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Generalizations

Your essay made about a dozen claims of what "liberals" believe.  Certainly not everyone who could be classed as a liberal believes all of these things.  Your formulations of the liberal claims themselves are expressed vaguely, so "liberal" is a generalization made up of generalizations.

One question:  Do you disagree with certain propositions because they are liberal, or do you label the propositions "liberal" because you disagree with them?

posted by stonedead on May 29, 2008 at 9:44 PM | link to this | reply

serious seeking requires asking questions

knowing the answers is not knowledge at all

posted by Xeno-x on November 29, 2006 at 5:40 AM | link to this | reply

GoldenMean RE: Your Comment-My Blog

I don't feel amorous today...

but I surely will tomorrow. With my lovely wife. If she feels the same. As we rejoice in the ebb and flow of life. It is a grand cycle of extremes, which we can resist or enjoy, wouldn't you agree, Mysteria?

I would most certainly agree, and BTW you come across with the grace that is witnessed when I watch nature at her finest.

Charmed to make your acquaintance and keep your company.     (((GM)))

posted by mysteria on July 31, 2005 at 9:52 PM | link to this | reply

Where have you gone?

I look forward to reading more.

posted by archiew on July 31, 2005 at 3:08 PM | link to this | reply

Golden Mean: my apologies

Here's a comment you posted in response more than a month ago that I only today noticed. Sorry for the delay. When I don't respond, it's a pretty safe bet that it's because I didn't see it. Sorry. I posted your comment and then my belated response:

DV

Thanks for the input. I didn't know Rand's reaction to the "lifeboat dilemma." Her response that we don't live in lifeboats was indeed a ignoble evasion, that disappoints me. In a way, our entire planet is a lifeboat in space, and each nation is a lifeboat on the sea of human survival. The lifeboat dilemma, the question of who survives in disaster or war, is forced upon more people than most of us can imagine.

I wish I could challenge Rand with a modification of the lifeboat dilemma, in which one passenger tries to murder another. What would be Rand's reaction to that? Just let them do it, or risk your own life to stop them? The selfish approach would be to let them do it. One less person in the lifeboat increases the rations and the chances of survival for everyone else. But the immorality of this should be obvious to everyone. Rand's reluctance to sacrifice seems to go too far.

I think I know why Ayn Rand was so philosophically opposed to selfless love and sacrifice. Rand escaped from Russia in the 1920's, when Lenin was building his new utopia of Communism, by destroying individual freedom and filling gulags with prisoners. Lenin was preaching extreme sacrifice (of individualism) for the good of the collective, condemning capitalism and individualism as evil, and crushing anyone who pursued self-interests outside the strict limits of Communism. Rand's black vision of "sacrifice" came from Lenin and his propagandists, so when she became a philosopher in America, she constructed extreme arguments against "sacrifice" and for "enlightened self-interest."

The eternal problem is, when evil predators start gaining political control (and the people begin to resemble victims in a lifeboat), immediate and widespread resistance among the people is the only thing that will stop the predation, involving risk and sacrifice for the benefit of "strangers," who are not really strangers at all, but fellow citizens who are in the same plight. If enough people are willing to risk and sacrifice, the predator cannot succeed, and the freedom and sovereignty of the people will be preserved. Sadly, this does not happen very often. Rand was no help here, trying to make selfishness into a virtue and sacrifice into a sin.

If Rand and thousands of others like her had stayed in Russia to fight Communism any way they could, instead of abandoning their country to tyranny, they may have been able to make a difference. I believe THAT was their moral duty, which they tried to rationalize away.

My reply:

