This post was written on my phone originally in a facebook message to my buddy Jason. By the time I finished I figured it might be worth posting. This post is turning into a dialogue. So why not change it as such?!
Ryan: So, I had some thoughts in a sbux, but no pen to write them down so I might as well write them here. I was thinking about knowledge (K) and how there are gradations of K and that perfect perfect K is utterly impossible for ordinary man. I remember two girls who in high school told me I was a negative person and shouldn't be " neg neg" but more "pos pos". Juvenile terms, I even thought so then. But if there is a filter between us and the real world-- sense perception, a grandeur in the ego or super ego, conceptual framework, subjectivity, etc- then perhaps general disposition and outlook on life has something to do with distortion of reality to the mind as well. In being overly optimistic or pessimistic towards the set of circumstances or events in reality, something is missed or twisted. Years ago I wrote about being dysphemistic--putting something into terms that are qualitatively no better than the original statement. Even if its not putting a positive or negative spin on reality it still has a spin of its own in virtue of translating something about reality. Back then I equated dysphemism with a rational view of the world. Now I think that being so allows for no more grasp of the world than otherwise. Because knowledge is graded, perfect knowledge of the world is unattainable regardless of disposition, be it positive or negative or altogether apathetic. The great irony in all of this is that in suggesting that this is how knowledge is and we cannot perfectly grasp reality, my own grasp of reality and the theory put forth is subjected to the same criticism.
Jason: I think you just need to be ‘uber-pos-pos’ Ryan. The higheschool teenie boppers were onto something, they just left out the ‘uber.’ Common mistake. Very intelecctually juvenile.
Despite our ability to play-down negative events in our lives with justification that it was’ meant to be’, the mere fact is that the event occurred outside of our perceptions, due to the reality of objectivity in the universe. We can look at negative events positvely ( all is for a good cause) in neutrality ( ex. the Stoic philosophy to take life as it comes, unsuprised by any events, in order to free yourself from the anxiety and sress of the external world, similar to you’re dysphemism if I understand it, pure reason) or pessimistically. (Schopenhauer? Work, worry, toil and trouble are indeed the lot of all men their whole life, aka. life sucks, has sucked, will suck, and will continue to suck until death, the thought of which is the only respite from suffering.) What I am getting at is, despite any of these subjective emotions, an event indeed ocurred. An event that is not necearrily bound by our subjections upon it, but by the laws of nature, and divine law if one acribes to such thought. At any rate, events do occur, whether we pin feelings on them or not, and events are either moral or amoral. Can there be anything such as an event that has no moral value? Taking a nice afternoon stroll outside seems like a good bet. Yet is there a moral difference between a hard working and upright citizen taking a stroll after an honest day’s work over that of a criminal who spent his day implementing a fradualent scheme on innocent victims? Are our actions isolated in such a way? A true morality, in my opinion, infinite and outside of time, would not let the criminal obtain moral immunity so quick and easy. Human will is in a constant state of overlapping itself, bad with good, good with bad, its hard to truly isolate actions by their sequrence or chronology. What I mean is even in the trivial matters that we pick apart and isolate from the whole, subjectivity is never relative, and always tied to a deeper level of understanding, even if we are unable to attain it. Hence, subjectivity always binded to morality.
So perhaps there is a ‘right’ disposition in most circumstances. Human beings are subjective creatures, so I do not fool myself into thinking we can attain perfection in our attitudes, yet we certainly do try to improve. Just this idea of ‘betting oneself’ and ‘changing out attitudes’ seems to me a good indicator that subjections have more moral weight than they would appear to have.
And if moral values take precedent over subjectivity, perhaps all 3 above mentioned dispositions may be morally correct in different circumstances. Although we always view these moral values trough and within our own subjectivity, they may exist outside of such. I think this is pretty much what Kant tried to expose in the metaphysics of morals, that there is a universal morality outside of out subjections.
