Deciding what to do
I feel that we are in a nihilistic position where we can't can justify any of our actions by reference to rules, objectivity or teleology.
For example it is not wrong for me to eat a chocolate bar and it is not wrong for me not to eat one. There are no innate rules for behaviour and any value judgements and ought's are completely fabricated.
Every decision we make we don't know if we are doing the right thing and what the consequences are going to be.
The ad absurdum is saving baby Hitler from drowning which seems admirable but saving his life would doom others. But my general point is that every choice we make is done in a situation of infinite possibilities and without anyway to know we have done the best or correct thing.
It is something that can lead to an existential crisis.
For example it is not wrong for me to eat a chocolate bar and it is not wrong for me not to eat one. There are no innate rules for behaviour and any value judgements and ought's are completely fabricated.
Every decision we make we don't know if we are doing the right thing and what the consequences are going to be.
The ad absurdum is saving baby Hitler from drowning which seems admirable but saving his life would doom others. But my general point is that every choice we make is done in a situation of infinite possibilities and without anyway to know we have done the best or correct thing.
It is something that can lead to an existential crisis.
Comments (105)
Animals know what to do to live without some outside force motivating them. People are animals. What we need to live, to make decisions and to act, is built in to us, some of it from birth and some of it developed later through education and socialization. Of course, people are also different from other animals, so I'm sure our motivations are more complicated. Some of it is fear, some more positive factors. I've tried to pay attention to my own motivation for the things I do. In my experience, rules and rational considerations are not my primary motivators.
Stephen Pinker in "The Language Instinct" makes the case that, to a large extent, language acquisition is an instinct - genetically mediated motivation which develops according to a developmental schedule. He quotes Darwin from "Descent of Man":
Human language is an instinctive tendency to acquire an art. It certainly is not a true instinct, for every language has to be learned. It differs, however, widely from all ordinary arts, for man has an instinctive tendency to speak, as we see in the babble of our young children; while no child has an instinctive tendency to brew, bake, or write.
He also quotes William James from "What is an Instinct":
[i]Nothing is commoner than the remark that Man differs from lower creatures by the almost total absence of instincts, and the assumption of their work in him by reason....[But] the facts of the case are really tolerably plain! Man has a far greater variety of impulses than any lower animal; and any one of these impulses, taken in itself, is as blind as the lowest instinct can be; but, owing to mans memory, power of reflection, and power of inference, they come each one to be felt by him, after he has once yielded to them and experienced their results, in connection with a foresight of those results
It is plain then that, no matter how well endowed an animal may originally be in the way of instincts, his resultant actions will be much modified if the instincts combine with experience, if in addition to impulses he have memories, associations, inferences, and expectations, on any considerable scale
there is no material antagonism between instinct and reason [/i]
To me, this suggests that human behavior beyond just acquisition of language is motivated by instinct modified and expanded by learning and experience.
Sounds like freedom to me. And choice. What a luxury! Celebrate it. Humans have to make choices in life. You do the best you can with what you have, or in worrying unduly about putative outcomes, you might succumb to analysis paralysis.
And wishing to avoid that unnecessary anxiety, realize that we only have control of ourselves more or less. See: stoicism.
, trouble is, you must act. You don't get not to choose. And even if you are motivated by 's instinct, or avoiding 's anxiety, that's entirely your choice; you might do otherwise.
Perhaps the problem is much deeper than you had supposed.
The rules are not found, nor innate, but chosen, by you, and you have to choose.
Welcome to existentialism.
I am no expert on animal behaviour but it seems to me humans can never exist (spontaneously?)like an animal in the wild without language communities and complex learning.
It would be great if we could just go out and exist at one with nature as animals appear to do although we can't really comment on how any other animal experiences reality. They do not appear to have the capacity to experience reality by dividing it up through language to reflect on their experiences.
Thinking about animal minds and other peoples mind and our own is always going to be speculative. However we do have a transparent language where can ask clear, rational and lucid questions about reality that don't have answers.
The existential crisis or nihilism occurs because of this capacity. This is the crux of the issue, animals never seem to have this situation arising and if they do have a "no win" situation" that does appear to cause helplessness in animals as well in that they have been seen to develop apathy after trauma,
I would agree that some instincts (if this is what you are alluding to) can help us stay motivated , living instinctively based on brute desires. And indeed it sound good to have naturally strong passions and drives. But these drives do seem to override the questioning side rather like supressing doubts with pleasurable hormones or something biochemical.
I was thinking to day after reading about someone committing suicide how extremely horrible it is to get to that mental state where you see no way out and existence becomes unbearable. That probably relates to this and differentiates us from other animals.
I think existentialism and nihilism probably require a response and a solution.
In a sense I am just filled with a sense of fearful wonder at the situation we find our self in which is why I don't view humans as just another mundane product of nature.
But how to do deal with this anxiety?
I did that long ago.
But I think that maybe partly due to society/socialisation.
Society limits us despite the appearance of great choice. I in particular has a very strict authoritarian religious upbringing. But some people thrive with boundaries and certainties.
How does Robotics deal with this issue?
There is The Paradox of Buridan's ass and the halting problem in computer theory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buridan%27s_ass
We cannot always make decisions by reason or emotion such as choosing between to equally desirable things o ending up with some form of insoluble choice or conundrum.
I know little about computing if someone does and how they deal with these issues I would be interested.
I want to do the best and most ethical thing for me an others or just do something worthwhile/meaningful. (If I have not already done so.)
Homo Sapiens have been around for 200,000 years. They were genetically equivalent to people today. Do you think evolution didn't provide them with the ability to make decisions and act on those decisions? Do you think people 100,000 years ago couldn't act without application of rules, objectivity or teleology? I'm sure they didn't have existential crises or nihilistic feelings. The problems you've identified are overlays on basic human behavior associated, I guess, with modern civilization.
It is at the heart of some eastern philosophies and meditative practices that people can think and act spontaneously, e.g. Taoism. This from The Tao Te Ching, Verse 38, Ellen Marie Chen translation with some butchering from me:
[i]When spontaneity [Tao] is lost, then there is virtue.
When virtue is lost, then there is humanity.
When humanity is lost, then there is righteousness.
When righteousness is lost, then there is propriety.
Propriety is the thin edge of loyalty and faithfulness,
And the beginning of disorder.[/i]
Quoting Andrew4Handel
There are studies that show babies as young as three months old, long before they have language, are already judging other people's behavior and making value judgements. Karen Wynn, who conducted the studies, suggests this does show there are innate rules for behavior.
If one is a modern individual with no loyalty and no connection to others, one does what one likes, which is probably nothing much, and one is always anxious about the other who is nothing but a rival and competitor, liable to steal one's dinner.
Quoting T Clark
Babies are dependent on (M)others, and therefore make connections and loyalties very quickly, because their lives depend on it. It is only a very recent possibility to live without direct connection to humans or the living environment. We have created the mechanical life (and hence the amoral governance) of which we now complain.
Therefore choose solidarity with humans, with bees, with tigers and with the forest. Choose 'Team Life'.
As someone philosophically inclined I like Taoism, probably the most philosophical religion of them all in that it is inspired by the same anti-tradition sentiments you typically find in philosophy. Western philosophy too, with Socrates, started of questioning the Gods, the customs of his time. And then Plato made a big deal out of breaking with the Homeric tradition that came before. Reason was the thing to replace it... and the rest is history as they say.
