Tuesday, June 21, 2022

Acting As If One Does Not Believe One's Own Moral Philosophy

Just in case some fool makes assumptions about what I am and am not about to say, remember that I am not even anything more than a moral skeptic who recognizes the logical possibility of either objective moral obligations or moral nihilism, recognizes all ideological inconsistencies as refutations of an idea and all personal inconsistencies as stupidity and insincerity, and recognizes the evidence for Christianity as supporting but not proving its very particular set of values.  I am neither a nihilist not someone who pretends to know that there are indeed moral obligations, but I do openly admit the irrelevance of conscience to proving moral ideas or even understanding what logically follows from a given idea.  At most, conscience restrains people whether or not an act is truly evil or merely prompts thought about moral concepts.

Some who begin to recognize just how irrelevant and useless conscience is to almost all aspects of philosophy just make the pathetic assumption that there are no moral obligations (which does not logically follow whatsoever), or they believe the even more irrational tenets of moral relativism, the false idea that everyone's conflicting, subjective preferences are valid at once instead of equally invalid.  Still, even nihilists and relativists lash out all the time despite believing, or supposedly believing, that nothing is truly immoral.  Just as many moral realists will brazenly contradict their beliefs on the level of actions or other beliefs, most moral relativists and nihilists will brazenly contradict themselves on the level of belief or action by reacting to certain things as if they genuinely believe them to be evil.  Most people simply act as if they do not believe their own philosophy of morality, whatever it is, when it gets convenient not to.

For relativists and nihilists, it is as if they desperately want there to be no true moral obligations so that they cannot be condemned in the only sense that matters even as they are so eager for their lives to have moral significance that they are willing to leap into stupidity.  This is often why people contradict themselves in such obvious, emotionalistic ways: they want two incompatible concepts to be objectively true at the same time.  Instead of abandoning one or both, at least until they rationalistically assess whether either of them is even logically possible on its own, they cling to both and are confused or enraged when someone else points out their hypocrisy and broader irrationality.  They are not interested in truth except perhaps in small, inconsistent bursts no matter what they say with words.

The only two foundational moral philosophies that are even logically possible are deontological moral obligations rooted in the moral nature of the uncaused cause (if it has one) or total moral nihilism, as even the existence of reason, the uncaused cause, and the subjective desires of conscience do not make it logically necessary that obligations exist.  All other philosophical approaches to moral ideas contradict and thus refute themselves, like relativism or atheistic moral realism, and most sets of values are only logically possible as actual obligations at best, having neither logical proof that establishes them as true by necessity nor mere evidences that lend support to them.  Only a fool would believe that incoherent or assumed values actually reflect reality.

Moral philosophy is abstract, yes, but it is not so abstract that anyone is truly incapable of discovering all of these logical facts with only the laws of logic and their own willing minds.  The desperation of irrationalists of diverse ideological backgrounds, from atheists to fitheists to cultural relativists to people stupid enough to never realize that their subjective moral preferences have nothing to do with proving moral concepts, tends to reveal itself in spite of their petty facade of moralistic or intellectual superiority, resulting in outward displays of hypocrisy or ideological assumptions and contradictions.  Even those who are more consistent about their selective relativism and who actually believe they can prove nihilism still rarely act as if they believe what they say, and even non-rationalists who look down on such people still tend to think their subjective perceptions and preferences are more than just that: subjective perceptions.

Logic, people.  It is very fucking helpful.

No comments:

Post a Comment