Man's innate humanity worthy of respect...

[Seditious]

am I tonedeaf cos I don't know what the fuck people are on about when they use this shit as a defense of their ethics...

this intrinsic dignity or autonomy we have a duty to allow to exist... however the fuck one puts it.

I know this is too empty to be accepted as a thread probably, but I hope yall don't lock it, because it's very significant to me, and I really don't think it's worth fluffing up just to look fuller when really I'm just looking for a little guidance into how philosophers have tried to defend this, or how one of you yourself defends it for your own 'don't hurt people' morality. They seem to almost assume it, but I'm curious how deep ecology folk feel about it, or how those who assume this human greatness we're supposed to honor feel about the presumption of that same worthiness for respect in other animals... I just don't see exactly where it is supposed to be defended from, but sooo many systems seem to depend on it that surely someone has actually tried to explain it, but yet, people are willing to say 'well, they attacked us, so fuck all that bullshit about innate human value, lets kill them' as if there is no contradiction between saying you have no right to doing something to others and then doing it to them after they've done it, not exactly leading by example is it (lets avoid the typical 'naa, they started it, totally different' bullshit as irrelevant here)

what can you say on this matter---do you agree with it, do your own views depend on it, do you know how certain philosophers have tried to validate it, does it puzzle you like it's puzzling me, or are you quite sure it's the bullshit it seems to be to me and can help me not be puzzled by expecting it to make sense or have some validity since people so much seem to think it does (cos if it was merely an idea like invisible unicorns I wouldn't be so baffled, but the fact people seem to think it exists is almost as much a stumper as why people have believed in God, the various arguments for that I'm at least well enough aware of to see it as false but rational (as Santa is rational but false to a child) makes me think I must just be missing something, cos from what I can tell, it's just as bad as God-talk)...?


any assistance on this matter, pointing me in the right direction, agreeing with my view of it's nonsense, or raising it for debate from your own view of how it is valid, all welcome contributions.

 

[Norsemaiden]

You're right. It's nonsense.

 

[Scourge of God]

It's a form of discursive terror: nothing more, nothing less.

 

[Έρεβος]

What are you confused about? People are idiots. People make up fantasies so that they can live with their idiocy. People make up fantasies for a social order where idiots are protected and survive. People defend these fantasies because their fear drives them to believe.

It is religion, dependent on belief rather than anything that actually exists. And as with all religions there are always some fools trying to show that something does exist, such as the philosophers you mentioned. And these attempts are always extremely easily shown retarded, yet the world seems to be attempting to use them as a foundation for society.

It isn't as confusing as it is simply disgusting.

 

[JoeVice]

"this intrinsic dignity or autonomy we have a duty to allow to exist"

our only duty is to be as honest with ourselves as possible. this wishy washy moralism is only a guide, like a religion, or nihilism, or any idea that influences you.

 

[Έρεβος]

"this intrinsic dignity or autonomy we have a duty to allow to exist"

our only duty is to be as honest with ourselves as possible. this wishy washy moralism is only a guide, like a religion, or nihilism, or any idea that influences you.

Ideas should make fundamental logical sense. Wishy washy moralism does not make any sense, so following it as a guide is like worshiping your toilet plunger expecting to live forever.

And why is anything our "duty"? Anyone could come up with some random thing that makes sense and say it is our "duty." Being honest with ourselves is no duty. Yes, it is logically an important thing, as many things are, but there is no "duty," nothing absolute.

 

[JoeVice]

following anything at the expense of the duty of being honest with yourself is toilet plunger worship.

ideas that make fundamental logical sense definetely do not to someone else, like perhaps one of those philosophers mentioned in the article. by dubbing their ideas wishy washy, the opposing ideas become the same.

 

[Έρεβος]

following anything at the expense of the duty of being honest with yourself is toilet plunger worship.

ideas that make fundamental logical sense definetely do not to someone else, like perhaps one of those philosophers mentioned in the article. by dubbing their ideas wishy washy, the opposing ideas become the same.

I don't get it. Why do such extreme subjectivists even enter discussions? Your view defeats the acquisition of understanding, hence is anti-philosophic, and not at home in a philosophy forum. If you want to discuss seriously you should probably say something beyond "but it could make sense to Bob!"

 

[JoeVice]

discussing seriously, as in philosophically?

