Applying the subjective, Part II

**Gary Wassner** · March 18th, 2008, 02:39 PM

Tell me what's wrong with it then, without reverting to apriori principles?

**Hereford Eye** · March 18th, 2008, 03:15 PM

Hey, no fair! I asserted the proposition. You have a problem with it, then you take it on, without resorting to a priori principles.

**Gary Wassner** · March 18th, 2008, 03:24 PM

Okay.

Nothing's wrong with killing.

**Hereford Eye** · March 18th, 2008, 04:40 PM

Does that make two of us then or if I changed the wording to: "killing is good" would you revize your concurrence? See, I suspect there is something in the language of the original assertion that allows you to concur but that may not appear in the revised assertion.
How about multiple choice?
(a) killing is good
(b) killing is bad
(c) killing is neither good nor bad; it just is.

**Gary Wassner** · March 18th, 2008, 06:16 PM

Saying that killing is either good or bad presupposes a value system. The statements need qualification. Killing is bad because..... Or good because..... Then and only then can we determine if there's any validity to the claims.

Is there anything inherently wrong with killing itself? The act of killing? NO. It's an action. Out of any context, it's value neutral.

**Hereford Eye** · March 18th, 2008, 08:58 PM

Saying that killing is either good or bad presupposes a value system.

Then, it follows that morality presupposes a value system. Is this a chicken or egg thing?

**falcon57** · March 19th, 2008, 06:47 AM

I suggest that you two watch the movie 'Rope' directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Have fun

**Hereford Eye** · March 19th, 2008, 08:17 AM

C'mon, Falcon57. "Rope" had to be 50 years ago. I saw it, can picture Robert Conte walking around with the rope but no way I remember the plot line and dialogue. Give us some help here. If we watched the movie again what would we see?

**Gary Wassner** · March 19th, 2008, 08:19 AM

HE, any cultural morality presupposes a value system. And isn't all morality cultural? What's the alternative? God given truths? Tablets brought down from the mountain by Moses? Sounds like presuppostions to me.

**Hereford Eye** · March 19th, 2008, 08:38 AM

So, the original question should not have been whether morality aesthetics but whether value systems are? Take a person who puts a high value on life:
(1) Disinterested. A person can enjoy life, all life, for its own sake.
(2) Universal. (3) Necessary. Everyone places emphasis on their own life but not necessarily on anyone or anything else's life.
(3) Purposive Without Purpose. If the person is Albert Schweitzer or the Buddha, then the enjoyment has no purpose other than itself.
Two out of four ain't bad but it won't get you to an aesthetic.

**Gary Wassner** · March 19th, 2008, 08:53 AM

Same question just about, isn't it? Value systems are the foundations for moral systems. One's more theorhetical and one more practical, that's all, wouldn't you say?

**Hereford Eye** · March 19th, 2008, 09:37 AM

Originally Posted by Float Like a Butterfly

Same question just about, isn't it? Value systems are the foundations for moral systems.
any cultural morality presupposes a value system. And isn't all morality cultural?

If morality presupposes a value system and value systems are the foundation of moral systems, then, the inference is that value systems are individual and moral systems are confluences of value systems. Nominally, the fact that value systems are not aesthetic does not preclude moral systems from attaining that plateau. But, I think we've already dispensed with the proposition that moral systems are aesthetic.
So, now we can return to the argument about the source of value systems. We can expect a hard-wired argument, a socialization argument, and a individual responsibility argument.

**Gary Wassner** · March 19th, 2008, 12:00 PM

Did we dispense with the idea that moral systems are aesthetic? I'm not sure. In fact, the entire arguement in favor of a moral system as just a matter of aesthetics hinges upon the inability to ground it aside from accepting aprioris. It therefore becomes a matter of taste, hence aesthetics.

**Hereford Eye** · March 19th, 2008, 12:38 PM

Originally Posted by Post #125

Having arrived at a point where we think the question to be framed in Kantian aesthetics can we venture an answer to the original question? Is that answer: No?
Arrived at because a given morality is neither universal nor purposive without purpose. Any universality of a given morality is confined to the subscribers thereto. If we consider the morality within the confines of its true believers, then it has achieved universality for the subset of the population. But, the morality has a purpose; it has an explication of a vision of what a person might be if that person conformed to and achieved that perfect morality. While you can weasel your way around universality can you weasel your way around purpose?

Are you contributing to my inferiority complex by ignoring profound posts that I pen? Is it that you like Flung Poo better than me? Hmmm? .

**Gary Wassner** · March 19th, 2008, 01:44 PM

Is paranoia aesthetic?

No, but we're talking a bit cross purposes here.

Something can be agreed upon and still be arrived at via aesthetic criteria as opposed to logic or universal truths, no?