Deconversion and some doubts

[The Grand Nudger]

That’s not your moral life, unless your moral life refers to your changing subjective states.

Emotions as morality?

[vulcanlogician]

I don't always love my daughters, i sometime hate, and resent them as well, that's just the nature of most people's moral life's,  as conflicting.

It's very well possible, that I might find a lover, leave my wife and kids, and shack up with her and have no further contact with them at all. But one thing I couldn't deny even in this new found life, is that I was obligated to love my children, that I ought not to have done what I did, at least not without lying to myself.

But your knowing better than to do these wrong things is what obligates you. Not that there is some cosmic enforcer who desires you do otherwise. I'm not pretending to be puzzled at God's involvement in moral reality just because I'm an atheist trying to make a point. Where does God enter the equation? Stealing from someone is wrong. If you get caught stealing, a judge may sentence you to jail or compel you to pay a fine. But this has fuckall to do with stealing being wrong. Stealing is wrong because it is harmful/ it violates the idea of possession upon which we all depend/ it robs those who have earned of their rightful desert. There are many reasons that stealing is wrong. But one of those reasons ISN'T because some judge said it was bad and you have sworn to obey this particular judge. That's a shit reason. That IS NOT the reason stealing is wrong, no matter how you slice it. Even in the absence of such a judge, stealing would still be wrong.

Perhaps you say it's product of social normativism and conformity. Yet you do make a distinction between a group mentality vs moral mentality.

You also seem to acknowledge, that "leaving my children to starve in the cold is good fathering" isn't right, and that the rules of being a good father aren't arbitrary. This doesn't seem to be in your view to be a product of social normativism and conformity. Perhaps you agree that what's Good, even in fathering, is a product of the Good, and not society?

I see the obligation of being a good father as a product of the Good as well, though you seem to disagree.

But I don't disagree. Your sense of reason will tell you what is right or wrong. More on that below.

I want to know more about The Good, and how it "inwardly works in the soul".

So your brain is not just a glorified calculator. It manages and manifests instincts, emotions, and desires. Plato recognized this as well as any moderner does. He called these different aspects "parts of the soul" but he meant nothing different than what a neuroscientist means when she cites behaviors that arise from activity in the amygdala, medulla oblongata, or prefrontal cortex. Plato's "neuroscience" was in some ways surprisingly precise... in other ways... rather crude. But this is of little consequence. He wasn't trying to map out the parts of the brain, so much as provide wisdom concerning how we humans, who have conflicting impulses, might bring order to our "souls."

Reason should rule emotion. Emotion and reason should rule desire in tandem. This was Plato's prescription. This is what he called a "well-ordered soul." That is how the Good works inwardly in the soul. Any other kind of setup... desire making the decisions (I WANT MORE!) or emotion making the decisions (I WILL DO AS I FEEL!) is unharmonious and immoral to Plato. Read Book IV of Plato's Republic for the full breakdown.

In Phaedrus, Plato likens the human soul to a chariot with three parts: two horses and a charioteer. One horse is stubborn and disobedient. This horse is desire. The other horse is dutiful and responsive. This second horse is emotion. The third part... the weakest and smallest part... is reason/logic, the charioteer. We need our desire and emotion to carry us forward in our lives. The charioteer cannot pull the chariot, right? But also, we need to be mindful that these spirited beasts have no business steering the chariot. Reason needs to be in charge of steering the chariot this way or that. Emotion and desire ought to do nothing but pull the chariot forward. But, alas, Plato diagnoses most souls as being steered by desire or emotion. Only a special few souls are reasonable. It is these souls who are truly capable of living righteously. That is how the Good "works inwardly in the soul." Does that answer your question?

Let's say I'm a bad father, who then comes to recognize "The Good", what effect would it have on me? Would it compel me to be Good? Or just something I acknowledge as casually pretty, that doesn't compel or move me morally one way or the other?