But what I think is getting more and more clear, is that we are in fact predominately 'cultural beings'. We need a culture, language, rules etc etc to prosper, because that is what gave us an edge in evolutionary terms and what was selected for. What this also means, is that because we evolved this set of abilities for cultural learning that is more flexible, we didn't need all these hard-wired traits and instincts anymore unlike other animals... and so we presumably eventually lost a lot of those traits, as tends to happen in evolution with traits that aren't useful anymore.
If true, this is probably still a bit speculative scientifically, then as humans we do in fact need and rely on this cultural superstructure because unlike other animals we lack all of these instinctive algorithmic behaviors. And presumably Homo Sapiens 200.000 years did have those structures, but they weren't really preserved because they were oral traditions for the most part. This would be a modern problem insofar as our superstructure has slowly been dissolved over the past centuries with Protestantism, liberalism, and the scientific revolution/dialectics. That was what Nietzsche was getting at with the dead of God, and the fact that we hadn't understood the real significance of it yet.... nihilism.
Your approach to 'what should I do?' is far too complex and convoluted. You are asking, after I've done what I choose, how will I know whether I've done the best thing. Give this up, only an omniscient being, like some assume God to be, could ever answer that, and we are only human. Furthermore, being human we also know that we could always make mistakes. Therefore it doesn't even make sense to even try to do the best thing, because doing the best thing, even if you could know what that is, is often beyond your capacity as well. So forget all that nonsense, it's a very poor approach to decision making which will paralyze you in fear of not doing your best.
So, I suggest that you start with a simple trial and error type of approach. Choose a random thing to do. After you've done it, take note of some coherent observations of the act itself, and of the consequences. Then, see if you can judge whether it was a good thing or a bad thing. Do this a few times, and see if you can start to produce some sort of scale, definitely bad, could have been better, definitely good. After a while you'll be able to start to understand what sort of consequences you prefer (good), and which you dislike (bad). Assuming you are not in jail by this time, you can proceed toward judging the observations you've made in your trial and error process. You'll be able to see what type of actions produce a favourable result and which produce a bad result. This ought to help you in the future, to decide what to do.
Trial and error is how we learn, yes, but not necessarily as individuals, that is to convoluted. We get most passed on by our parents, society at large, by tradition.... and then we can work with that and try out some things, sure. But almost nobody has the time, energy and the genius to make that sort of strategy work purely as an individual.
Current society is a bit of a mess, and what you feel is probably quite a "sane" reaction to all of this, you are not alone in any case. There's not a whole lot one can do about it as an individual. Realizing that we're in a bit of a shitty situation regardless of what one does, probably can help to not pile on more self-inflicted guilt on top of that. And then finding like-minded people to hang out with can help as some kind of replacement for that social/cultural structure that has eroded in modern societies.
I would say there is reason here to suggest a human preference/desire for rules, but not necessarily that any innate rules for behaviour exist as such.
I would argue that our preference relates to innate qualitative structures that are inherently unquantifiable. These are not rules for behaviour, but rather underlying logical relation (Tao), from our limited understanding of which behaviour, language and then rules are formed, re-formed and refined as reductionist and scientific methodologies, tested back through our conceptual systems (mathematics, language, culture, values, etc) to our behaviour. I wouldnt say the rules themselves are innate.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Sure - we cant be certain we are doing the right thing in perpetuity. We cant be certain what all the consequences are going to be. There is always room for improvement in the accuracy of our judgements and behaviour. That only amounts to an existential crisis if we equate existence with certainty and accuracy. I could be wrong, but it seems to me theres no life, no consciousness, no relation to the world, in that kind of existence.
This process relies in part on our ability for pattern recognition, which is probably not that unlike how self-learning AI learn via neural networks. Those have existed for a long time, from the seventies or sixties, but only recently they became something that was useful, because only recently we could feed them big data gathered via the world wide web. Without big data they wouldn't get all that far in training their neural networks.
As an individual one can only experience that much in a given lifetime.... culture is our proxy for big data.
Quoting ChatteringMonkey
It would be a good explanation, I guess, if it were true.
I don't think it's necessarily a preference for rules as such as much as it is a natural tendency to judge others.
Just thought I'd throw that in; I don't know if Kant came up with a satisfactory answer.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Actually, humans do live in the wild -- a wild country of languages, complex meaning, communities, cultures, elaborate knowledge, etc. We exist in it spontaneously because this wild land of "civilization" is our natural world. It is everything from wonderful to god-awful.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Maybe the first time you encounter strong drink (alcohol) you will not know what the consequences are of guzzling the whole bottle of wine, You will soon find out, and you won't forget the lesson. Eat a pound of chocolate in one go and you will be aware that too much of a good thing is not all that wonderful.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Given our large brains with our capacity to dig ourselves in pretty deeply, the occasional existential crisis is a given. Almost all the time, we dig ourselves out of the hole and move on.
I stole this from one of my posts in an earlier discussion:
Quoting Karen Wynn
I see this as a very moderate expression of an argument for a genetic component to moral behavior. She doesn't make any definitive statement. She says her results suggest a genetic component. She says "...there are innate bases that ground some components of our moral cognition." That doesn't seem like any great leap to take from her studies. You, on the other hand, seem to reject even that moderate claim out of hand. You point out some hypothetical reasons why it might not be true, but don't provide any substantive refutation. I find that an unconvincing argument.
I've linked to this video many times on the forum:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRvVFW85IcU
It would make sense, given what we know I think... but sure, hard to tell if it is true with any certainty.
EDIT: To be clear I don't want to imply that we lost "all" of those traits (as that was in the part you quoted), but that we lost at least some so that we are not 'complete' without the cultural part. Clearly we do have some instincts too.
Do you have a source for your understanding?
Not a single source, I've read a bunch of stuff about evolution over the years.
There was one guy in particular who gave me the idea of genetic evolution having 'offloaded' a bunch of it's "work" to cultural evolution (culture is more flexible and therefor adaptive than genes), but I don't remember his name at this moment.
The idea that organisms lose traits that become obsolete is rather commonplace and well established I think (like snakes having had feet at one time).
And then there's a lot of research on our sociality being one of our most important traits for our success.
https://www.amazon.nl/Secret-Our-Success-Evolution-Domesticating/dp/0691166854
https://darwinianbusiness.com/2016/02/29/cumulative-cultural-evolution-an-overview-of-joseph-henrichs-the-secret-of-our-success/
I don't think what I'm saying is that outlandish, but you know, I'm not a professional so I very well could be somewhat off the mark.
I don't think it's outlandish, but I provided specific sources for my opinions. The extent to which human behavior is innate has been argued on the forum before. There is scientific evidence on both sides. No one argues that cultural influences don't have a big role to play. If your positions weren't expressed so definitively I [s]wouldn't[/s] might not have responded so vigorously.
Iit is not wrong for me to drive a car and it is not wrong for me not to drive a car. Iit is not wrong for me to write this comment and it is not wrong for me not to write this comment What's the issue here?
Yet there are rules ... It would be wrong for you to eat a chocolate if you were a diabetic. And it would wrong for me to drive a car if I suffered from Parkinson or other disability that impedes driving.
Then, what does all that have to do with the title of your topic, [b]"Deciding what to do"[/b?
Really, what's your point?
I suppose that as we age we develop a set of moral principles with which we will live by. We justify our actions according to these principles, and in so doing subject them to a series of trial-and-error tests in various social interactions throughout life, but mostly earlier life.
