Forwarded from Normal (Michael Kowalik)
Ethical Realism
The value of human life consists in our self-reflexive capacity for intentional action. By discriminating between more of less valuable actions and choosing to act in a particular way we unconditionally affirm the value of being a rational agent. The commitment to the value of being a rational agent is a necessary condition of all other value-commitments, including the belief in God. It follows uncontroversially that without the capacity for rational discernment and intentional action there can be no awareness of value, therefore any life-form that does not possess this capacity can have no meaning or value to itself. This is a crucial insight for ethics, as it presents us with an objective reference point with respect to which we can asses the value of any human action. If ethics stems from the awareness of the value of rational consciousness, and the value of all actions derives from this common source, then any action can be assessed as either Right or Wrong on the basis of enhancement vs. diminishing of rational consciousness. Moreover, if rational consciousness is not individually self-sufficient but requires (reflexive) social relations to construct meaning and therefore rationality, then our relationship to other beings of the same kind is subject to objective ethical criteria that can be discovered.
https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3737433
The value of human life consists in our self-reflexive capacity for intentional action. By discriminating between more of less valuable actions and choosing to act in a particular way we unconditionally affirm the value of being a rational agent. The commitment to the value of being a rational agent is a necessary condition of all other value-commitments, including the belief in God. It follows uncontroversially that without the capacity for rational discernment and intentional action there can be no awareness of value, therefore any life-form that does not possess this capacity can have no meaning or value to itself. This is a crucial insight for ethics, as it presents us with an objective reference point with respect to which we can asses the value of any human action. If ethics stems from the awareness of the value of rational consciousness, and the value of all actions derives from this common source, then any action can be assessed as either Right or Wrong on the basis of enhancement vs. diminishing of rational consciousness. Moreover, if rational consciousness is not individually self-sufficient but requires (reflexive) social relations to construct meaning and therefore rationality, then our relationship to other beings of the same kind is subject to objective ethical criteria that can be discovered.
https://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3737433
Ssrn
Ontological-Transcendental Defence of Metanormative Realism
If there is something (P) that every possible agent is committed to value, and certain actions or attitudes either enhance or diminish P, then normative claims
We do not need one world government to save us from one another, but only to realise that one set of rules governs all meaning, and that all being is meaning.
Forwarded from Normal (Michael Kowalik)
The primary mistake made by people who contest the existence of viruses is that they take science to be a form of knowledge of what ‘exists’. This is not the case. Existence is a question of philosophy, ontology, or convention, not of empirical science. Science is a system of abstractions and their relations, constructed to predict how a particular action can bring about a particular reaction. The inputs and outputs only need to be real (we generally agree on those, for example, on the reality of our headache and on the physical existence of the colourful pill taken to stop the pain); all the theoretical steps in between need not be real, but merely symbolic transformations for consistently achieving the desired outcome.
We should not ask whether a theory is true (no theory is true in every respect), but in what sense it is true and in what sense it is false. When a 'better' theory is created, the sense in which it is true is more relevant to conscious agency, and the sense in which it is false is less relevant to it.
All those who fail to resolve existential disagreements by rational deliberation will be compelled to fight to the death, and ultimately cancel each other out. It seems the time we were given to deliberate is nearly up.
Terrible things done by groups of people are a force of nature, because ‘humanity’ is still to a significant degree just a blind force of nature. At some point no resistance to mass aberration is possible; one can only step out of the way. The primary moral challenge in times like these is not to become what one hates, not to become just a force of nature.
Morality is typically understood as a set of authoritative rules that justify consequences (punishment), but this is begging the question, and the alleged moral authority is an imposter. Morality makes sense only insofar as it is intrinsically consequential, justified by how it changes the Self irrespective of punishment. Morality without intrinsic consequences is empty moralising.
Anthony Fauci receiving a prestigious ethics award is great news for ethics. When ethics associations and academic ethics organisations confess that they have become the anathema to sound ethical judgment we have the opportunity to free ethics from the clutches of these corrupt associations. People will start to think ethically all by themselves, no longer able to rely on the opinions of some Centre for Ethics without looking like a fool.
The belief that the end justifies the means, negates both the end and the means.
There is one way to reclaim the residential property market from predatory foreign investors: crash it.
In regard to the act of killing in self-defence, the recognition of a Human is based not just on rational communication, not on their goodness or badness, but is primarily phenomenological. If it looks like a human, it will affect you like a human, no matter how bad you think they are. The evidence of badness of another can help rationalise the killing, but cannot neutralise the phenomenological effect. Many veterans have mental problems after killing “only bad guys”.
Ask not what your country can do for you, but how is your country using your ethno-religious identity and ideological commitments against you. Read the News. Watch the ‘verified footage’. See the corpses. Learn whom you are supposed to hate, and whom you are to serve today.
Fashion is the most effective form of obedience-conditioning for humans. It blends obedience with vanity.
