Favorite Philosophers?

[vulcanlogician]

I have to admit, the first chapter of Meditations intrigued me, but less so with each chapter I read. By the last chapter, I was not impressed at all. Spinoza was like the opposite of this. The more I read (and understood), the more correct he seemed. I also have a healthy respect for him as a man. He turned down teaching positions at prestigious schools to live a hermitic life as a lens grinder, all while putting out stuff so revolutionary, it was banned across Europe not long after it was printed.

[Edwardo Piet]

Oh interesting point.

He's still wrong about some stuff though

But he is fucking amazing and the modernist of modern science and logic is founded upon his principles.

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Spinoza is great!

I like the Jamesian theory of emotion but other than that... meh.

Between Spinoza and Descartes, give me Spinoza.  Descartes' questioning doesn't seem sincere, more of a set up for an answer he's eager to peddle.

Oh Decartes sucks.

Although the think therefore I am thing DOES make sense... the people like Dan Dennett who think it's wrong don't seem to even understand the question

Dennett thinks that the self is more than just conscious experience (which he calls illusory LOL . . . the user illusion he speaks of isn't exactly an illusion lol.) and therefore you can't even know the real 'you' exists . . . because the real you includes more than just qualia which he doesn't even think is real!

I can't stand Dan Dennett. Except there are a few good points he makes . . . it's amongst a million digressions. And he can be funny, but it's usually part of some digression.

I bought an audiobook of his first book on free will. It's nearly 10 hours long and I've listened to half of it and I'm still waiting for him to get the free will part

The Sam Harris one is an hour and a half and I agree with it 100% and I have listened to it on repeat.

I don't consider Sam Harris a philosopher though.

And Galen Strawson, another one of my favorite philosophers, makes an argument against Free Will even more concisely than Harris anyway:





By the way, I love how Dean Rickles explains something I already figured out myself all by myself! :

[vulcanlogician]

During my studies of philosophy, I've found the ideas of Immanuel Kant, Georg Hegel, Augustine, Arnold Toynbee, and Bart de Ligt to be interesting.

Thank you so much for putting Bart de Ligt on your list. I'd never heard of him before your post, but I gave him a google. I've recently become very interested in anarcho-pacifism, and this is yet another guy who I will be reading carefully.

[Edwardo Piet]

I believe that self-defense that uses violence is immoral if you cause more suffering to the person who attacked you than the person who attacked you would have caused had you not defended yourself.

I believe war is immoral full stop. I am completely anti-war. But I don't realistically expect a country to not defend itself if it gets invaded. I just think that both sides of a war are committing ultimate immorality so everything else is comparatively morally insignificant.

[vulcanlogician]

I believe that self-defense that uses violence is immoral if you cause more suffering to the person who attacked you than the person who attacked you would have caused had you not defended yourself.

Let me play devil's advocate then. A woman is attacked by a rapist (who only intended to rape her--not kill her). She defends herself by shooting him in the head with a 38 special. Justified?

[Edwardo Piet]

I believe that self-defense that uses violence is immoral if you cause more suffering to the person who attacked you than the person who attacked you would have caused had you not defended yourself.

Let me play devil's advocate then. A woman is attacked by a rapist (who only intended to rape her--not kill her). She defends herself by shooting him in the head with a 38 special. Justified?

Yes I do think that is morally justified.

Just not legally.

Unless the family and friends of the rapist would suffer more psychologically from the death of the rapist, who no one can know for sure was going to rape her or not, than the woman would have suffered if she had been raped. But I doubt it. I'm sure rape would be a deeper psychological suffering than grief. Especially considering some family and friends would probably feel less grief over the death of a loved one who attacked and tried to rape someone than they would for a loved one who wasn't that awful.

So I'm going to say: Yes.

You say 'only intended to rape her' but I think in many cases rape is worse than murder. Although it certainly depends. I understand that you say that probably because legally murder is treated as more severe. But I don't think it is.

I think there are a lot of experiences worse than death.... which isn't even an experience. And I think the worst part about death is the dying and the people who would miss you. And the pain that comes from death can often be less painful than rape. That certainly depends. But to die instantly from a gunshot I certainly don't think is as bad as rape. I'd much rather be shot in the head than raped. At least provided that I died instantly. If I survived and suffered severe pain in my head and brain damage for many years, maybe that would be worse than rape, but I'm not sure.