Is "the part that is capable of recognizing the Good" the part that is in control of your soul-chariot? That, in Plato's view, is what compels one to do good. If you "acknowledge" a moral truth, but it doesn't move you one way or the other, have you really acknowledged it? Your emotion/desire (love of your daughters) is the same force that directs you to perhaps connect with a mistress, betray your marriage, and harm your family in the process. Only logic can steer one away from this faulty path.


(As far as homosexuality, "Christian love" etc, I have no interest in that discussion, most of it seems to center around white American evangelical Christianity, tied to politics and nationalistic ideals, in which I have no real connection with, to defend. )

Then quit bickering with the atheists here and join us. It's a shame that not all of us want you on our side. But I do (and I'm not alone). Anti-homophobic is anti-homophobic. I'll take that over any kind of homophobia any day. If you have problems with evangelical doctrines, help us name their falsity aloud, as that is what many who post here aim to do.

Anyway, can you see why I think that no God or Supreme Being has anything to do with moral realism? If anything, I hoped to get that across. Did I?

[GrandizerII]

I don't really have much familiarity with Plato's work (aside from the minor stuff I was taught in psychology) so it's good to read clear posts about what it is and is not (with no God agenda).

[vulcanlogician]

I don't really have much familiarity with Plato's work (aside from the minor stuff I was taught in psychology) so it's good to read clear posts about what it is and is not (with no God agenda).

You gotta read the Republic yourself, man. Books I through V, I recommend most. Otherwise, you are going to get an agenda with your Plato if you get him from secondary sources.. That's not the way to read Plato. Plato was a SOCRATIC thinker. His first assumption was that he did not know the answer. While Plutarch and others were quite insightful in their interpretations, I say that the genuine reader of Plato is no Platonist.

Plato is often presented as an advancer of doctrines, but the opposite is true. He was a destroyer of them.

[The Grand Nudger]

If Plato were alive today, he’d probably think that this “Plato” guy from back in the day didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.

[vulcanlogician]

If Plato were alive today, he’d probably think that this “Plato” guy from back in the day didn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground.

But of course. I think if Plato were alive today, the last thing we could expect from him is more material. He would disappear into a library. And we would be lucky if he ever decided to lend us any of his insights.

[The Valkyrie]

Plato they say,
Could put it away,
Half a crate of Whiskey,
Every day

[vulcanlogician]

Plato they say,
Could put it away,
Half a crate of Whiskey,
Every day

Wow. Maybe I actually am a Platonist.

[The Valkyrie]

Plato they say,
Could put it away,
Half a crate of Whiskey,
Every day

Wow. Maybe I actually am a Platonist.

You’ve never heard Bruce’s Philosopher Song?

[Belacqua]

In Phaedrus, Plato likens the human soul to a chariot with three parts: two horses and a charioteer. One horse is stubborn and disobedient. This horse is desire. The other horse is dutiful and responsive. This second horse is emotion. The third part... the weakest and smallest part... is reason/logic, the charioteer. We need our desire and emotion to carry us forward in our lives. The charioteer cannot pull the chariot, right? But also, we need to be mindful that these spirited beasts have no business steering the chariot. Reason needs to be in charge of steering the chariot this way or that. Emotion and desire ought to do nothing but pull the chariot forward. But, alas, Plato diagnoses most souls as being steered by desire or emotion. Only a special few souls are reasonable. It is these souls who are truly capable of living righteously. That is how the Good "works inwardly in the soul." 

I wonder if it's a bit misleading to stop the myth here. Though I understand this version will be more popular on this forum.

In the original, the chariot isn't aiming for a nice balanced life. It's aiming to look above, to the world of Forms. Exactly the place where the Good is "located." If you do a good job and guide your horses, you get a longer look at the Forms. A good life results from direct vision of the Forms, including the Good. The result will be a good life -- the best life being, of course, that of a philosopher -- but this good life comes as a result of a vision of the Forms.