Apologize when you feel, remorse or guilt?
When the feeling passes, can you no longer apologize?
Can you do this when you don't hurt, or forgive when you do?
If you cannot, know you are enslaved to your passing emotions.
- - -
"Forgive them. They know not what they do".
"Forgive us, as we forgive those who trespass against us".
- - -
What rules in your life: will, or passions?
What frees you to decide?
What compels you to blind action?
Thursday, 31 October 2013
HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2013!!
Happy Halloween / Hallow's Even / All Saint's Day's Eve everybody!!
Enjoy this awesome holiday!
(-[^]__[^]-) _b
Enjoy this awesome holiday!
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Ethics & Solidarity - D8: Egosim and Ethics
Q1: Can we only act to benefit ourselves (psychological egoism)?
A1: Psychological Egoism is really a perspective and not an argument. It cannot be disproven. This impasse has cost me plenty and dearly, so I just nod and smile and let it meander on by in it's supposed argument. When even subconscious reasons for altruistic can be argued selfish, I can think of no fitting rebuttal. Too sterile and arbitrary for my liking or accepting, so when someone chooses to hold it, I no longer bother to contest it.
Q2: Ought we all be selfish (ethical egoism)?
Q3: Are we obligated to consider others [first] (altruism)?
A2,3: I see no divide here. Maybe I am wrong. -I- (my free person) cannot give or help others unless I be free and whole in my means and capacities, so I must consider myself first if I am to be able to consider the needs of others, for what can I give that I do not have?? The first and last thing we have is our being -- that prime subjective observer and actor we cannot rid ourselves of, that we ARE. That may seem self serving, but for the following: by giving to others, by the pouring out of my being as fully as I may, I redeem the value of what I am, and possess it all the more, as the light of a torch shared and spread to others is not diminished, but more present and realized. So, in giving to others, I have what I am more, and in strengthening myself for this purpose, I give to others and myself a greater ability to share through my person. Giving to my self does not deny others, giving to others does not deny me.
Were living a competition alone, this may seem mad, but what hermit is fulfilled in a solitude without at least praying for others? Likewise, what devoted spouse or parent is at all diminished by striving to better their loved ones?
To finalize this example of self & other being fulfilled in a BOTH/AND vs. an US-vs.-THEM or a SELF-vs.-OTHER, consider a lifeguard trying to save a drowning victim under a pier. Should the lifeguard:
1. let the person drown, neither protecting them nor cultivating anything worthwhile by his position?
2. place his own body between the drowning person and the pylons, risking both their lives hould he hit his head against one when a wave pushes them? Or
3. place the victims body between him and the pylons, so that, should the victim be concussed, the lifeguard may yet save them both, if not at least himself and any future victims he may save?
Your best interests and mine are not, and must not be thought to be opposed. If I am to love you, to serve you, to protect you and the value of what life and means I have, I must love and protect myself as well. If I am to love, serve, and cultivate what I am and have, I must put it to use in service of others.
Q4: What do you think?
A4: Altruism and Ethical Egoism are both extreme and needlessly-opposing views that don't do nearly enough. We cannot attend to others without benefitting our own interests, as I am better when you are, and we cannot cannot attend to ourselves without benefitting others interests, as you are better off when I am. Only in the mind-state of opposition are these views possible.
- - - - -
p.s.
I admit my view of ethics may seem either completely off, or too radical to consider viable. It does not seek the comfort of ending thought, which is what Ethical Egoism, Altruism, and Psychological Egoism seem to. Living in a world where opposition is so often taken as the rule and not the exception, the BOTH/AND view of solidarity always risks dismissal, doubt, and opportunism. It is especially uncomfortable in the arenas of religion and politics.
-xv, 31st October 2013
A1: Psychological Egoism is really a perspective and not an argument. It cannot be disproven. This impasse has cost me plenty and dearly, so I just nod and smile and let it meander on by in it's supposed argument. When even subconscious reasons for altruistic can be argued selfish, I can think of no fitting rebuttal. Too sterile and arbitrary for my liking or accepting, so when someone chooses to hold it, I no longer bother to contest it.
Q2: Ought we all be selfish (ethical egoism)?
Q3: Are we obligated to consider others [first] (altruism)?
A2,3: I see no divide here. Maybe I am wrong. -I- (my free person) cannot give or help others unless I be free and whole in my means and capacities, so I must consider myself first if I am to be able to consider the needs of others, for what can I give that I do not have?? The first and last thing we have is our being -- that prime subjective observer and actor we cannot rid ourselves of, that we ARE. That may seem self serving, but for the following: by giving to others, by the pouring out of my being as fully as I may, I redeem the value of what I am, and possess it all the more, as the light of a torch shared and spread to others is not diminished, but more present and realized. So, in giving to others, I have what I am more, and in strengthening myself for this purpose, I give to others and myself a greater ability to share through my person. Giving to my self does not deny others, giving to others does not deny me.
Were living a competition alone, this may seem mad, but what hermit is fulfilled in a solitude without at least praying for others? Likewise, what devoted spouse or parent is at all diminished by striving to better their loved ones?
To finalize this example of self & other being fulfilled in a BOTH/AND vs. an US-vs.-THEM or a SELF-vs.-OTHER, consider a lifeguard trying to save a drowning victim under a pier. Should the lifeguard:
1. let the person drown, neither protecting them nor cultivating anything worthwhile by his position?
2. place his own body between the drowning person and the pylons, risking both their lives hould he hit his head against one when a wave pushes them? Or
3. place the victims body between him and the pylons, so that, should the victim be concussed, the lifeguard may yet save them both, if not at least himself and any future victims he may save?
Your best interests and mine are not, and must not be thought to be opposed. If I am to love you, to serve you, to protect you and the value of what life and means I have, I must love and protect myself as well. If I am to love, serve, and cultivate what I am and have, I must put it to use in service of others.
Q4: What do you think?
A4: Altruism and Ethical Egoism are both extreme and needlessly-opposing views that don't do nearly enough. We cannot attend to others without benefitting our own interests, as I am better when you are, and we cannot cannot attend to ourselves without benefitting others interests, as you are better off when I am. Only in the mind-state of opposition are these views possible.
- - - - -
p.s.
I admit my view of ethics may seem either completely off, or too radical to consider viable. It does not seek the comfort of ending thought, which is what Ethical Egoism, Altruism, and Psychological Egoism seem to. Living in a world where opposition is so often taken as the rule and not the exception, the BOTH/AND view of solidarity always risks dismissal, doubt, and opportunism. It is especially uncomfortable in the arenas of religion and politics.
-xv, 31st October 2013
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