When murder is presented in the language of war, people do not ask 'who is the murderer' but 'what was the nationality, race or religion that did it'. The reciprocal crimes are soon reduced to a token by means of which we are tricked to choose one of the politically generalised sides, to support the 'lesser' evil, but evil nonetheless (the trolley problem). By making this choice we also judge the innocent as collectively guilty, and some of the guilty as collectively innocent (an implicit contradiction).
Morality relates to individual actions, not to group identity. A wrong action is always wrong, for every person, irrespective of circumstances. If we choose to think in the language of morality, as opposed to the language of war, it no longer matters who is Palestinian or Israeli, Jew or Arab, man or woman, white or brown, migrant or native; they are all human, and some humans do evil things. They themselves may think in the language of war, but you do not have to.
Morality relates to individual actions, not to group identity. A wrong action is always wrong, for every person, irrespective of circumstances. If we choose to think in the language of morality, as opposed to the language of war, it no longer matters who is Palestinian or Israeli, Jew or Arab, man or woman, white or brown, migrant or native; they are all human, and some humans do evil things. They themselves may think in the language of war, but you do not have to.
When we speak about institutions, their policies and systems, we are speaking about abstract entities, not about persons. Institutions can be right or wrong in the logical sense, but they are not moral agents; only the individuals comprising them are moral agents. When we denounce institutional policies and systems for being irrational we cannot infer that every member of the institution is logically wrong by association, let alone morally wrong: a category mistake. The moral buck stops with individual action, which may include tacit acquiescence to the moral wrongs of others acting in our name.
On Strategy
An effective strategy depends on having a) a clear idea of what outcomes would constitute mission-success (the primary aim of the strategy) and b) realistic, practically achievable aims. It follows that strategic subversion can target either of these foundations: a) promoting vagueness, irrelevance, disagreement or obfuscation of the strategic aims (appeals to emotion and promoting of histrionic leaders are classical subversion strategies); b) promoting strategic aims that are irrelevant, nebulous or contradictory.
In the realm of politics and law, constructive transformations of the systemic totality cannot be reduced to a single, realistic aim. Ideas such as unity, love, fairness, justice, freedom, equality etc. are vague and practically meaningless abstractions (therefore subversive to constructive effort). The strategic focus, while necessarily subject to principles, must be on specific, temporary limited tasks with measurable outcomes. For example, to defeat vaccine mandates may require a series of tasks, each depending on the successful accomplishment of the prior task, beginning from the basic (drawing attention to specific contradictions in the offending policy) to the systemic (legal precedent or legislation). It is impossible to intentionally accomplish constructive, systemic outcomes without completing basic tasks at the conceptual level. Basic tasks cannot be combined; they must be executed one by one, each in their own basic category of meaning, otherwise they work against one another (for example, arguing logical consistency, legality and empirical evidence all at once equivocates between categories and dilutes their basic relevance).
An effective strategy depends on having a) a clear idea of what outcomes would constitute mission-success (the primary aim of the strategy) and b) realistic, practically achievable aims. It follows that strategic subversion can target either of these foundations: a) promoting vagueness, irrelevance, disagreement or obfuscation of the strategic aims (appeals to emotion and promoting of histrionic leaders are classical subversion strategies); b) promoting strategic aims that are irrelevant, nebulous or contradictory.
In the realm of politics and law, constructive transformations of the systemic totality cannot be reduced to a single, realistic aim. Ideas such as unity, love, fairness, justice, freedom, equality etc. are vague and practically meaningless abstractions (therefore subversive to constructive effort). The strategic focus, while necessarily subject to principles, must be on specific, temporary limited tasks with measurable outcomes. For example, to defeat vaccine mandates may require a series of tasks, each depending on the successful accomplishment of the prior task, beginning from the basic (drawing attention to specific contradictions in the offending policy) to the systemic (legal precedent or legislation). It is impossible to intentionally accomplish constructive, systemic outcomes without completing basic tasks at the conceptual level. Basic tasks cannot be combined; they must be executed one by one, each in their own basic category of meaning, otherwise they work against one another (for example, arguing logical consistency, legality and empirical evidence all at once equivocates between categories and dilutes their basic relevance).
It would not make sense for a playwright to meticulously compose only the leading act for an epic, adversarial drama; the script would not make any sense without incorporating a properly dramatised re-action. If you accept that Covid was a scripted performance acted out by government actors then it necessarily follows that the ‘freedom movement’ is a scripted performance acted out by selected antagonists. Moreover, it would be immensely risky to leave half of a real-world drama to chance; anything could happen, the script could be derailed by meddlers from the audience, important people could get killed, therefore the acts of the antagonists had to be as meticulously controlled as the leading act. Anything less would be reckless and, in its own way, ‘unethical’.
I am collecting examples of any media personality associated with the medical freedom movement, anywhere in the world, stating that ‘vaccine mandates violate the right to life’. Please provide links/citations/crickets in the comments.
The apparent role of the Freedom Movement is to increase the noise to signal ratio with respect to effective action against climate change vaccine mandates.