[vulcanlogician]

Yes I do think that is morally justified.

Just not legally.

Unless the family and friends of the rapist would suffer more psychologically from the death of the rapist, who no one can know for sure was going to rape her or not, than the woman would have suffered if she had been raped. But I doubt it. I'm sure rape would be a deeper psychological suffering than grief. Especially considering some family and friends would probably feel less grief over the death of a loved one who attacked and tried to rape someone than they would for a loved one who wasn't that awful.

So I'm going to say: Yes.

You say 'only intended to rape her' but I think in many cases rape is worse than murder. Although it certainly depends.

Wow. You really are a utilitarian, aren't you? I have to admit, the moral calculus seems rather cold when expressed in the way you express it, but then again, you do admit that the worst possible scenario (from a utilitarian's perspective) is for the assault to actually happen. Most likely, anyway.

A bit of a digression: what are your thoughts on virtue ethics?

[Edwardo Piet]

A bit of a digression: what are your thoughts on virtue ethics?

Other ethical systems like virtue ethics and deontology can only possibly be relevant insofar as they cause positive as opposed to negative consequences. If following virtue ethics leads to good consequences, then it's a good moral theory, if not then it's a bad moral theory. So basically consequentialism trumps everything when it comes to what is actually moral . . . but it itself can't figure out what the good and bad consequences are. So perhaps other moral theories can help with that.

Like literally, if anyone thinks something is moral or immoral in spite of the consequences I have no idea what they're talking about.

The fact I come across as cold is irrelevant. The only relevant part is what the right thing to do is. This is about being moral not about being nice or compassionate. I often choose to be compassionate and nice even when doing so is not the moral thing to do. In fact I almost always choose the easy option. Because I am usually too selfish and not a good enough person to want to be moral. I care about friendship and family and my own survival and my own pleasure more than I care about being moral, for entirely selfish reasons, ultimately. I choose being social and obeying the law over being a good person. Although by most people's standards I'm a good person. If I could choose between being a better person and getting laid I'd choose getting laid. Although maybe this is why I can't get laid. (I doubt it lol. I don't tell people that and there are many guys a lot worse than me who can get sex just fine. It's probably more likely to do with me rarely leaving the house lol).

I also think it's a morally bad thing that the universe exists in the first place. And many of us would be better off if we were never born.

And no, I am not a utilitarian. AFAIK all utilitarians aggregate utility in some way. Whether it's total utilitarianism or average utilitarianism, or some other form of calculating utility. I'm with John Taurek on this one. I also think that it's a bad thing that the universe exists in the first place.:

The philosopher John Taurek also argued that the idea of adding happiness or pleasures across persons is quite unintelligible and that the numbers of persons involved in a situation are morally irrelevant. Taurek's basic concern comes down to this: we cannot explain what it means to say that things would be five times worse if five people die than if one person dies. "I cannot give a satisfactory account of the meaning of judgments of this kind," he wrote (p. 304). He argues that each person can only lose one person's happiness or pleasures. There isn't five times more loss of happiness or pleasure when five die: who would be feeling this happiness or pleasure? "Each person's potential loss has the same significance to me, only as a loss to that person alone. because, by hypothesis, I have an equal concern for each person involved, I am moved to give each of them an equal chance to be spared his loss"

By the way what is your response? Do you think that it would be morally unjustifiable to shoot a person in the head and kill them if they tried to rape you? And more importantly, why is it unjustifiable to you?

[possibletarian]

I believe that self-defense that uses violence is immoral if you cause more suffering to the person who attacked you than the person who attacked you would have caused had you not defended yourself.

Let me play devil's advocate then. A woman is attacked by a rapist (who only intended to rape her--not kill her). She defends herself by shooting him in the head with a 38 special. Justified?

I know you used that simply as an example but it does highlight difficulty in cases like this, if someone were to attack me I have no idea what the intentions are, so by instinct I'm likely to assume the worse case scenario. I remember a judge in the U.K. arguing that in the case of a shoplifter for instance, the theft actually took place the moment a person decides to steal and reaches out for it, but of course not being privy to a persons thoughts means that you have to wait till it's obvious the person is not going to pay for it through actions in order to have a case in court.
This is fine of course when what we are talking about is a bar of chocolate, but if someone is under attack, they clearly cannot afford to wait for it to play out.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

Hume, Bentham, Russell. 

Boru