So where does the crisis come from? My guess is that continuing to justify actions by reference to rules or teleology beyond early adulthood only hamstrings this development, or at least hinders one from moving beyond the stage where one guides his actions in order to avoid censure from social authorities. I wager that this lack of moral testing, so to speak, is especially prevalent in regions of conduct and behavior that are most subject to external moral constraints, such as law. The region where conduct is controlled by law so far encroaches upon the region of free choice that the trial-and-error stage of moral development is incomplete, and ones conscience doesnt get a chance to be field-tested. So he is morally adrift without a paddle.
Ok fair enough.
The force of my expression was probably more a reaction to current ideologies like liberal individualism completely missing the mark in my opinion, than anything you said in particular.
Though I do still disagree about Homo Sapiens being just another animal. I would agree we're not special because of reason/consciousness, as was the general idea in the West in philosophy and Christianity... And yes, we do have instincts like other animals, but on top of that we also have cultural evolution, which can I think be considered a real phase shift in evolution on earth... and which does make us qualitatively different.
No disagreement from me. Social relations are a survival issue. Communication, and therefore truth, is a survival issue. But alas in humans, genetic programs for behaviour can be overridden to a large extent by learned behaviours and identifications. The programmed socialisation becomes socialised antisocial behaviour, by the propaganda of the day. There can only be one winner. There can only be one winner. There can only be one winner.
I didn't say we are. Anyway, I think you and I are in general agreement.
By growing flowers from seed, mostly.
I hope most of the replies here have left you less than satisfied. There's a blindness in the responses of scientism and economics, such that invoking evolution or genetics or instinct simply do not address the question you asked. It's a blindness to the obvious distinction between how things actually are and how we want them to be, between the facts and the values, between the "is" and the "ought".
No explication of how things are can tell you what to do. You still have to decide.
The answer to "How do you decide?" might be "What do you want?"
Yes, obviously.
So, some things are wrong. That is, it is manifest to reason that some ways of behaving are wrong.
Then there are some acts whose moral status is less clear.
But that doesn't imply nihilism. It just reflects the fact that our reason is not infallible and that it is especially exposed to corruption where morality is concerned
What do you mean by wrong? Nothing than happens in nature is wrong it either can happen or can't. nature allows animals to be eating alive and starve and nature didn't intervene in The Holocaust.
I think you are stating a preference rather than discovering as morality. In some countries they are adamant homosexuality is wrong and should be punishable by death. Having a strong reaction to something doesn't mean you have made an accurate judgement.
But most consequential and moral decisions are not about straightforward immediately harmful things. Like I said with the saving baby Hitler paradox. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. The calculations you need to do to live ethically are immense and convoluted.
Slavery and misogyny have have been constants in human history. Humans are quite capable of surviving whilst behaving in harmful and irrational ways. I am exclusively gay and don't have children but gay people seem to have been around for ever.
It is reason that makes it harder to act and now increasingly people are more highly educated and aware of paradoxes etc. More educated people have a lower birth rate ironically and more religious people have irrational prohibitions leading to large families. Like my own religious parents had six children.
Ironically a false religion can do more for the continuation of our species then reason which as in my case may lead to antinatalism or seriously restricting family size and nihilism.
I think most actions are probably initially made without getting to the existential stage that I got to so decisions might more based on instinct and socialization and culture over reason.
By 'wrong' I mean it is 'not to be done'. That is, there is a norm of reason enjoining us not to do it.
The judgement that an act is wrong is, then, a judgement about a norm.
And we make such judgements because there appear to be such norms.
They are not seen, touched, smelt or tasted. They are intuited. That is to say, our reason represents there to be such norms.
Those possessed of reason have recognized and argued about such norms for millennia. So there is no point in denying that such rational appearances exist. The history of ethics is a history of philosophers arguing over the content of such norms. Well, that confirms that there appear to be some.
And no nihilist worth their salt would deny them.
THe nihilist would deny that such appearances are accurate. That is, they would maintain that such rational impressions constitute normative hallucinations.
The problem, however, is that if you think there is a case - an argument - for thinking that such appearances are normative hallucinations, then you must presuppose that at least some rational impressions are not hallucinations (or concede that you have no case).
And once you concede that some of what our reason represents to us is true, it seems arbitrary to decide that when our reason starts telling us about norms enjoining us not to harm others, etc, that now it is lying.
That's not my experience. No calculations involved. We can only do the best we can (within reason) and make our choices. Fucking up sometimes is the price of freedom.
The baby Hitler example, for instance, is never going to happen and like most thought experiment scenarios, has minimal relevance.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I suspect this may be at the heart of your concerns. Sometimes those who have stringent religious upbringings become very preoccupied with trying to work out what is right and wrong - it's part of the conditioning from childhood (righteousness/purity/reward - sin/judgement/suffering - all that good stuff) and may need some support in overcoming.
And that's most likely a mistake. Among those who are so good at thinking clearly about moral matters that they make a living doing it - so, among professional moral philosophers - you find virtually no one who thinks homosexuality is immoral. Why isn't that excellent indirect evidence it is not immoral?
When we make moral judgements, we are not expressing our attitudes. Our moral judgements may often reflect our attitudes - we may prefer it if certain acts are wrong because and only becasue we personally disapprove of them - but that discovery, if made, then discredits the judgement in question, which just shows that moral judgements are not expressions of attitude.
Those baby studies have a problematic paradigm.
On what grounds are the babies evaluations being considered moral? You have to prove a behaviour is good or moral not the baby and the baby is doing things we think are good which could be anything we already have a preference for.
Wynn also found babies seemed to exhibit bias
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EoNYklyShs&t=129s&ab_channel=CNN
Here the babies choice overlooks "bad" behaviour based on shared preferences.
I was badly bullied in school as a child and if humans are innately moral I would like an explanation for how that happened? You need to explain the array of antisocial behaviour humans exhibit in light of supposed inherent moral knowledge.
Some of these soft toy studies and child preferences can be explained by self preservation however. It is not surprising people would like cooperative and non aggressive behaviour because it has the most personal benefit. Children as I have seen especially very young ones are frightened by aggression and loud voices.
My main dilemma on this thread though is not morality per se but choosing out of a seeming infinity of choices and with modern technology at our finger types such of the masses of information and behaviours on the internet we have even more choice daily. None of these choices may turn out to be profound but the seem to be there free will permitting yet our brain somehow copes at least to some extent.
If this helps:
Choice requires intent; it is intentional (rather than unintentional). We always choose one of multiple alternatives for the sake of fulfilling some goal (some as of yet unactualized outcome we aim to actualize). This goal can well be subconscious or unconscious with that of optimal self-preservation as one possible candidate; others can well be fathomed but it will nevertheless be a goal one pursues.
Secondly, choices are infinite only is some metacognitive conceptualization or other. In practice, choices are always limited to the finite alternatives one's finite mind can conceive of. Not being omniscient, our knowledge will always be limited.
Thirdly, whos judging what you chose? You, others, some angels or devils? Whomever it may be for you, think of it this way:
If you can justify why you choose what you choose (as one possibility: "I deemed it the best means to accomplish goal X given what I honestly knew at the time, and I stand by goal X regardless") then you empower yourself to be responsible for your choices irrespective of what may befall. Like: to hell with what the judgers judge if they condemn me for rescuing a baby from drowning given what I knew at the time about it and what I held to be a noble goal (here, maybe, improving others lives even at risk to your own). So, the baby turned out to grow into Hitler/Stalin. You are not responsible for the outcome of the adult he became, for this was not of your choice; you are only responsible for saving the life an anonymous baby for a humanitarian reason/goal (rather than for money, for the vanity of fame, so as to sabotage some enemy, or some such).