 

[Seditious]

And why is anything our "duty"? Anyone could come up with some random thing that makes sense and say it is our "duty." Being honest with ourselves is no duty. Yes, it is logically an important thing, as many things are, but there is no "duty," nothing absolute.

yea. I have the same problem with "duty" as well. The closest thing I can think of legitimately employing the word "duty" for, is saying something like 'you feel a duty to lift your hand off a hot stove' (I doubt it is even valid to say 'you actually -have- a duty to do such a thing', as if to assert, by extension, a duty not to save a baby from a burning building), and clearly that's far removed from the moralistic fantasies people wish to employ it in.

 

[Blowtus]

I agree that any notion of 'duty' is a fabrication. Whether 'mans innate humanity' is worthy of respect, is entirely up to the individual, but the choice does not exist in vacuum, it has ramifications either way which will influence the choice.

With regards to the actual 'worthyness' I tend towards the 'worthy' side of things I think. I affirm myself to be good and worthwhile, so other entities I perceive to be like me I am also prone to respect as good and worthwhile. Although some here are quick to dismiss the average as 'idiots', I can agree in part but tend to see more similarity than difference, so cannot dismiss their worth as conclusively, without dismissing my own - which I cannot do, as I find myself to be rather important.

 

[Seditious]

With regards to the actual 'worthyness' I tend towards the 'worthy' side of things I think. I affirm myself to be good and worthwhile, so other entities I perceive to be like me I am also prone to respect as good and worthwhile.

I think cows and plants and whatnot to be good and of worth too, as I am, but yet I don't see how this means I have a worthiness to be respected as worthy to others for it's own sake. I certainly don't feel the need to kill a cow like a mosquito, but still I don't think the mosquito 'isn't worthy of life' as much as the cow.

Although some here are quick to dismiss the average as 'idiots', I can agree in part but tend to see more similarity than difference, so cannot dismiss their worth as conclusively, without dismissing my own - which I cannot do, as I find myself to be rather important.

personally, I take this to be something of why people have claimed Kant was wrong to assert his Humanity Imperative was merely a reformulation of the Universal Law Imperative. The fact that I accept a child rapist is as human as I am doesn't stop me from happily robbing him of his liberty at the first chance I can do so without the society around me thinking ill of me for doing so (such as, before his rapes have been affirmed in a court of law), so I don't see how I'm necessarily dismissing my own worth to ignore his. I grant that he has some worth, some similar nature to my own, but still I have no reason to say 'I can't do what is good for my worth at the expense of his'. That conclusion though is the fundamental undermining of "liberty" as so many people wish to defend it (as a conceptual cage built of the rights of others restricting us from certain harmful things), because it leaves no argument for that conception of "liberty" (which differs from my own) being deserved/to be respected/etc.

 

[Silver Incubus]

I thought the concept stemmed from empathy and relationships(friends and family). Assuming you like your friends and family, you want to protect them from harm because their happiness can increase your happiness, their wealth can increase your opportunities, etc. As illogical as emotions are, they still motivate people to do things and those things will seem illogical when the emotional factor is taken out of the context. So is empathy innate or is it learned? May be a good topic.

 

[Justin S.]

Formulations like the thread title are highly tangled: What is man? What is innate? What is worthiness? What is respect? What is duty or obligation? What sort (and what source!) of mechanisms and relationality are supposedly "at work" here?

Unfortunately, it is rare for those asserting (or building upon) notions of "innate human dignity/worth" to offer much in the way of explanation or justification, but this does not entail that the "regions" hinted at with these crude (and I would agree, unfounded) statements are entirely devoid of any "content". It usually means that people who evoke such language are shoddy metaphysicians, and/or banking on traditional ontotheologies.

So, I agree that the way most people speak of and conceptualize these issues is largely "nonsense", but truthfully we could say that about most everything regarding "common understanding". The issue, and what I take Seditious to be seeking, is if the notions under discussion (irrespective of how they are utilized and abused) have any content outside wishful thinking and moral tradition (maybe redundant ).

To attempt an answer would be to think more carefully about each concept asserted (such as the ones I listed in the opening lines). Any moral philosophy (what ought man do?) builds upon an anthropology of sorts (what is man?), and so on. The highly complex nature of these constructions is a source of a great deal of my discomfort/distaste for moral/political philosophy: far too much is supposed and simply overlooked (in addition to being largely the result of conditioning, even the very "modes" of thought/intuition themselves). The process generally strikes me as ludicrously arrogant, violent, and manipulative.

Also, it's mistaken to locate the nexus of these evaluations purely within the "psychology" of a subject. Here I very much agree with the approach of Being and Time; what is sought is an existential analytic. Man, in this case, possess certain features or is standing in some relation that is determinant regardless of what or how a particular "subject" thinks (or doesn't) about it. In this sense, man may have a certain "dignity" that is rooted in his existence, not in an evaluation derived from theology.

p.s. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is a good display of how certain conclusions about notions like "respect" and "worth" are reached simply by thinking about existence, context, and relationality. I am not suggesting that this work is "fundamentally sound", but that it displays (in a relatively simple manner) that these issues may not all be "nonsense".