I agree with your analysis of the life-boat scenario. Rand's logic was faulty. I also agree that people need to be willing to fight oppression together. In such a case, the selfish act might be to flee, but even the decision to stay and fight it out may also serve self-interest, perhaps more so, because one is fighting for one's own freedom as well as others'. If you die, you died in a good and essential cause. If you survive, you benefit as much as anyone else does. What bothers me is when someone is expected to put his life in dire risk when he will not get to enjoy the benefits thereof personally whether he lives or dies. As I wrote before, that's asking too much. We should fight for strangers when we also have a major stake in it, or when we can fight without putting our lives at severe risk (that's the difference between accepting a burden -- as we should -- and conducting a selfless suicide mission -- as we should not). Lest I be unclear, I am arguing, in agreement with you (at least on this point) that we should sacrifice some self-interest in defending others when that involves a burden that will not compromise our ability to live happily thereafter; that we should risk our lives only when the victory in doing so is ours as well. Thus, properly applied, Rand's principle "Sacrifice not self to others nor others to self" is sound. Where she erred was in her application, but in my mind her errors, however egregious some of them were, do not outweigh her positive contributions to philosophy. If she had stayed in Russia and tried to foment that united front, I think she would have been promptly killed. Staying and fighting sounds nice in theory, but in practice one must be backed by an already-existing front of fighters that will at least give one a fighting chance. I don't think Soviet dissidents really had that. If I am mistaken on this point, I would welcome facts to the contrary. I am not entirely clear on the history.

posted by Dyl_Pickle on June 25, 2005 at 11:11 AM | link to this | reply

Golden:

I suspect that those who would do nothing to avert an assault in progress are motivated more by lack of courage and concern for their own safety or convenience, rather than ideology. I suppose that being concerned mainly with one's self-interest might have an ideological component, but I doubt that's what a person is thinking of at that moment. Sometimes it's probably just being afraid to get involved, perhaps, in cases where we suspect abuse but it is not so severe that a crime is clearly occuring, people are afraid to be the one to make a scene that would get in other people's business. For example, when a person is screaming at and spanking his/her child in a public place, and is clearly enraged and not just disciplining, how far do we let it go before we intervene? I am inclined to let a parent raise his child the way he sees fit, but sometimes a parent might actually injure the child. That's awkward because it's not our child -- we feel out of place getting involved unless we are absolutely sure that we have a right to do so. Just an example. Anyway, I'm off to work at the summer camp where all our children are bright angels who need no discipline anyway (NOT!).

posted by Dyl_Pickle on June 24, 2005 at 4:00 AM | link to this | reply

Dylan

I see that we are in substantial agreement. We agree on the principle of other-defense, of violently defending others who are victims of predation or abuse. We also agree on the huge obstacles to following that principle, especially on an international scale. I realize that America cannot militarily oppose every tyranny in the world.

But I would like for Americans to acknowledge the intellectual and ethical correctness of this PRINCIPLE, instead of fighting it tooth and nail. Get to the core of the argument, and you find about half the people in this country supporting a philosophy that DENIES this principle of other-defense that we have just discussed and agreed upon.

For example, in the debate about Iraq, the rallying cry of the liberals is: Saddam Hussein had no WMD's, he had no ties to Al Queda, so we had no ethical reason to attack him. They express no significant concern or sympathy for tyranny's victims. They are not willing to risk anything to oppose tyranny.

I have known people, some close to me, who are not even willing to call the police when they see a crime happening. They are not willing to risk any personal involvement or inconvenience. Guess which side of the political spectrum these people fall upon? Most of them fall on the liberal side. But liberal or conservative, we must try to make them see the error of their apathy. It is simply not defensible when it is brought to light.

posted by GoldenMean on June 20, 2005 at 5:33 AM | link to this | reply

I only remember Evangeline stating the thesis...

...of that argument, not the rationale, but anyway I came upon this one honestly (that is, I was not just searching for a way to justify something prohibited by Kant's imperative). I have argued strenuously that the same logic that justifies self-defense justifies other-defense because, assuming we are all equal in dignity, etc., there is no way to justify depriving people defense just because they cannot defend themselves. Which in turn obliges those who can defend themselves also to defend those who cannot -- if the principle is to be applied in real life.

I used this argument against a dear friend of mine in a debate about the merits of war in Iraq: If all people are entitled to defense, how can the people of Iraq not be entitled to it just because they cannot do it themselves? She had no response, and I changed the subject, figuring that she saw the merit in my case but not wanting to embarrass her. Incidentally, her brother is in the Army and will be deployed to the Persian Gulf region fairly soon; she is working with orphans in India as we speak. These are not people who need to be lectured on the virtue of giving; it was just an intellectual debate.