So, if you can justify your choices based on what you knew at the time and your intents in so making them, this might be all thats needed to break free of this angst you talk about. You could then in principle hold your own against your future self (given that the future-you judges the past-you fairly, I would think), others in society, and even some all-mighty being if that happens to be up your alley.
Then again, fact is bad things sometimes happen to good people. If one regrets ones choices strictly based on outcomes rather than on former reasons for having so once made them, then this enters into a completely different ballpark. One where a person will then come to regret the most virtuous of deeds merely on grounds that they werent justly compensated, such that the person might then come to curse all virtuous deeds, choosing anything but. Id disagree with this notion of ethics, and though I find the issues intertwined, its still a completely different matter.
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p.s.: In case this might otherwise lead to confusion, the ethics I was addressing in the last paragraph is that of consequentialism: in this case, a subspecies that upholds that the rightness or wrongness of ones choices is determined by the consequences (outcomes) that result from one's choices.
What constitutes an 'existential crisis'?
Quoting Wiki - Existential crisis
Different definitions, different aspects.
So, a form of 'inner conflict'. Conflict about what?
What leads to it?
Is it a case of:
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Perhaps if too many choices are available, even the simplest of decisions can be ridiculously overwhelming. Like my coming out in a sweat when choosing a television. Facing a barrage of flickering images, sounds, shapes, sizes and costs, I walked out of the store empty-handed.
I did without a television for months. People looked at me in disbelief - what on earth did I do without one? How could I exist? Let them wonder...
No crisis ensued. It wasn't an existential issue, for me anyway.
What comes first, existential feelings or the difficulties in making a decision?
Is there a circularity?
Is there any practical guidance on how best to live your life; to choose wisely?
What should you do now that you have lost your religious faith?
What, if anything, can take the place of any sense of belonging and support that might have been there?
No quick and easy answers to any isolation felt...or anxiety about the past, present and future.
It's easy to spend too much time alone in reflection. Does that help? If not, what does?
Both positive and negative views and choices can result.
The potential consequences of any choice are unknown, but many are clear.
Eat or drink too much rubbish or toxins your stomach will rebel :vomit:
When faced with so many alternatives and the need to take or make the best choice, the difficulties might indeed lead to an existential crisis.
Quoting Wiki - Existential crisis
The agony or the paradox of choice. Sometimes it's about doing the best you can, given your capabilities, and knowledge at any given moment. It can be rational, intuitive and involve a final 'leap of faith'.
I eventually bought a television. The paralysis was resolved. After a process of working out what I wanted/didn't want, what would fit and was affordable. Basically, a cost/benefit analysis and then some.
Plus a little help from friends.
Trivial compared to others who have less freedom of choice; whose agony comes from questions like:
"To eat or heat...?"
Facing a barrage of bullets and bombs from an invader - "To flee or fight?"
Welcome to a world without religion in which this crisis leads people to extreme behaviors since society, schools, and work never cared to tackle true existential questions. This is essentially Nietzsche's nightmare future that he predicted and we're seeing it in things like people's desperate attachment to conspiracy theories like Qanon and the increase in depression worldwide.
The solution would be for parents and schools to prepare children for the bleak existence that is life. In doing so teach them to find a purpose that revolves around a positive moral value system: "it's ok to fail, but strive for caring for all life", to simplify what is required.
The problem is that we replaced religion with neoliberal capitalism. Our church is our cash flow and materialistic life. Such a life can be very easily proven pointless and if we don't have anything else than that cash flow to inform us of a good life, then of course people fall into nihilism and despair.
I'd say the best solution to this nihilism is to be curious and creative. Seek knowledge and create things. The more knowledge, the easier it is to understand the dread, the more creativity, the easier it is to find meaning in the meaningless. Anyone who puts all their existential fruit in the neoliberal capitalist market will in the end die screaming (which they usually do) because it's essentially just irrelevant noise that blinds them from finding purpose in a universally meaningless existence.
You think trial and error is convoluted, it's actually extremely simple compared to trying to explain how we learn from others.
The wording was a bit of a play on your wording... what I meant is that the social aspect of how we learn was missing in your story. Trail and error on its own would be very difficult if you don't start from a lot of build up knowledge through the generations. Put another way, I don't disagree with what you said, I just thought it could use this addition.
Are you basing this on the video I linked or another source? The video made it clear. The types of judgements the babies were making were not not necessarily fair or positive. They didn't necessarily match what we would think of as good moral judgement. Moral judgement doesn't just mean doing what is right. It also means judgement of others behavior and establishing some sort of moral standards. Prejudice is a good example of a moral judgement we don't like.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
As I said, moral judgements that aren't consistent with what we consider good are still moral judgements.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Saying that humans may have an innate moral sense is not the same as saying they are innately good. As shown in Wynn's studies, I think it shows we are innately judgmental.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Yes, there is truth in what you've written. I would just say that for most decisions, it doesn't really matter what you decide, as long as any possible negative consequences are minor. Save your stomach aches for decisions that really matter and do what you can to recognize which ones really do and which ones don't. I have a default setting - if I don't have strong feelings, I decide no. I never get the extras - extended warrantees, extra buttons on the washing machine, a moon roof. When I vote on initiative petitions or referenda, if I don't really understand the possible consequences of the law and agree they are worthwhile, I don't vote on it at all. You have the power to limit the number of choices you have to make.
I appended something to my last post before seeing your latest. If youre interested; to clarify: The notion that actual (rather then intended) consequences ought to determine the rightness or wrongness of a decision made runs into difficult problems problems I think @Andrew4Handel had in mind when writing the OP. For instance, a guy decides to do X for the good of all humanity; having so done, a sociopath gets pissed and kills off all of the guys family. Here, the intended outcome is improved benefit to all of humanity and the actual outcome is the murder of all of ones family. Judging by the consequences of the choice alone, this choice was therefore wrong/bad/malevolent and the person ought not have so chosen. But since there's always some risk of some sociopath doing something bad to someone who makes a virtuous decision, should no virtuous decision then be ever made?
One could argue along the lines of the path to hell is paved with good intentions. Here, more explicitly, the intentions intending to do good dont take into account all the practical repercussions/consequences of so intending. But then, is one to be held accountable for ones particular limitations of mind? As one extreme, does one hold a lesser animal accountable for it lacking the capacity of abstract thought as we humans know it. Or, among humans, does one blame, hold responsible, someone with a mental handicap for so being mentally handicapped? Currently, the only two possible answers seem to me to be:
Yes: in which case we can hold all sentient beings responsible for not being closer to omniscience than they are. In which case, we can use the saying of the path to hell is paved with good intentions as a genuine principle of ethics. (As though those with bad intentions never get to go to (this imaginary realm of) hell.)
No: in which case we cannot then judge choices based on how much a person knows before hand of all possible, actual, unintended outcomes resulting from the choice. In which case, we then only judge a choice based on what the person intended the outcome to be and their reasons for choosing the one alternative among many as the best means to so fulfill this intent.
Mostly thinking my thoughts out-loud while trying to work through the issue: I deem your example of not voting on something that you dont understand the consequences to as a noteworthy counter example.
I suppose in sum: To what extent should a person be held accountable for not having taken into better consideration all the possible implications of each alternative one chooses amongst? This in the choice one makes considering the choice to be of relative importance.