Ryan: I find it interesting that you shifted to a line of reasoning giving regard to moral considerations of dispositions. When I was pecking it out on my phone, I had more in mind (obvious pun) epistemological considerations with regard to dispositions. Years ago I wrote about dysphemism. Looking back there was a lot of personal nonsense mixed in that really distorted what I thought at the time. What I thought at the time was that dysphemism is in some way tied to a rational view of the world--a view of the world that sees it for what it is in itself. Now I tend to think that the world 'an sich' is unknowable in a complete sense, something Kant would likely assent to. As such, dysphemism and a rational view of the world might have a greater knowledge of reality, but not a perfect one. It distorts reality or gives a certain picture of it that isn't the complete story.
I hadn't really given much thought to moral considerations. But let's give it a shot. With regard to dispositions, it's hard to say whether or not one disposition is the 'right' one. I certainly wouldn't want to argue that one disposition is right in every scenario. Imagine someone who was perpetually optimistic, even in the darkest of times. A) It would drive those around them nuts. B)Others around them would think them nuts. C) Functionally, someone like that would be completely incapable of dealing with the volume of challenges that would be apparent to someone of a different epistemological disposition.
Perhaps one might argue that there is a right disposition for every situation. Even that I am not fully convinced as it seems that various dispositions could be helpful in a given situation. Imagine for instance, that a woman has lost a loved one. She may need a friend of an optimistic disposition to cheer her up, a friend of pessimistic disposition to motivate her to keep going and get out of bed in the morning, and a friend of dysphemistic disposition to help them rationalize and cope with the loss. Is one really 'right'? All are certainly 'good', but I'm not convinced that one or the other is the only right way.
You said that, "Human will is in a constant state of overlapping itself, bad with good, good with bad, its hard to truly isolate actions by their sequrence or chronology. What I mean is even in the trivial matters that we pick apart and isolate from the whole, subjectivity is never relative, and always tied to a deeper level of understanding, even if we are unable to attain it." Especially with regard to the ethical, philosophers have a way of picking apart and isolating such events to determine whether or not they are ethical. But as you questioned, is there really an action that isn't moral? If it's true, then amidst the multitude of the infinite moral actions taken every day, how often do we really pick apart the reasoning for them. Often times they are just passive. In this way, the moral affects the disposition of the subject. In passively making moral decisions, our disposition is shifted--towards the optimistic, dysphemistic, and pessimistic in varying degrees. Because disposition affects our ability to know reality, perhaps morality passively also affects our knowledge of the world?
Ryan: So, I had some thoughts in a sbux, but no pen to write them down so I might as well write them here. I was thinking about knowledge (K) and how there are gradations of K and that perfect perfect K is utterly impossible for ordinary man. I remember two girls who in high school told me I was a negative person and shouldn't be " neg neg" but more "pos pos". Juvenile terms, I even thought so then. But if there is a filter between us and the real world-- sense perception, a grandeur in the ego or super ego, conceptual framework, subjectivity, etc- then perhaps general disposition and outlook on life has something to do with distortion of reality to the mind as well. In being overly optimistic or pessimistic towards the set of circumstances or events in reality, something is missed or twisted. Years ago I wrote about being dysphemistic--putting something into terms that are qualitatively no better than the original statement. Even if its not putting a positive or negative spin on reality it still has a spin of its own in virtue of translating something about reality. Back then I equated dysphemism with a rational view of the world. Now I think that being so allows for no more grasp of the world than otherwise. Because knowledge is graded, perfect knowledge of the world is unattainable regardless of disposition, be it positive or negative or altogether apathetic. The great irony in all of this is that in suggesting that this is how knowledge is and we cannot perfectly grasp reality, my own grasp of reality and the theory put forth is subjected to the same criticism.
Jason: I think you just need to be ‘uber-pos-pos’ Ryan. The higheschool teenie boppers were onto something, they just left out the ‘uber.’ Common mistake. Very intelecctually juvenile.