Anyway, the argument for military intervention on behalf of oppressed peoples is strong in principle. I think there are greater obstacles to its application than you acknowledge, though. Where do we get the troops to go into all the countries you listed and liberate them? We would have to renew the draft -- thus send young people to their deaths for no benefit to themselves. I believe in defending other people, but this is too much. A person should not actually have to give up his life for a stranger -- bear burdens, cope with inconvenience, and perhaps even die when it liberates but is also for his country's security, yes, but sending people to die just for other people's freedom is too much.

In Sudan, we might be able to intervene with virtually no casualties on our side, as we did in Bosnia and Kosovo. I wrote up a framework for intervention that suggested this standard: in order to intervene militarily when the primary purpose is human rights and not our country's immediate security, it must be the case that the chance of a soldier in this intervention dying in the conflict must be only marginally greater than the chance of him dying at home, or in a safer place abroad, such as a military base in Germany or Great Britain. Otherwise, we should not ask people to volunteer to put their lives in grave danger for other people's liberation, much less force them to do so.

Also, all this assumes that intervention would work -- would foment democracy and human rights. That's not always the case. I'm thinking of the Bruce Springsteen song about a soldier in Vietnam: "went off to fight the Vietcong -- they're still there; he's all gone." In Iraq, our adventure might end up working -- it was definitely a morally justified intervention, but if it does not end up being an unqualified success, I will not be able to support a similar intervention in the future. Right now it's looking like a heavily qualified success as the most optimistic scenario.

 

posted by Dyl_Pickle on June 19, 2005 at 9:17 AM | link to this | reply

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I seem to recall that dear Evangeline tried a similar argument once, concerning Kant's famous Categorical Imperative. I rejected it then, but you have stated a stronger case, very logical and free of any bias or bitterness. My compliments. Very well done. I must agree that violent self-defense would be included in Kant's Categorical Imperative. This elevates my opinion of Kant a notch or two. But I doubt that Kant meant for his precious Imperative to be applied in this way. And I am still upset with him for his untenable position on the absolute prohibition of deception, which he himself did not follow in his later teachings.

Now that we have established firm agreement on an important point, I regret that I must ruin the moment to point out that my idea of moral reciprocity, or the Golden Rule, goes far beyond SELF-defense. That is why I formulated the Iron Rule, in an early post in this blog. Simply, it calls for OTHER-defense, it calls for moral consistency, it calls for a noble sacrifice to the greater good, it calls for the giving of our blood, sweat, tears and money for absolute strangers, like we have done in Afghanistan and Iraq. But that was just the beginning. What about the victims of tyranny in Iran, Syria, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Zimbabwe, Cuba, China, Tibet, North Korea, North Vietnam, Laos, Myamnar (Burma), and whatever others I may have overlooked? Are we to be pragmatic and self-obsessed, or are we to be morally and philosophically consistent? The liberal democrats, and the paleo-conservatives (such as Pat Buchanan) agree that America should not be "the world's policeman." But I say that we should be the world's policeman, if no one else will. That is our moral obligation for the incredible benefits of human sacrifice of our fathers, or blessings of God, that we have received. That is the cost, if we want to be morally and philosophically consistent.

If we truly want to reciprocate the destructive actions of predatory, tyrannical, abusive (evil) people, we must oppose those destructive acts wherever they occur, anywhere in the world, when we become aware of them. And in these days of instant global news, a lack of awareness is no excuse. But people will find plenty of excuses anyway, just as the liberals are doing right now with their obsession with "The Downing Street Memos." They are trying to justify their unwillingness to stop the horrors of Saddam Hussein's murderous regime. President Bush was willing to destroy a tyrant, but liberals were willing to let the tyrant keep destroying his people, as long as they had their freedom here in America. These liberals are willing to let the tyrants in all the countries mentioned above continue to torture and destroy their own people, as long as these liberals can enjoy their freedom here in America. The selfishness and the apathy of this position is incomprehensible to me. But it passes for "truth" to the liberals.

It just goes to show, "truth" like "beauty" is in the eye of the beholder. But contrary to the intent of that saying, the beholder must be held accountable. Any person's "Truth" is only as good as the thought, morality and experience that produced it.

posted by GoldenMean on June 18, 2005 at 11:21 PM | link to this | reply

Also...

...if the principle I proposed is not substantively different from Kant's imperative, and if it were the case that my interpretation of that principle is logical, then it would follow that Kant's imperative contains sufficient iron. 

