous No.11276035]

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