Despite our ability to play-down negative events in our lives with justification that it was’ meant to be’, the mere fact is that the event occurred outside of our perceptions, due to the reality of objectivity in the universe. We can look at negative events positvely ( all is for a good cause) in neutrality ( ex. the Stoic philosophy to take life as it comes, unsuprised by any events, in order to free yourself from the anxiety and sress of the external world, similar to you’re dysphemism if I understand it, pure reason) or pessimistically. (Schopenhauer? Work, worry, toil and trouble are indeed the lot of all men their whole life, aka. life sucks, has sucked, will suck, and will continue to suck until death, the thought of which is the only respite from suffering.) What I am getting at is, despite any of these subjective emotions, an event indeed ocurred. An event that is not necearrily bound by our subjections upon it, but by the laws of nature, and divine law if one acribes to such thought. At any rate, events do occur, whether we pin feelings on them or not, and events are either moral or amoral. Can there be anything such as an event that has no moral value? Taking a nice afternoon stroll outside seems like a good bet. Yet is there a moral difference between a hard working and upright citizen taking a stroll after an honest day’s work over that of a criminal who spent his day implementing a fradualent scheme on innocent victims? Are our actions isolated in such a way? A true morality, in my opinion, infinite and outside of time, would not let the criminal obtain moral immunity so quick and easy. Human will is in a constant state of overlapping itself, bad with good, good with bad, its hard to truly isolate actions by their sequrence or chronology. What I mean is even in the trivial matters that we pick apart and isolate from the whole, subjectivity is never relative, and always tied to a deeper level of understanding, even if we are unable to attain it. Hence, subjectivity always binded to morality.
So perhaps there is a ‘right’ disposition in most circumstances. Human beings are subjective creatures, so I do not fool myself into thinking we can attain perfection in our attitudes, yet we certainly do try to improve. Just this idea of ‘betting oneself’ and ‘changing out attitudes’ seems to me a good indicator that subjections have more moral weight than they would appear to have.
And if moral values take precedent over subjectivity, perhaps all 3 above mentioned dispositions may be morally correct in different circumstances. Although we always view these moral values trough and within our own subjectivity, they may exist outside of such. I think this is pretty much what Kant tried to expose in the metaphysics of morals, that there is a universal morality outside of out subjections.
Ryan: I find it interesting that you shifted to a line of reasoning giving regard to moral considerations of dispositions. When I was pecking it out on my phone, I had more in mind (obvious pun) epistemological considerations with regard to dispositions. Years ago I wrote about dysphemism. Looking back there was a lot of personal nonsense mixed in that really distorted what I thought at the time. What I thought at the time was that dysphemism is in some way tied to a rational view of the world--a view of the world that sees it for what it is in itself. Now I tend to think that the world 'an sich' is unknowable in a complete sense, something Kant would likely assent to. As such, dysphemism and a rational view of the world might have a greater knowledge of reality, but not a perfect one. It distorts reality or gives a certain picture of it that isn't the complete story.
I hadn't really given much thought to moral considerations. But let's give it a shot. With regard to dispositions, it's hard to say whether or not one disposition is the 'right' one. I certainly wouldn't want to argue that one disposition is right in every scenario. Imagine someone who was perpetually optimistic, even in the darkest of times. A) It would drive those around them nuts. B)Others around them would think them nuts. C) Functionally, someone like that would be completely incapable of dealing with the volume of challenges that would be apparent to someone of a different epistemological disposition.
Perhaps one might argue that there is a right disposition for every situation. Even that I am not fully convinced as it seems that various dispositions could be helpful in a given situation. Imagine for instance, that a woman has lost a loved one. She may need a friend of an optimistic disposition to cheer her up, a friend of pessimistic disposition to motivate her to keep going and get out of bed in the morning, and a friend of dysphemistic disposition to help them rationalize and cope with the loss. Is one really 'right'? All are certainly 'good', but I'm not convinced that one or the other is the only right way.
You said that, "Human will is in a constant state of overlapping itself, bad with good, good with bad, its hard to truly isolate actions by their sequrence or chronology. What I mean is even in the trivial matters that we pick apart and isolate from the whole, subjectivity is never relative, and always tied to a deeper level of understanding, even if we are unable to attain it." Especially with regard to the ethical, philosophers have a way of picking apart and isolating such events to determine whether or not they are ethical. But as you questioned, is there really an action that isn't moral? If it's true, then amidst the multitude of the infinite moral actions taken every day, how often do we really pick apart the reasoning for them. Often times they are just passive. In this way, the moral affects the disposition of the subject. In passively making moral decisions, our disposition is shifted--towards the optimistic, dysphemistic, and pessimistic in varying degrees. Because disposition affects our ability to know reality, perhaps morality passively also affects our knowledge of the world?