That is, this version of the Golden Rule supplies enough cause for self-defense, which is what your blog (rightly) rails about all the time.

posted by Dyl_Pickle on June 18, 2005 at 2:01 PM | link to this | reply

Golden Mean:

your final point -- in your last comment -- was right on.  Taking it further, I use that as the closest thing to objective proof that such horrible deeds as terrorism cannot be justified -- that is, deeds that take something essential from a person, in the most extreme case, the person's life.  These deeds cannot be justified by rational argument because they could not be practiced by everyone who might benefit from practicing them, and still be beneficial.  Stealing is only beneficial when the stolen-from does not also steal -- otherwise the thief will just as easily be stolen from, and he loses his advantage.  Thus, in order to justify his stealing, the thief will have to argue that he is somehow entitled to steal, while others are not.  Of course, he will not be able to justify this position because his arguments will be without objective evidence -- they will likely be arguments based on his own inflated self-image or sense of grievance, which others could just as plausibly claim for themselves.  This is how we get to something like Kant's imperative: do only that which can be done by everyone, who would wish to do it, and still be beneficial.  Violent self-defense checks out under this standard: everyone whose life is threatened could violently retaliate against the source of the threat without negating another person's advantage in doing the same thing in a similar circumstance.  There is no threat to ordinary people under this standard, because it is only the aggressively violent who would be hurt -- by those legitimately defending themselves.  The absolute in this case, as far as my reason takes me, is not that "violence is wrong", but that "aggressive violence is wrong, defensive violence justified", which is a corollary of the absolute principle, "do only that which could beneficially be done by everyone in a similar situation." 

posted by Dyl_Pickle on June 18, 2005 at 1:55 PM | link to this | reply

Rovesciato

I think I see your point about suicide bombers (and I suppose all terrorists) being moral weaklings, with weak wills. They have the strength to act in a drastic, violent way BECAUSE they were not strong-willed enough, or ethical enough, or emotionally mature enough to patiently find another way to address their problems. That is probably a factor in the equation of what is going on.

But I see another factor, a moral factor or ethical factor, that is simply a matter of value, specifically the value that one assigns to the lives of other people, especially people that one does not personally know (strangers). The suicide bomber (or terrorist) assigns a very low value to strangers, and considers them to be undesirable and expendable if they are members of an opposing culture or religion. The suicide bomber (or terrorist) probably values these strangers on the same level as a cockroach, as vermin that need to be exterminated. The reasons for this devaluation of human life fascinate me. What are the true reasons?

Psychologists and sociologists will tell us that the suicide bomber and terrorist are indoctrinated by his religion and culture for years, before he (or she) was essentially brainwashed into a devaluation of human life. But of course, since I maintain that this is a matter of ethical choice, and an exercise of human will, that explanation always falls short. For every suicide bomber or terrorist in extreme Muslim sub-cultures, there are thousands of people subjected to the same indoctrination and propaganda, who DO NOT devalue the lives of strangers in other cultures. At least, not to an extent that excuses violence against them.

And what about a person who is willing to blow himself up to PROTECT the lives of others? Such as the soldier diving on top of a grenade to save his comrades, or the soldier calling artillery upon his own position when overrun by the enemy, to stop them from killing more of his comrades? Are such people given strength to act violently by any weakness of morality or will? No, they are showing an incredible strength of morality and will, to oppose the actions of others who are trying to kill them and their friends. They could have chosen to run away but instead they have chosen to value the lives of others MORE than they value their own life. Just the opposite of the suicide bomber or terrorist. And I see this as a simple choice, to value all human life roughly equally, OR to devalue some human life to zero or negative value. On some abstract intellectual level, this choice is of no more significance than choosing what we will eat for lunch. But on a moral or ethical level, it is the most significant choice in the universe.

You are right that there is no inherent strength in moral principles themselves. Moral principles are just the concepts or ideas about interactions with other life forms, individuals, and/or groups of individuals, which an individual or a group holds to be true and universally applicable. But those moral principles reflect the prioritization of values, such as the value of human life. Moral principles produce, in effect, a list of rankings of “this person or thing is more important than that person or thing.” Then, as you say, a strong will is necessary to apply moral principles, or priorities, where they are needed.