It did happen Hitler existed and cause the deaths of Millions and massive destruction in Europe. Hitler was kept alive as a child by interventions. Likewise with other murderous dictators.
One human can cause massive destruction or massive benefit. It is statistically unlikely but it has happened several times. A scientific theory can cure a disease or create a weapon of mass destruction.
I think we are in a situation where are decisions or lack of can have profound consequences. Every one who didn't stand up against Hitler contributed to the Holocaust.
Quoting Tom Storm
Doing the best we can can be apathy and a lack of imagination and following the crowd.
The existential dilemma as in Sartre's bad faith scenario is that we are freer than we believe and have an existential freedom but we can act as we don't by reifying (or making concrete) invented social roles.
If you become a school teacher or work in a factory the decisions you make are restricted by the practises of the organisation but as in Sartre's you can leave the job anytime and reject the rules. So I am saying making choices within pre-existing structures and dogmas is not necessarily authentic choice.
Choices can be restrained but are these restraints, pragmatic or social or religious or through fear etc?
Humans clearly exhibit moral judgement making. But that is one of numerous traits humans exhibit. That does not mean any of these traits should guide how we chose to live. Isn't that the naturalistic fallacy and the appeal to nature?
I believe utilitarianism is using pleasure as a guide to action and is mistaking pleasure with good and rightness or meaningfulness. Where we have extreme scenarios such as drugging everyone or putting them in a happiness machine to induce mass pleasure or deciding we must end all life because suffering outweighs pleasure.
Utilitarianism had the truth problem where some pleasures were thought to be higher pleasures than other like listening to Mozart over The Spice Girls but it is argued that the notion of higher values or pleasure could not be justified on utilitarian grounds.
So I think what seems to be reason based decision making can just be an appeal to utilitarianism which is an appeal top pleasure and so does not lay a rational foundation to decision making.
My point is that none of this is relevant to the 'baby Hitler' thought experiment wherein a scenario which can't possibly happen is used to shape real world thinking.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Yes, you do the best with what you have. This includes thinking about one's influences and restrictions and doing something about them if you have reflective capacity and insight into how they might be impacting upon you in a negative way.
Everyone has to do this to a greater or lesser extent. Comes with being human.
But of course it is probably easier to give up and make the claim that the 'right path' is impossible to find in a world overflowing with choices and influences.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Sure. And some people have intellectual disabilities and the best they can be also looks different to how it might be for others. But the real questions for us all is probably are we doing the best we can within our capabilities?
Thanks your advice is interesting.
I do come from a fundamentalist religious back ground with regular hell and damnation sermons which I rejected in my late teens. So I have been forced into existential thought and decisions from day one.
Now as a non believer I have struggled to retain meaning after leaving the extensive rules and regulations and mandates of religion to making a new meaning from scratch.
But after being lied to as a child truth and validity have become very important to my (being on the autism spectrum may also contribute.)
I tend to take an agnostic position to what I don't or can't know but I want to have a meaningful life and I suppose fulfil potential or an easier life where what I am doing isn't delusional, pointless or harmless but is fulfilling on a basic needs level I suppose.
Every day you are confronted with other peoples opinions and values from childhood religion to school to now the internet and other media.
I was mainly using that example as an example of an extreme consequence of decision making or a serious unforeseen consequence of decision making to highlight the potential dilemma we face.
I am not sure to what extent we can be criticised for not acting but if we have serious information that means we should probably act then should we?
Like info about climate change or human rights abuse and poverty.
You can turn off the news etc and limit your own exposure to stimuli and info that might make you make more profound decisions.
I am not suggesting everyone spends every day making massive decisions but to some extent we want people to make serious decisions to minimise harm. Realising we may cause great harm or great good/benefit might be useful.
Some thoughts.
Foreseeability- If I buy a loaf of whole wheat bread and that somehow starts a chain of events that leads to World War III, it would be silly to hold me responsible. More realistically, if I am driving down the street at the speed limit and a child jumps out, causing me to swerve, causing the car to run into a tree, the event was not foreseeable. But, if I got drunk, drove fast, and ran into a tree I would be responsible, because accidents are a known result of driving drunk. So - the extent to which the event is reasonably foreseeable is relevant.
Scope and scale - My responsibility is different for acts that will affect only myself and those that will affect larger groups and areas, e.g. "all humanity." The larger the scope and scale of my behavior, the more likely there are to be unforeseen consequences and the worse those consequences are likely to be. I am responsible for understanding that and taking it into account.
If Hitler had been killed as a child, I never would have been born. The same is true for everyone on the forum. Most, maybe all, the people in the world. Also, who knows what would have happened if not for World War II? Technological advancements which took resulted from the war would have taken longer. I have read that, if not for WWII, there would eventually have been a war between European countries and the Soviet Union. I don't know if that's true.
The thing about "what if"'s is that we make them up.
How would you describe a rational or reasonable action?
Hence there is a limit to what is reasonable.
My Master's thesis was the application of this to organisations, as an explanation of organisational irrationality.
I'm with @Tom Storm - We do the best we can. I've read that all humans are related to one woman who lived about 200,000 years ago. Think about that. Every decision she made affected the entire human race from then till now. Every day, I'm sure she just got up in the morning, cooked breakfast, kissed her mate before he went off to hunt dinosaurs, sent the kids out to play in the tar pits, and got down to work pounding animal skins.
But some people want more from life.
I probably do.
Life presents us with deep mysteries (I studied consciousness as part of a degree) I grew up in a really religious milieu. I won't be happy not knowing or not trying to know.
To me understanding why I exist and knowing how to act are fundamental. I already sit around getting fat on junk food pottering around the internet. That will end up being my existence. The path of least resistance. I see it as defeatism.
Someone with serious moral principles may want to radically change society. I personally am an antinatalist so I believe the decision to procreate and its ramifications are far from trivial and resonate in many ways philosophically and socially and we need a serious attitude shift around this.
As you said it is possible one persons procreational decisions could have affected and created all of us ( I was brought up like in many religious families being told Adam and Eve had doomed us all).
I found my religious upbringing raised many unanswered questions and inconsistencies that made me skeptical about everything and lacking a default trust in society.
Conformity is certainly an easier life.
Following your heart is not conformity. For many people, me included, it is hard to hear what their heart is saying. For me, the search for awareness is the search to hear the voice inside me.
More than the best you can do?
You're not happy with what you are doing. So do something different.
Me, I'm going out to trim one of the shrubs in the back yard, and work out where to plant the second lot of corn.
It really is that simple. And that hard.
I think my main question was supposed to be how is it possible to do the act of choosing?
It seems people would like to make a robot that can make decisions but my dilemma is how do you make decisions and select amongst a huge range of inputs.
It is true that their are restraints in humans from upbringing hormones and genes etc but when you get to the point that you become aware you have Sartrean style of freedom to chose and you can reflect abstractly on decisions then the dilemma kicks in.
If we want to make autonomous machines (that also don't become genocidal lol) then we need to imagine what kind of decisions they might make given complex inputs.
And on that vein I think creating intelligent robots that act on their own (if possible) would be dangerous if they didn't have our own desires, biology and style of interaction with the world.
PS on the internet these days people have been heavily cancelled/criticised and their death celebrated for having a different belief/ideology to some other group of people. Even if you stick by your principles it can be clouded by other peoples animosity.
The problem is isolating what would be instinct. Instinct to me, seems like a drive you cannot but help. So an instinct to eat perhaps, go to the bathroom, prefer that which is physically pleasurable or raises levels of oxyctocin, dopamine, and serotonin. However, those are so broad to not really be helpful to consider how they are motivating. For example, reading a book might be pleasurable, but to say that the pleasure of reading the book is instinct, is a bit more than a stretch as far as I'm concerned.
