this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2024
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He should read some Kant and Hume.
He may have read both - apparently he's very well read. My guess is he would disagree with Hume on that point, but I don't know the guy.
Well Hume was right. Reason can't derive axioms. It can't create purpose from nothing. It can't solve the is-ought problem. Passion can. Passion can say "the world should be like this. Why? Because I want it to be". Reason can't do that. And thus, reason should exist only to serve passion.
IMO it should be cyclical. Passion provides ideals and goals, reason can help work towards those but also evaluate them and refine them.
Like once upon a time, I wanted a high end sports car. But over time, through reason, I realized that owning one would be more of a net negative than a positive in many ways and now I wouldn't likely get one even if it would be trivial to afford. I'd like to not even need a car at all, but reason has me recognizing that that also wouldn't be a positive given that I live in an area where mass transit infrastructure is poor.
This boils down to having conflicting passions/goals and using reason to resolve them (like wanting a sports car while also wanting to afford other things and to reduce my environmental impact and not driving a sports car is a very easy way, trivial even, to have less impact than driving one).
OTOH reason has kept a roof over my head when my passion would have had me do Arduino projects or write D&D campaigns instead of working. Maybe Hume's gf had a job.
You were probably more passionate about keeping a roof over your head.
No, the word "dispassionate" perfectly describes when I'm forced to work on necessities instead of things I love.
This statement needs to get on a T-shirt
Or motivational poster
OTOH it won't get the dishes done or check the air in the car tires.
Why should you have a roof over your head? If emotions are irrelevant, what's the difference between that and being homeless?
Survival. The emotions are ultimately just crude tools the brain and body have for promoting the survival of the person.
Their crudeness is probably best illustrated with phobias.
If emotions are irrelevant, why survive? Why not lie down and die? You say it's not your fear of death or your love of life. Is it some form of worship of the purpose evolution has given you? That sounds emotional to drag.
I didn’t say they were irrelevant, I said they’re tools of survival. They’re obviously useful. People without any emotions at all just sit there with what looks like a catatonic state.
But being a slave to your emotions is nothing to aspire to. Far better to pick the emotional states you want to have. For me it’s enjoying deep focus on a task, having a lively conversation, sharing a great meal, laughing at a great joke, or cheering on a great play in sports.
Being a slave to your emotions is like being a ship tossed about on stormy seas. Emotional regulation is a skill that must be learned like any other. We’re supposed to teach it to young children, though increasingly I find myself meeting adults who don’t even have the basics down. People screaming at each other like angry birds!
The tougher one of course is learning how to overcome depression. That may need different strategies for different people. Mindfulness works for me but maybe not for everyone.
No, you're describing a situation where the passions are in charge, and reason is helping the passions feel good.
We disagree on what these words mean. There’s no further progress to be had here while that impasse remains.
Most scholars agree that Hume means what drag said.
I feel like I'm learning a decent amount from this thread. I definitely consider myself a (overly) rational person. I haven't really thought about it before, but obviously I've still got some passions driving things.
If I was to put it into words, I'd probably say I'm passionate about learning how things work and finding elegant simple solutions to problems. Which is generally tied to my selfish goal of having more free time to just experience the world without responsibilities.
Thanks for inspiring me to think about this, maybe I should go read some more philosophy...
Something I've come to realize recently is that everyone has selfish motivations, some people are just a lot more careful about how those motivations effect others. Personally I worry quite a bit about how I might be inconveniencing others with my actions, and tend to stay rather isolated as a result.
I don't think they'd find that very insightful.
It's plain hedonism. I'm sure they're familiar with the idea.
Hedonism is obviously the best ethical theory. Bentham had the right idea
Bentham developed hedonistic calculus. The foundation is a multivariate ethical vector space. He rationalized hedonism to the extreme. The passions are explicitly tempered for a calculated greater good.
That's what reasons existing to serve the passions means.
No? Once reason restricts passion, the hierarchy collapses. An action that causes yourself mild pain, but pleasure of greater extent to others, is preferable to an action that causes many others pain even if it gives you pleasure personally. Reason demands you restrain yourself from the passions that would harm others. That's not unilateral fealty. Axioms must be assumed, but the most powerful systems assume as few as possible, and leave most of the legwork to reason.
Empathy is a passion. Without empathy, there's no justification for helping others at your own expense.
It's not exactly something everyone has. There are quite a few psychopaths and sociopaths and a huge amount of narcissists out there
Do you think there are more people with NPD than ASPD?
Rudimentary Google gives me ~6.2% vs. 0.2- 3.3%, why?
Put that with the 6.2%, and that makes it sound like most personality disorders are NPD. That sounds unbalanced and suspect. Where did you get that figure? Drag always heard 1% for each.
How does that study account for the fact a high income individual is significantly more likely to have access to a doctor to diagnose them with a personality disorder?
Shut up, "drag".
I disagree. Reason can take you there by virtue of justice or equality.
How can pure reason arrive at any understanding of justice?
I am a sentient creature that feels pain and pleasure
Others appear to be sentient creatures that feel pain and pleasure
Pain is bad, so I should avoid inflicting it
You don't need empathy as an axiom to derive it rationally
Statement #3 is hearsay. I would argue the only thing you can know is that you personally do not like pain. There is no absolute good or bad, only what aligns or doesn't with your passions (using the term loosely here).
The Golden Rule of "treating others as one would want to be treated", is a logical conclusion that comes from experiencing the world and seeing that there's a high probability that others will return actions in kind. It's not perfect since everyone has different preferences (just look at the variety of sexualities and kinks out there).
It is the logical extension of noticing the similarities between yourself and others, and noticing that you do not enjoy pain. It's certainly not mathematically rigorous, but it follows from simple reasoning nonetheless. If you wanted to be rigorous, you can't even claim that you don't like pain, only that you haven't liked specific instances of pain in the past. Some estimations are necessary for a functioning framework of any kind, including ethics.
I agree that it's possible to arrive at the conclusion "pain is bad" as an individual, but I guess what I'm arguing is that there's no absolute hard line on what is and isn't ethical. Each individual person might have their own personal line, but there is no guarantee that line will be the same as another person's. Case-in-point, a psychopath is someone with reduced or no empathy for others. They may very well not consider pain in others bad at all.
So? Just because someone chooses not to follow the reason, that doesn't make the reason invalid. If anything you're only proving the failures of a passion-driven ethical model, if the psychopath's passion is inflicting pain there's nothing to keep them from behaving unethically.
Pain and pleasure are passions. You said you were gonna use pure reason. Not use reason as an aid to passions.
I mean it's the only one that explains why we actually do anything at all