But I offer this idea as a characteristic of that APPLICATION of moral principle. Most good persons are certain that their moral principles are the only proper principles in the world and should be applied universally. On the other hand, most evil persons are aware that their moral principles MUST NOT be applied universally, or their advantage would be lost. For example, if everyone was willing to be a suicide bomber, for any perceived grievance, then it would be a very common event, and the political impact of suicide bombing would vanish.

posted by GoldenMean on June 16, 2005 at 11:46 PM | link to this | reply

Roves and Golden:

Roves, I agree that ethics is possible without an external order, but only its existence can be justified, not its content.  Its content remains bound in a circle of our reasoning and emotion, and I suppose we have to trust that our circles will lead us in the right direction overall.

Golden, I'm glad we clarified the differences so that we could see that some common ground emerged between our arguments.  I definitely think that moderate and rational people should rescue their political movements or parties from unbalanced extremists.  This runs into the difficulty that some radical positions are justified (abolishing slavery was once a radical notion, definitely immoderate!) but I consider that moderate positions usually have the better part of reason when all the positions are scrutinized.

As to Kant, I thought that's what you were implying!  Really, I did!  I'm just glad you clarified it.  Indeed, you could write an extensive essay just on that topic.  Liberals who will admire Kant will indeed gloss over his religiosity and ignore how much his faith inspired his moral principles.  They would at least offer the wisdom, though, of cautioning us that such high ideals can be derived from nonreligious thinking too and that it's unfair to imply, as some extreme conservative religionists do in the U.S. (as contrasted with the more moderate conservatives, who because they usually shout less do not get as much media play), that to be without faith in God, as the father of Christ our savior, is necessarily to be without morals.  (Some don't even have the courtesy to leave it implied -- they assert it with gusto!)  While many liberals are unduly hostile to religion, many conservatives are unduly presumptive against the secular humanist notion that atheists and agnostics can be good people too!

posted by Dyl_Pickle on June 14, 2005 at 6:04 AM | link to this | reply

golden

this might clairify things a little. we're approaching strength of will from different avenues. using the example of suicide bombers, my thinking is to argue that strength to act (to differentiate phrases) in their case is created by their moral weakness, or weak wills. that is they did not have the strength not to embrace an easy answer to the vague variety of problems that their lives involve. they induldged their more immediate (again, to avoid using strength in differnt ways) emotions with a black and white and red picture of their situation and the world. this weakness is at root personal, meaning private disquiet has as much as public hardship in driving the individual to a self indulgent refuge. the point i've been making is that there is no appriciable difference in the weakness that drives one to violent action (terrorism, cultural revolution, bolshevism, the crusades, etc.) and the weakness that drives one to rhetorical action (ie. nationalism, partisanship, advocacy, revival, etc.). the latter can become the former if the right sparks are lit, the seed is already planted. thus when i criticism morality it is in the main that it is an easy path to self indulgence for weak characters. another way to put it in terms i've used before is that morality, and the liberal religion, are ways for people to acrue a sense of authority, allowing them to feel the strength to act, and more directly, in non violent atmospheres, to dictate. the value of each ethical/moral pricipal is another matter. here i'm agruing that morality can at best move vice from one expression to another in a character that is weak or self indulgent. or, a strong will is necessary to apply moral principals where they are needed. or, there is no inherant strength in moral principals.

the next question is how do people with weak wills strengthen their wills?

 

posted by rovesciato on June 14, 2005 at 12:46 AM | link to this | reply

to dylan's comment

where to look, albiet probably without pure rational satisfaction, is in what we call the human condition, that is those parts of being that are not individual. the obvious start is in the physical needs of life and the types of behavior those needs lead people to. the you add emotional similarities (a mine field, yes), and finally spiritual and intellectual ones (which are probably more similar than in opposition). i don't have any answers to type out, just the notion that ethics are possible without an external moral order. what is really the case i can't begin to say but i think that unless one is in free fall it is sounder to approach the world's problems in worldly terms, and this includes the application of morality. relationships within and between individuals is another matter.

posted by rovesciato on June 13, 2005 at 11:52 PM | link to this | reply

DV

Dylan, I saved the toughest comments for last. How thoughtful it was of you to number them, so that I can respond in an orderly fashion.