I can't go too deep on this. I don't know enough. Stephen Pinker is talking about language. He says there is a drive for children to learn it. It's not a mechanical robotic drive. It just feels right. Think about a sex drive. That also feels right. I assume it's an instinct. There are lots of things in my life like that. Certain things just feel like the right thing to do. I don't think all of them are instincts, but I don't think those that are feel different than my desire to go outside on a nice day. When I eat something, it's important to me what bowl and silverware I use. It feels right, good, to hold them in my hand. I really have no idea where that came from. We do things that feel like the right thing to do. They're what we want to do. And sometimes we don't do them because we rationally decide it is not a good time.
When I was working, I had to make decisions all the time. Most of them were small with limited consequences, but some were important. As I noted before, for most of them, even some of the more important ones, it didn't really matter what decision I made as long as I made it and then took responsibility for the results. It's funny, but since I've retired I sometimes find myself spending five minutes deciding what sandwich to get at the deli. They guys behind the counter laugh at me. I go in there a lot.
Studies have shown there is a strong emotional component to decision making. Some people with traumatic damage to a part of the brain with a role in emotion are no longer able to make even very simple decisions. Things like whether or not to put their clothes on or to eat.
[Although I have had various critical turning points, I've not labelled them as such...]
Also, we choose the replies to questions that make sense to us; we agree/disagree/ignore or find stimulating. More questions arise. Or not. We reply. Or not. Either way, a choice has been made.
So far, there has been no reply to my post. That doesn't matter. I learned from the search and the writing up of what I found. Some of that chimes readily with others here who have shared their thoughts.
Quoting Amity
I wonder if you watched the TED Video and have any thoughts.
What struck me were the cartoons Barry Schwarz used. In particular, 2 related to your:
Quoting Andrew4Handel
The cartoons are at about the 07:20 mark.
1. The 10 Commandments written in stone
2. The 10 Commandments DIY kit.
From 2, it looks like you have a blank slate, a bit like your 'making a new meaning from scratch'.
I query this.
You are far from alone in rejecting the religion you were brought up in.
However, some of the values remain; you retain the capacity to turn them over and keep those that make sense. As you grow you add your own meaning to life.
What matters to you. What matters to me is trying to keep a balance of my time, energy, emotions etc.
We all pretty much know what we should do to maintain a healthy body, mind and spirit.
The inter-relationships.
For me, and others, there can exist a gap between theory and practice.
It's easy to dish out advice to others; it's quite another thing to change one's own patterns of thoughts and behaviour. Guilty as charged.
But that's what's called being human. We are not robots. We are not perfect. We do the best we can.
We could be kinder to ourselves...and others...
I limit the time spent on here. About 30-45 mins. Almost up.
Before I go, @Andrew4Handel - How long have you been presenting the same questions on discussion forums? You remind me of someone, also called Andrew, from an OU course whose situation was as near yours as to be your twin brother. That was quite some time ago...
It seems that you have found your meaning and developed a distinct and dedicated view of life.
For me, it's been a fascinating discussion. Glad you decided to start it :sparkle:
You're making assumptions that the best you can be has to be banal. Some people make it exceptional.
Banal and exceptional are not the only two choices. I aim at satisfying. Simplifying your desires is easier to achieve than increasing your exceptionality. Some of us weren't meant for greatness. For us, pretty good is good enough.
Sure; never said they were. Note also, that this idea of 'exceptional' will itself consist of a spectrum of possibilities, my idea of exceptional might be very different from yours, or Andrew's.
Sure. I was talking to A4H more than to you. It's nice here in the middle. I always think of lines from Carl Dennis' poem "Aunt Celia 1961," which I've posted on the forum before.
[i]As they go on living as best they can
Without complaining. Noble lives, and beautiful,
And happy as much as doing well can make them.[/i]
Nice. There's a thread in this idea too.
I think we are in an existential position with existential dilemmas. Up to a million people a year commit suicide and say no to more life.
We seem to be the only species that can do this and the only species that can ask any questions including philosophical and existential ones like "why am I here?" and "what is it all about?" and we are making decisions from a position of that level of awareness about our existence.
But this situation is created by parents choosing to create new profound sentient individuals. This was my first post topic ever on the old philosophy forums. My existential dilemmas are not self created.
So the first constraints on our choices come from our parents based on the country and culture they give birth in and the motives they have. My parents brought me up in a religious cult and spent my whole childhood indoctrinating me so obviously that is an ineradicable part of my later decision making processes.
When I go to the supermarket and chose what to buy for dinner that seems trivial but is is just another choice imposed on me because my parents created me and they didn't create me by accident or like an automaton like some animals might but with desires and stated goals.
I attempted suicide twice when I was younger by overdosing. I am not suicidal now but that was due to the burdens placed upon me then. Parents can be giving their children serious burdens. So I don't see anything trivial or mundane or inevitable about the human situation and I don't treat us like just another animal governed by biology or a giant lumbering gene robot as Richard Dawkins described us once.
I think these narratives hide the fact that we are here through our parents explicit choice often and it is not a neutral non ideological choice. And in that vein that I will elaborate on in next post we are effected sometimes profoundly by other peoples choice including our parents. And Finally I think stoicism is just a cover for stifling dissent and rational criticism.
1. Upbringing influences the kind of choices we can or do make.
2. Religious belief or atheism guides decision making
3. Physical disability effects decision making
4. Cognitive issues like Autism and ADHD, OCD, brain damage etc impact decisions
5. Decision often effect others from mild to major effects
6. Ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Consequences of actions don't care about motive.
7. there is a vast amount of information for sentient humans to process and that our brains do process.
8. Decisions are made at the level of consciousness and also with unconscious influences
9. Defence mechanism will influence choice justification.
10. At least one or more persons will disagree with your choices
11. We may or may not have free will and may never know.
123. Inaction and stoicism has consequences.
I was tempted to leave a "So what?" but that would be dismissive of the effort and time taken.
As social beings, we have stories. Many are about the power and control of others over us. Stories let us know we are not alone; there is a connection of minds. We live and learn.
Thanks for sharing yours.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Narratives don't hide the fact that we are born as a result of choice or otherwise.
That is our beginning. We are here with all our selves and masks and acts.
We are affected by others and our own thoughts.
We can blame others or we can accept that we also have flaws. We have control over our minds.
We choose what matters.
You've been around the block with these issues for years. Listening, or not, to many points of view.
What leaves you dissatisfied with all the responses?
What are you trying to achieve?
That was probably me.
I thought it must be. You made quite the impression and still are :sparkle:
Take care.
Really? How did you come to that conclusion?
But perhaps that is for another thread...
This relates to this issue. If we are governed by physical laws how do they cause us to chose (or force us to act if you don't believe in free will?
We know we chose and make complex movements like typing on the computer or painting an elaborate art work.
Is this governed by conscious control as it seems? How is consciousness able to move our bodies so we can act? Are there laws governing our choices.#
In psychology there various perspectives Humanism is based on Existentialism and puts humans at the centre of decision making and with a so called existential freedom. Two other perspectives the Psychoanalytic and the cognitive think the unconscious is the main actor and we are more driven by either hidden psychological influences or automatic cognitive processes.
I am judging by the way stoicism is applied. I am not referring to the whole philosophical school but the common usage as a psychological tool.