 

[Seditious]

I thought the concept stemmed from empathy and relationships(friends and family). Assuming you like your friends and family, you want to protect them from harm because their happiness can increase your happiness, their wealth can increase your opportunities, etc. As illogical as emotions are, they still motivate people to do things and those things will seem illogical when the emotional factor is taken out of the context.

but you get people saying 'I want to be loved independent of what I can do for you', they want to be loved just by virtue of being born human (the most incoherent concept of all, to me). And it is this 'treat everyone the way you treat people who actually are worth something' ideal which this thread is about, there seems to be no justification for it.

So is empathy innate or is it learned? May be a good topic.

I'd say it's application is learned, as language is learned (when and how to speak), but we have an innate ability for it, as even a sociopath can be 'taught' to consider the victim's POV, if they had a fucked up childhood they probably were just as capable of it as anyone else but learned to apply it differently, or not at all.

 

[Seditious]

Any moral philosophy (what ought man do?) builds upon an anthropology of sorts (what is man?), and so on.

of course ethics depends on one's fundamental reality---man and life---but most seem to offer that, as Kant does, but they seem still not to fit with it. Kant thought man was fundamentally rational, but the morality he offers seems not to be rational. Hobbes considered man free to preserve his own life, but why only to do that, if we can fuck with people at their expense for that end, is it really important to those others why we did it (that's like saying we have a right to eat meat but not a right to kill animals merely for their fur)? I've yet found no legitimate reason for the limitations thinkers have put on their conceptions of the human situation for the use of social order or 'duty' concepts.

Also, it's mistaken to locate the nexus of these evaluations purely within the "psychology" of a subject. Here I very much agree with the approach of Being and Time; what is sought is an existential analytic. Man, in this case, possess certain features or is standing in some relation that is determinant regardless of what or how a particular "subject" thinks (or doesn't) about it. In this sense, man may have a certain "dignity" that is rooted in his existence, not in an evaluation derived from theology..

certainly, but I can even do something like agree with Kant that indeed perhaps 'slavery' is the worst thing man can do to eachother, but I come back with that skeptical Utilitarian reply---'so what?'---we do lots of bad things to eachother, and some are welcomed in liberty (like insulting people), and some are accepted as 'justice' to 'bad' people, but merely agreeing 'ok, that's the worst of bad things' still demands an argument for why bad things shouldn't be done. Perhaps man is as superior to the animals as religious believers want to think, but still, that helps us justify fucking with animals, but it isn't yet a defense of doing to others any differently. It's easier to accept doing wrong to, say, a serial killer (like say, capital punishment), than an infant, but still, our conventional agreements aren't good enough to actually justify not doing the same to the infant, or fetus, or what have you. And it puzzles me so much how people can speak so highly and surely of these things when they seem not to have even begun to defend these ideas, it's like they have build a brick house and told us to just assume there is cement in between the bricks so that we don't reveal how frail it is. (and worse, it sickens me how people can be little more than assembly line educated to function in a job like law, like a soldier being taught merely how to kill. people in "criminal law" education who actually receive no philosophical insight on how it is even supposed to be thought of as 'just' to be doing what they are, and yet people think 'how did Nazi whoeverthefucks do such horrible things', well fuck, if you're trained to help the system function, rather than to understand whether or not the system is right to function, what else could you possibly expect!!!)

sorry for the rant lol

p.s. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is a good display of how certain conclusions about notions like "respect" and "worth" are reached simply by thinking about existence, context, and relationality. I am not suggesting that this work is "fundamentally sound", but that it displays (in a relatively simple manner) that these issues may not all be "nonsense".

I have the audio presentation of that somewhere, I'll have to give it a listen now that I actually have enough HDD space.