1. You asked the significance of the final clause in the first paragraph. That is where I simply re-affirmed that Kant was a religious man, seeking to defend his religion in a rational way, from the attacks of an atheist philosopher, David Hume. The significance is that Kant's religious faith is not always pointed out by liberal writers who praise his philosophy. They focus on his principles of altruism and moral service to others, without revealing the religious background from which they emerged. I want to make sure that readers understand that Kant's altruism, moral duty, and general non-violence principles, the foundation for modern liberalism, came from a deep religious faith. The crowning conclusion of Kant's philosophy was that it REQUIRED a belief in God and the immortal human spirit. We must have immortal spirits, he says, so that we have enough time to survive endless failures and finally learn how to do our moral duties.

2. You are right that society is less corrupt, in many significant ways, than it was in past generations. My accusation was too broad. I have observed that society is far more corrupt now than it was in my childhood. And by "corrupt" I mean such things as the vast erosion of individual responsibility, or in-your-face sexual fixation, with all the problems it causes. I can't watch a popular TV show without constant allusions to casual, uncommitted sex. "Sex and The City" comes to mind, which is now showing perpetual reruns on cable TV. Sure, sex sells products and shows, but should it? The moral answer is NO. And what philosophy, if any, can we blame for letting this happen, for not supporting a higher standard? Liberal philosophy, in general. What philosophy, if any, can we blame for letting sexual predators out of prison time and time again to rape and kill little girls and boys? Liberal philosophy is responsible for the vast erosion of individual responsibility, and the growing number of outrageous lawsuits, with the government lawsuit against the tobacco industry being the most alarming. But individuals are far more likely to sue now, for spilled hot coffee, for being injured by incompetent operation of machinery, for failing to control their own behavior in any way, if a scapegoat can be found. To me, this is indeed an alarming CORRUPTION of society at a very fundamental level.

3. Of course I am criticizing the most extreme concepts in liberal philosophy, because I see them as being the most harmful to society. I realize that most liberals do not share these concepts to such an extreme, but they vote for liberal politicians who do support these extreme concepts. The moderate majority of liberals need to take back control of their philosophy from the likes of Howard Dean and Ted Kennedy and Michael Moore, just as the moderate conservatives need to take back control their philosophy from the likes of George Bush and Rush Limbaugh.

4. Liberal Enlightenment deserves great credit for all the things you mention. But it is now going too far in some ways, specifically in its obsession with equality and pacifism. Every set of moral values is considered to be just as good as any other (but they are not). Every country's government is considered to be just as legitimate as any other, whether they give their citizens any liberties or not. The concept of equality, valid in the Liberal Enlightenment, is losing its validity because it is being applied where it is not true. It does not square with reality. People, and countries, are superior or inferior depending upon how well they honor those original Liberal ideals of "liberty and justice for all."

But if it were left to liberals, we would NEVER use military force to influence events or stop tyranny in other countries. We would not have fought in any of the wars of the last hundred years, because our security was not directly threatened. I shudder to think how the world would look today, if liberals obsessed with pacifism and equality had gotten their way. We would probably be the only free country left in the world, surrounded by tyrannies planning to finish us off and divide the spoils.

posted by GoldenMean on June 13, 2005 at 9:04 PM | link to this | reply

Rovesciato

I think you are right that we discussed strong vs. weak before, it was probably when P.G. Scott was here blogging. I looked into my "archives" of writing and found this from my comments of that time:

The German philosopher Nietzsche tried to discredit the concepts of good and evil. He argued that we all have a “will to power,” a drive to maximize our personal influence and power over others. He argued that good and evil are merely concepts that the weak use in their attempts to control the strong. He said that the strong among us can make their own morality, without regard to good and evil. He built an entire philosophy around the old saying, “might makes right.” But he was wrong to reject the concepts of good and evil; he was wrong to condemn religion and morality. The promotion of power, without moral standards of goodness and justice, produces only tyrants and their victims.

Nietzsche’s philosophy held that strength of will is far more important than morality. He urged us to think “beyond morality” (which I do not think is possible). I agree with Nietzsche that strength of will, his “will to power,” is universally important, but I hold that morality is equally important. Strength of will is the “psychic energy” that our morality uses to conduct our lives. If our morality is the highest and purest possible, but we have no strength of will to apply that high morality to our daily life, then that high morality is worthless, for it will always fail. We will always fold our moral hand to bolder players in the Poker Game of Life. We will know that we have folded our morally superior hand, and we will feel intense guilt and misery for it. This is the forlorn fate of the good-but-weak.