I am referring to the definition "the endurance of pain or hardship without the display of feelings and without complaint."
Tell me more about how you think modern stoicism is commonly applied as a psychological tool.
How is it a cover for stifling dissent and rational criticism?
Where do you see this happening?
From where did you pick your chosen definition? I think it reflects the ancient view.
That was the top web search definition.
I would apply the psychoanalytic critique to stoicism.
I believe people have motivated beliefs and ideologies. Who is the stoic? Why are they stoical?
A privileged person telling a disenfranchised person to be stoical is way of preserving the power imbalance. The people requiring the most stoicism are the most disenfranchised and least fortunate.
Outside of this critique I think stoicism can be a defense mechanism against anxiety. Away to not confront fears or our existential dilemma by limiting exposure to the emotional ramifications of our situation.
In one of her books Germaine Greer talks about an elderly woman was sedated after she was running up and down a ward afraid of dying.
Was this for the woman's benefit or for the observers benefit?
I think Cognitive behavioural therapy is an off shoot of stoicism. Training people to cope rather than resist or examine.
It can reframe reasonable responses to trauma as pathological. It is using a biased notion of reason to undermine ones own instinctual reason. I don't people would develop trauma for irrational reasons.
Quoting unenlightened
Quoting Banno
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Me, I'm catching up on some of my self-assigned homework on a lazy lab day while looking forward to some time off.
I'd reiterate -- it really is that simple, and that hard.
I empathize with your line of questioning so, so much. There's a reason I like all those existential authors ;) -- but I think these are the answers I agree with the most. You really do just pick something and see what happens.
Barry Schwartz seems to be considering different types of choice to me and advocating reducing exposure to choice to create less stress. And this seems to be in relation to aspirational or capitalist choices. I think the communist tried his solution.
I think knowledge creates choice and that you cannot unlearn what you know. We are never going to be in a situation of relative ignorance again especially after having a high level of education.
My issue was of the way that choices of any nature have no way to be resolved. In religion issues are resolved by a gods commandment. The undermining of meaning is when you cannot replace the alleged Authority and purpose of God.
Religion still seems to benefit peoples mental health by giving them a degree of reassurance, axioms or structures and something bigger than themselves. The existential crisis comes I think from overburdening the individual with the onus to make their own rules and meaning.
If you think a deity is in control then you can content yourself with pottering away at whatever and achieving a small goal. If you follow a religions morality then there are no moral questions.
Quoting Banno
And the rules that are chosen by you come already constrained in their sense by the contingent intersubjective community you are immersed in as well as your own history of habitual construals. Welcome to postmodernism.
Cognitive therapy is a realist approach. Its bias is in assuming there is a correct and realistic way to conform to the facts of the world. You should investigate client-centered and constructivist approaches , which jettison Cognitivisms realism in favor of a situational , relativistic approach focusing on practical goal-oriented sense-making rather than correctness.
Unlike the Satrean existentialist notion of freedom and choice , they recognize that our choices come already constrained by our pre-existing frameworks of intelligibility that are formed through social interchange within our cultural environment. The point is that not all choices are equal. Some ways of sense-making will work for us better than others, and we discover this through trial and error.
:grin:
The only problem with that is how you said it.
Yep, you choose within the world.
Quoting Joshs
I don't think so.
That made me laugh a lot. Thanks Joshs.
One response to the question: "How is it possible to do the act of choosing?" is:
"How is it possible not to do the act of choosing?" when our life is full of choices.
Here we are as a result of the choices made up till now; in the key of minor or major.
Some are inconsequential, others significant.
All make up who you are and how you live your life.
If knowing how to act is fundamental, other questions arise as to the meaning and consequences of action or inaction. How to act for the best or worst when there seems to be no way of telling the outcomes. What outcome is the one you hope to achieve?
How well is your time being spent to effect the desired aim or goal?
If your current actions/decisions lead to an attitude of 'least resistance' - 'defeatism' - fatalism - why go down that path?
What you consume - in every sense - matters.
Choices made today will impact your life tomorrow; that is what we know simply by looking and learning.
Success is never guaranteed; that's another one.
One way to help make better decisions is via knowledge.
Gather the required information by effective research methods.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
That really shouldn't be much of a dilemma for someone who has studied at university level and gained a degree. You are taught how best to research and choose the relevant and most reliable sources.
So, this is why I question your approach to justifying your claims about s/Stoicism.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I think you know better than to have made that choice. But perhaps that is your way of highlighting how or why we choose as we do to inform ourselves. Also, the importance of how certain philosophies of life are analysed, criticised and judged. The need to ask the right questions in our search and how readily we accept any 'answers'.
Your choice of top web search definition is a result of typing in 'What is stoicism?'.
From the 2 dictionary definitions, you chose the first 'stoicism' with a small 's'.
A case of cherry-picking. You know that.
The second as a condensed version of Stoicism is not much better:
an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. The school taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason (also identified with Fate and Providence) that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.
I'll cut to the chase. Time budget an' all that.
A link for those interested:
Quoting Stoic Philosophy as a Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy
https://medium.com/stoicism-philosophy-as-a-way-of-life/stoic-philosophy-as-a-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-597fbeba786a
Apparently, it takes 29 minutes to read or longer to listen to. Your choice.
All of these CAN influence decision making, sure. But they also dont have to be as limiting as we tend to think. The thing about human adaptability is that we can find ways around most of our perceived limitations, and most readily by working together. When we get past the assumptions that all decisions are to be made as individuals and are somehow cemented into who or what we become, we can recognise that many of our decisions are made and then revised from moment to moment, based on how we allocate and perceive access to attention and effort over time. Our decisions or choices are rarely the conceptual event we wish them to be.
Ive found that there are people who perceive decisions like particles, and others who perceive them as wave-like. This can make it difficult to understand each other. Those of us who perceive a wave can miss the most opportune moment trying to map the whole terrain. Those who perceive a particle can fail to recognise alternative routes to the same destination.
I think your view of inaction and particularly stoicism - as stifling dissent and rational criticism - suggests a particle-like perception of wave-like decision-making. The Tao Te Ching suggests that the best course of action may not be mine to make, and that what is observed as inaction or stoicism on the part of an individual may simply be their understanding of a more efficient and mutually beneficial flow of energy within the world. There is a difference between criticising the status quo, effecting change and being seen to be accomplishing something. The most effective leaders are often those who appear to achieve nothing themselves.
The observability of my actions dont encapsulate the full extent of the decisions I make. Patience, self-control and gentleness - the in-actualisation of perceived capacity - can be as much about understanding consequences as action.
I didn't notice this claim before.
Isn't the environment the outside force motivating animals?
I tend to view animals as more driven by outside forces than us. Once we have food and shelter we can then live the life of the mind so to speak. That has been given as a reason by some for poor mental health such as too much introspection and to little interacting with our natural instincts.
I think the inner outer distinction is complex because theories of perception can make it so that we live solely in our head with mental representations of an external world that are misleading.
Misleading perceptions and false beliefs can be a source of motivation. Evolutionary theorists/psychologists have to defend the idea that we have evolved accurate representations of the world to preserve truth claims.
This was my main point.
Making choices without out any recourse to truth.
The Hitler example was an ad aburdum of the unforeseen consequence of an action. And in that sense we have to predict the future before we act and make assumption about the results of our choices. On forming some beliefs about future outcomes we can decide to act.
this could be a quick process where I come to believe I l refer apples to oranges and quickly choose an apple based on prior taste experiences.
