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Some personal philosophy (as if the Internet needs more): I always watch out for the dogmatic idealogues, the ones without moderation. You can identify them wh

Some personal philosophy (as if the Internet needs more): I always watch out for the dogmatic idealogues, the ones without moderation. You can identify them when they say that the welfare of others, often including their lives, should be sacrificed to the idealogue's cause - and of course the others should have no say in it. Pragmatism and humility are the wisest forms of morality. There should always be something higher than your ideals and goals, either the ideal of other people's lives and welfare, or their self-determination (whether or not you agree with their opinions), or your humility: Unless you are God, you should hesitate to sacrifice others based on your judgement. For me, that's also the philosophical foundation of democracy.

Retra 11y ago
That doesn't make any sense. "There should always be something higher than your ideals and goals" is a contradiction; if there were something higher, it'd become your ideal or goal. It seems especially incongruous to suggest that I should be putting other people's ideals over my own. Just how would you propose anybody accomplish such a thing? How is anybody supposed to make the best possible decisions when they are to assume that only someone else could make better decisions? That's idiotic. And why would you ask anyone to place self-determination above their own ideals? Despite the fact that this is a contradiction as I mentioned above, it isn't a thing worthy of intrinsic praise. Self determination isn't good unless you're determined to do good, and determined enough to actually do what it takes to achieve your ideals. So it can't be above your ideals. >Unless you are God, you should hesitate to sacrifice others based on your judgement. Most of those that do will hesitate. But they'll end up sacrificing them anyway, and you'll still be lambasting them for their short-sightedness, because you can't understand the scope of that hesitation from atop your pedestal. Of course, you can see just fine in hind-sight. That's not really a talent. All in all, you're just saying "People are morally corrupt unless they do what I think is right," which is exactly the same thing they'd say about you. What you offer isn't a solution, it's a complete failure to understand the conflict.
- tedks 11y ago
  Well said. The implicit assumption in "There should always be something higher than your ideals and goals" is that the status quo should always be maintained. Any goal or idea that disrupts business-as-usual is obviously wrong because changing anything, taking any action is wrong, not because the result of the action is bad but because nobody save the invisible maintainers of control should be agents of change. This is top-down, hierarchical society at its finest.
- panic 11y ago
  "There should always be something higher than your ideals and goals" is a contradiction; if there were something higher, it'd become your ideal or goal. It's only a contradiction if you're aware of what that higher something is. Part of humility is realizing there are things you don't know. Your ideals and goals are imperfect, and will change over your lifetime. Why didn't you choose the "highest" ideals to begin with?
  - Retra 11y ago
    You can't make decisions based on information you don't have. An unknown ideal is not "higher" -- it's unknown -- as in, you don't actually know that it's "higher," and you couldn't do anything about it even if it were. You certainly can't believe in the unknown. "Pursuit of the unknown" is not itself an unknown ideal. You should look for new information. That's not a mystery, that's an ideal you can have right now. If you think there's a better ideal than that, then I don't know what to tell you.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - lazaroclapp 11y ago
      > You can't make decisions based on information you don't have. You can't. But you can make decisions based on the information that your information is incomplete. A sort of 'bias towards inaction' in those cases in which the action would be irreversible. Consider the death penalty. You may think that's morally right to apply the death penalty to, say, mass murderers. You may also, without contradiction, decide that this should never be done in practice. The reasoning being that it would require infallibility on the part of the persons deciding to apply such punishment. So you don't even say "the highest moral imperative is that thou shall not kill". There might very well be cases where the best moral decision would be to kill someone under some 'higher' ideal you know nothing of. But you can still simply say "I do not trust my moral judgement to the point were I'd take another's life because of such judgement, no matter how righteous my judgement feels to me". Of course, you are also unlike to trust any other person to make such determinations, either. How to try and dissuade others from taking actions that you don't consider acceptable, without resorting to actions for which you know you are not qualified to make the moral call, is a whole other matter.

Retra 11y ago

That doesn't make any sense. "There should always be something higher than your ideals and goals" is a contradiction; if there were something higher, it'd become your ideal or goal. It seems especially incongruous to suggest that I should be putting other people's ideals over my own. Just how would you propose anybody accomplish such a thing? How is anybody supposed to make the best possible decisions when they are to assume that only someone else could make better decisions? That's idiotic. And why would you ask anyone to place self-determination above their own ideals? Despite the fact that this is a contradiction as I mentioned above, it isn't a thing worthy of intrinsic praise. Self determination isn't good unless you're determined to do good, and determined enough to actually do what it takes to achieve your ideals. So it can't be above your ideals. >Unless you are God, you should hesitate to sacrifice others based on your judgement. Most of those that do will hesitate. But they'll end up sacrificing them anyway, and you'll still be lambasting them for their short-sightedness, because you can't understand the scope of that hesitation from atop your pedestal. Of course, you can see just fine in hind-sight. That's not really a talent. All in all, you're just saying "People are morally corrupt unless they do what I think is right," which is exactly the same thing they'd say about you. What you offer isn't a solution, it's a complete failure to understand the conflict.

tedks 11y ago
Well said. The implicit assumption in "There should always be something higher than your ideals and goals" is that the status quo should always be maintained. Any goal or idea that disrupts business-as-usual is obviously wrong because changing anything, taking any action is wrong, not because the result of the action is bad but because nobody save the invisible maintainers of control should be agents of change. This is top-down, hierarchical society at its finest.
panic 11y ago
"There should always be something higher than your ideals and goals" is a contradiction; if there were something higher, it'd become your ideal or goal. It's only a contradiction if you're aware of what that higher something is. Part of humility is realizing there are things you don't know. Your ideals and goals are imperfect, and will change over your lifetime. Why didn't you choose the "highest" ideals to begin with?
- Retra 11y ago
  You can't make decisions based on information you don't have. An unknown ideal is not "higher" -- it's unknown -- as in, you don't actually know that it's "higher," and you couldn't do anything about it even if it were. You certainly can't believe in the unknown. "Pursuit of the unknown" is not itself an unknown ideal. You should look for new information. That's not a mystery, that's an ideal you can have right now. If you think there's a better ideal than that, then I don't know what to tell you.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - lazaroclapp 11y ago
    > You can't make decisions based on information you don't have. You can't. But you can make decisions based on the information that your information is incomplete. A sort of 'bias towards inaction' in those cases in which the action would be irreversible. Consider the death penalty. You may think that's morally right to apply the death penalty to, say, mass murderers. You may also, without contradiction, decide that this should never be done in practice. The reasoning being that it would require infallibility on the part of the persons deciding to apply such punishment. So you don't even say "the highest moral imperative is that thou shall not kill". There might very well be cases where the best moral decision would be to kill someone under some 'higher' ideal you know nothing of. But you can still simply say "I do not trust my moral judgement to the point were I'd take another's life because of such judgement, no matter how righteous my judgement feels to me". Of course, you are also unlike to trust any other person to make such determinations, either. How to try and dissuade others from taking actions that you don't consider acceptable, without resorting to actions for which you know you are not qualified to make the moral call, is a whole other matter.