Morality directs the will to work toward good or evil objectives. Morality is like a road, and the will is like the vehicle that takes us along the road. By choosing a particular road to travel, we choose our morality. The vehicle of our will determines how far and how fast we will travel on that road of morality. This makes morality and strength of will equal partners in directing all human activity. Morality chooses our objective; strength of will determines whether we will reach it or not. In his denying of morality, Nietzsche denies the choosing of the objective, so his “will to power” is denied a clear destination or a compass to reach it.

posted by GoldenMean on June 13, 2005 at 7:45 PM | link to this | reply

Painter

The Dark Ages had no philosophers of note-- that is one reason they were so dark. I would hope that my thoughts have some hint of more ancient philosophers, such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, from the Golden Age of the greatest civilization of the time. They had a great concern for ethical principles, noble behavior, and individual responsibility.

posted by GoldenMean on June 13, 2005 at 7:31 PM | link to this | reply

Rovesciato

Far from being irritated at you, I also feel that a critical factor in human affairs is the relative weakness or strength of the individual human will. But it is not THE MOST meaningful division, as you seem to be proposing, and as Nietzsche insisted. It is subordinate to the moral or ethical principles that the strong or weak will is trying to follow. The principles are the crucial factor, not the strength of will.

Consider the Muslim suicide bombers in Iraq and Israel. They are individuals of incredible strength of will. Would you be willing to blow yourself into small bloody pieces of meat, for any cause whatsoever? This is a question of simple courage and commitment. I may be willing to blow myself up for a cause, but I am a person of significant courage, which has been proven in many circumstances, from being gassed on a tank firing range in Germany, to racing on a motocross track in Texas, to defending my professional decisions from hostile customers at work. But courage is a tool of the evil as well as the good.

Strong people are WILLING to sacrifice themselves for any moral principle, right or wrong. Weak people are UNWILLING to sacrifice themselves for any moral principle, right or wrong. This is a crucial point to understand. But let us get on with the debate on the moral principles themselves, so that we will know WHAT IT IS that we should defend to the death. As you say, the job of moral philosophy should be to identify what actions justify themselves.

But it seems to be quite difficult to establish agreement on that point.

posted by GoldenMean on June 12, 2005 at 9:54 PM | link to this | reply

I wrote this on my legal pad...

As I read your essay, which I had printed, in a more comfortable position, thus conducive to more careful thought.  Here is what I wrote:

Response to Golden Mean's "The Errors of the Liberal Religion -- Part 3"

1. What is the significance of the final clause in the first paragraph?

2. What is your basis for asserting in paragraph two that "society is more corrupt than ever"? Such generalizations may tempt us when we observe things that leave a powerful impact on our minds, but unless we have an equally comprehensive knowledge of what we are comparing these things to, we err in making such blanket assertions about the differences. For example, how does this assertion square with the Inquisition, Crusades, witch trials, persecution of native Americans, slavery, discrimination against women, and other evils that prevailed much more in western civilization's history than they do today? Can it not be said that in many important respects we are a great deal less corrupt, more ethical, than we were when such injustices were normal?

3. It also is evident that you project onto all or most liberals the most extreme version of their philosophy, attributing to them the absolute egalitarianism, pacifism and relativism that only the most radical (and marginalized) liberals actually promote. That is similar to arguing that, because a few right-wing radicals evince racism and fascism, that these sentiments constitute the majority of conservatives' thinking, when in reality most conservatives have long since adapted to evolutions toward civil rights and women's rights and other notions that were originally regarded as liberal.

Public opinion polls showed, if I recall correctly, that about 90 percent of Americans supported the war in Afghanistan. A majority of liberals must have supported the war in order for this to be true. The absolutism and extremism of a minority of liberals should not be attributed to all or most liberals. Howard Dean, obviously a liberal, supported the 1991 Gulf War and the war in Afghanistan, even while opposing the 2003 Iraq war on ground that were more moderately pacifistic than your analysis would recognize. I won't exploit my own views to expound upon this point because, as you know, my liberal and progressive views are mitigated by my generally hawkish, conservative views regarding the use of military force. But one can be a generally pacifistic liberal and still accept war in extreme cases.