But I believe with out recourse to facts of the matter about what we should do we could be said to acting on faith, faith in the validity of our beliefs and ethical stances but can they ever be validated? It can make our situation seem absurd.
No it is not. I stated which definition of stoicism I was referring to. I assume the common used and philosophy are somewhat related however.
I found this "The Stoic Conception of Fate Josiah B. Gould"
"Aristotle maintains in his Nicomachean ethics that no one deliberates about things which cannot be otherwise."
Who decides that things cannot be otherwise? As I suggested before
"A privileged person telling a disenfranchised person to be stoical is way of preserving the power imbalance. The people requiring the most stoicism are the most disenfranchised and least fortunate."
Quoting Stoicism
This amounts to self blame.
People are aware they cannot have much control and this develop justified apathy. This is apathy caused by other peoples unreasonableness and can lead to learned helplessness.
I had abusive parents. I was stoical about that. I was bullied a lot as a child especially in school. I was stoical about that. Grew up in a religious cult. Was stoical about that.
I have always reflected intensely on my own thoughts and conduct it is the people affecting your well being that should be doing the reflecting. I should have been more proactive as a child but I couldn't see any options.
Like I sad in favour os psychoanalysing stoicism I think it is motivate by the person who advocates own desires.
Are the stop Oil Protestors being stoical or are they causing disruption in other peoples lives to save us all from destroying out environs and the future of peoples offspring?
I think the things we cannot change are relativist. The reasons we can't change them are situational and the claim we can't change them can be tactical.
That is the issue I am raising here I suppose.
We don't know whether we have control or not and cannot predict outcomes so we are in a kind of Wild West of decision making. How does stoicism square with risk taking?
It might be but I think it's mainly about self-awareness and analysis with a view to improving.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Yes. So it seems you practised a form of stoicism from an early age. That says a lot given your circumstances. I am not sure if Stoic concepts are easy for anyone to understand and apply, far less a traumatised child. There are limitations to Stoicism and dangers in accepting it all wholesale.
We can't choose not to be harmed or not to feel harmed.
Minorities and those not in power are harmed by political decisions or indecision. Action/inaction.
Our responses in protest are being increasingly criminalised.
There is systemic abuse.
The abused are mostly not in a position to be proactive - if under absolute control. And if they think, wrongly, that they are to blame. If they see no way out.
Now, there is more awareness and knowledge about what happens behind closed doors.
Childline and support groups exist; public campaigns are run about domestic abuse.
Sometimes difficult to stay vigilant and alert.
Laws and progress made - so quickly and easily overturned.
I disagree with Epictetus:
Quoting Stoicism
I see hope as a motivational force. Hope for the best, expect or plan for the worse...
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Perhaps they are being both.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
What do you mean by 'relativist'?
Do you think we can control our thoughts and behaviour?
What kind and degree of risk-taking?
Isn't that view in conflict with the understanding that animals act more on instinct than humans do? Maybe not. Maybe we could say that animals act more on instinct, so they have less choice, therefore are more reactive to outside forces.
I guess I think humans are more able to say "no" to impulses or to delay gratification than animals, but we all act in response to outside forces. We are getting to, probably have gone beyond, my level of knowledge in this area.
I am just listening to this Agnes Callard discussion:
Agnes wrote a paper called "The Reason to Be Angry Forever" which I also need to reread.
Myisha defends rage on Philosophy bites and elsewhere.
https://podtail.com/en/podcast/philosophy-bites/myisha-cherry-on-rage/
The classic question is are emotions rational and which emotion should guide action?
Do people get anger for no reason or is there always a good reason for anger. Are emotions caused by judgements? Should emotions and judgements be divorced?
Psychoanalysts would proper look for the unconscious roots of emotions.
Behaviourism had a model based on instincts learned by stimuli responses. It was undermined by studies of rat behaviour which suggested they had mental maps as they performed short cuts in mazes and led to the cognitive revolution.
It is a big topic in psychology. Some biologists think all organisms behaviours can be described without reference to volition or perception and some even apply that to humans where our responses are caused by neuronal or biochemical reactions to stimuli.
But these reductive explanations become incoherent because at some stage you have to refer to symbolic representations such as in the language we are using here. Science it self relies on symbols. So that is a criticism of the naturalistic, physicalist, materialist world view.
It can depend on your perspective and knowledge base.
In a child abuse/neglect scenario The child from his or her position likely has less knowledge of resources than an adult but this can also apply to some adults. So they have to make decisions from their perspective and what they know.
But a child welfare expert, a social worker or someone with legal knowledge on child protection issues is in the position to make more decisions and more informed decisions and intervene. We wouldn't expect the social services to be stoical.
But in relation to the wider topic every decision can only be made with limited knowledge. Nowadays with the internet we have a huge amount of knowledge hence the dilemma in my opening post. More knowledge can bring greater responsibility, less knowledge and power can shift responsibility for those with greater knowledge and power.
There is an emotional constraint as well because decisions can have emotional and mental well being impacts where the consequences of decision would seem to painful.
I don't know to what extent we can control thoughts and behaviour? When I was studying the "no free will" position was most popular. I defend free will with constraints of circumstance personally.
How can we know that we are in control? Freudians would say we need extensive psychoanalysis to uncover our motivations.
Taking a risk would be doing something that is risky for you in terms of the unknown and consequences. Training for a profession is taking a risk. Some people regret the career they end up in and feel stuck. Sometimes making a random decision can have really positive of unforeseen positive consequences.
Some people advocating taking lots of risks and seeking out new opportunities all the time.
On the other hand some people believe we already know what we want and would automatically find our path in if it weren't for obstacles. I had a strong preference for music and have sung in choirs, joined an amateur orchestra and collect sheet music etc. I was just drawn to do this despite my parents not liking it. In this sense we might know what's best for us somehow.
Yes, behaviorism is mostly discredited at this point. When I was a psych major back in the 1970s, I did do some rat conditioning experiments.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I don't think that's necessarily true.
This is one of the perils of utilitarianism. One cannot fathom the entire results of ones actions, and one can never be sure what will produce the greatest good to the greater number. Too many variables, I suppose. This is what the baby Hitler thought experiment reveals. People are willing to kill an innocent child to prevent a future catastrophe on what amounts to a hunch. No matter how positive he was that this child would murder millions, he will never find a beneficiary of that action, he will never be able to justify his motives by showing us something in the world, and the reality that he has sacrificed a child to an idea will eventually set in. In adding up the sum total of goods to the greatest number, he has instead propagated more evil than he has good.
There is an alternate, an old one: do Justice though the heavens fall. With this in mind one can survey his actions according to justice rather than utility, consequences be damned. The just at least reserve some sense of dignity in dealing with others and are generally superior moral exemplars than any utilitarian.
Yes. We don't always know the choices or what support services are available to us.
Sometimes we don't even know what we need or want so embroiled are we in the challenges of everyday living. Cost of living crises and political decisions mean that services, including education and health are being cut even more. So, a whole heap of anxieties and anger are piled on top of the presenting problems. Stoicism is only one life philosophy available to help with emotional and psychological resilience to potentially stressful events.
It is not services that might be 'stoical', it is the people in and around any decision-making process. But the lessening of care provision and its adverse effects can reach a tipping point, where action needs to be taken. Cue protests and strikes.
[Note again, the tendency to confuse Stoicism with lower-case stoicism, the "stiff upper-lip" personality trait which can be unhealthy.]
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Already addressed. Thanks for the discussion. Time up. Take care.