 

[Blowtus]

I think cows and plants and whatnot to be good and of worth too, as I am, but yet I don't see how this means I have a worthiness to be respected as worthy to others for it's own sake. I certainly don't feel the need to kill a cow like a mosquito, but still I don't think the mosquito 'isn't worthy of life' as much as the cow.


personally, I take this to be something of why people have claimed Kant was wrong to assert his Humanity Imperative was merely a reformulation of the Universal Law Imperative. The fact that I accept a child rapist is as human as I am doesn't stop me from happily robbing him of his liberty at the first chance I can do so without the society around me thinking ill of me for doing so (such as, before his rapes have been affirmed in a court of law), so I don't see how I'm necessarily dismissing my own worth to ignore his. I grant that he has some worth, some similar nature to my own, but still I have no reason to say 'I can't do what is good for my worth at the expense of his'. That conclusion though is the fundamental undermining of "liberty" as so many people wish to defend it (as a conceptual cage built of the rights of others restricting us from certain harmful things), because it leaves no argument for that conception of "liberty" (which differs from my own) being deserved/to be respected/etc.

I agree with you, I don't understand what you seem to perceive as a conflict. I am the centre of my world - my view that humanity is worthwhile (worthy of respect) is a part of this, but it does not create any sort of pacifist stance in me. We see ourselves as individual beings but we exist in connection with others - respect for one, to me, has to mean that respect for multiple outweighs the one, when conflict between them arises.

I guess notions of 'liberty' are an attempt at balance, or of creating a 'ground floor' as such. I imagine those coming up with specific limitations, see what they determine to be a base level of 'respect / dignity / whatever' and are unable to see a positive (respectful of humanity) purpose for going further. Allowing vigilantes to roam the streets applying whatever 'justice' or 'protection' they see fit, would no doubt seem respectful to the vigilantes, but to me would seem rather disrespectful of humanity in the broader sense.

 

[Seditious]

I don't understand what you seem to perceive as a conflict. I am the centre of my world - my view that humanity is worthwhile (worthy of respect) is a part of this, but it does not create any sort of pacifist stance in me. We see ourselves as individual beings but we exist in connection with others - respect for one, to me, has to mean that respect for multiple outweighs the one, when conflict between them arises.

my conflict is how you draw a line that says 'I will stop respecting myself now, and instead respect others'. Personally though, I don't even see myself as having something "Worthy of respect", though I feel I have enough worth that I'm going to do what is good for my life instead of submitting myself as a slave for someone else's good---while I'll strive to get what I want, I don't see from where I'm supposed to say 'hey, stop that, you're supposed to respect me!'

We see ourselves as individual beings but we exist in connection with others - respect for one, to me, has to mean that respect for multiple outweighs the one, when conflict between them arises.

that raises the old "should we let 100 rapists enslave one little girl (supposing no one knew it was happening except the parents who knew the child was kidnapped), since we would have to not respect the many to respect the few, so in principle you should support that, or even a slave class to serve the many.

Allowing vigilantes to roam the streets applying whatever 'justice' or 'protection' they see fit, would no doubt seem respectful to the vigilantes, but to me would seem rather disrespectful of humanity in the broader sense.

but it seems to me, to say 'well, fuck the vigilante, if someone will be disrespected, lets make it him' suggests disrespecting humanity is perfectly fine to do, the vigilante has no reason to think 'hmm they're doing the -right/just/moral- thing, and I'm not'. Neither seems to have a belief in respecting humanity, even though one pretends to hold that concept.

 

[Blowtus]

my conflict is how you draw a line that says 'I will stop respecting myself now, and instead respect others'.

I don't really know either... for me respecting some basic worth of others is a part of respecting myself. It is never a matter of stopping or starting respect, it is a matter of balancing actions against the weight of 'respect' assigned the opposing corners.

that raises the old "should we let 100 rapists enslave one little girl (supposing no one knew it was happening except the parents who knew the child was kidnapped), since we would have to not respect the many to respect the few, so in principle you should support that, or even a slave class to serve the many.

I don't see that it can be effectively viewed in such material terms - the effect on society of a slave class is broader than merely the slaves lives.

but it seems to me, to say 'well, fuck the vigilante, if someone will be disrespected, lets make it him' suggests disrespecting humanity is perfectly fine to do, the vigilante has no reason to think 'hmm they're doing the -right/just/moral- thing, and I'm not'. Neither seems to have a belief in respecting humanity, even though one pretends to hold that concept.

One is respecting the institutions humanity has developed, the other is disrespecting the institutions (probably because of a perceived failing of the institutions) to better 'respect humanity' or the like. The motive at heart seems similar, but the view as to how it is best achieved is different. I don't see any real difference in motive, only in method and results.

 

[Seditious]

I don't really know either... for me respecting some basic worth of others is a part of respecting myself. It is never a matter of stopping or starting respect, it is a matter of balancing actions against the weight of 'respect' assigned the opposing corners.

could you expand on that? I mean, to say 'I have a right for myself here, but I no longer have a right here, I have a duty to others at this point' is a clear matter of stopping and starting respect to me.