4. In the context of Spencer's views, it is too easy to dismiss his analysis because of its discredited optimism. While he might have erred in relying on the assumption that a more ethical humanity would evolve naturally, it does not follow that people are not capable of mitigating their collective moral failings through deliberate effort. Indeed, it seems that this is what we have done in the United States, each generation undermining and in some cases virtually abolishing the prejudices of their forebears and the injustices that attended those prejudices.

It's plain to me that liberal Enlightenment ideas played an essential role in pointing us down this path of ever-expanding human and civil rights. Not that this path could not have been embarked upon without Enlightenment ideas, but it seems eminently helpful to the cause of "liberty and justice for all" that Enlightenment notions forced people, including those in power, to confront the fact that there was never any compelling rational justification for such ideas as the divine right of kinds; rigid social castes; the inferiority of Native Americans, blacks and women; or the indubitable wisdom of the elite.

Liberal Enlightenment ideas forced us to answer the question: "Why not a presumption in favor of equality, peace and liberty? Why not demand a compelling case to be made for hierarchy, war and control?" Rationally people, including many liberals, necessarily found perfectly valid reasons for some inequality, war and restrictions on liberty. Only the most radical and utopian thinkers maintain that such things are never justified. Enlightenment liberalism supplied us with suficient reason for believing, as rational and skeptical people, that illiberal assumptions were often flawed and that liberal ones, at least in their more temperate forms, usually had merit.

posted by Dyl_Pickle on June 12, 2005 at 4:35 PM | link to this | reply

Rovesciato's point about outside sources of moral truth...

...leads me to add a problem I confronted in secular ethics that still disturbs me, especially when, in the midst of doubting Christian faith, I have nowhere else to turn: that without God as an objective, external source of moral truth, moral judgments can only be derived from the minds and actions of human beings -- making secular ethics, at root, inevitably circular.  There is no ultimate justification for a particular ethic in secular thinking -- the only judgment that can be proved is that something like ethical judgments must be made; but that doesn't tell us WHAT judgments.  Ethics come from us, and go back to us.  I thought I had achieved objective proof for a secular ethic, with the help of Ayn Rand, that life is good, and that which keeps life going and enhances life is good, but I have confronted strong resistance to even that basic principle, for perhaps, contrary to what I had thought, using the means of life to bring about death is okay because maybe life and death are not morally opposite -- how to prove they are?  Without God, where do we get external justification for our moral judgments? 

posted by Dyl_Pickle on June 11, 2005 at 8:49 AM | link to this | reply

your ideas resemble

dark age philosophers
might you be a reincarnation of
one of the proponents of the Great Inquisition?

posted by Xeno-x on June 11, 2005 at 6:16 AM | link to this | reply

i think they call it post-modern because the mondernists were the ones who came up with all the labels, so when the next group got the itch to differentiate itself it without the benefit of hindsight it had to go for something everyone could understand. but that is about as creative as post-modern gets anyway. you'll be rather irritated to learn that reading this series of posts is clairifying my notion that the differences between broad liberalism and conservatism are superficial and with the new idea, or at least i think its new for me, that the meaningful division is between the weak and the strong. that is the morally (i would say personally) strong and the morally weak. my term splitting brings out another point of confoundation (word?): to say one is morally strong in stead of personally strong suggests that the strength comes from outside the individual, and much like liberals appeal to genetics conservatives appeal to a moral order outside themselves to which there can be a means to an end. ie. there is always an excuse for poor moral choice, as in liberalism. perhaps what i'm saying is the job of moral philosophy should be to identify what actions justify themselves, or come to a closer identification between the sense of right and wrong and the individuals direct behavior so that there can be no, or little, room for means to an end finagling. part two would be to keep the dialog immersed in the human condition, ie. a certain amount of selfishness (individuality) is part of, perhaps necessary to, the definition between right and wrong. i feel a little deja vu, so maybe i have rattled on like this before.

posted by rovesciato on June 10, 2005 at 9:50 AM | link to this | reply

I will be out of town for the weekend

Comments are welcome, but I cannot answer them until next Sunday or Monday night.

posted by GoldenMean on June 9, 2005 at 8:58 PM | link to this | reply