pragmatic use of social norms, that ideally favor the majority, production, innovation, reproduction and are conducive to social order. But I wouldn't say that is moral. I would just say that it fits what I consider worthy goals for a society, and that's nothing but a worthless opinion, like everyone has
This wine, from F. Nietz.'s
premier cru selections, started with promise. In the glass the wine held good color - rich, if a tad wan about the edges. On the nose, it initially carried a surprisingly engaging, yet not cloying, bouquet of aromas - hints of Hobbes, with subtle suggestions of Bentham and psychological egoism. However, the bright background Hume-ic notes quickly faded and became corrupted by a somewhat offputting burnt-forest tinge of the decrepitude of empirical nihilism around the edges. This was a signal of developments to come.
On the palate, this process of decline repeated. What started bright became dark, though not deep. Early hints of pleasure, free will, and Platonic ideals were quickly muffled and obscured by the dull thud of reductive atomic realpolitik, echoes of Huxleyan dystopia, the charred ash of Marx, and - quixotically - the metallic tinge of industrialism writ small. A full and disappointing descent into negative utilitarianism.
Alas, poor Jean-Jacques! Locke wept.
73
(disclaimer: this is rhetorical whimsy, not mati sperging.)
You live a sheltered life. You refuse to go down in the gutter and see the struggle and the worthlessness of life.
I am far from unaware of the horrors men (in the sense of humanity) do, macro and micro. I have been places, and I have seen things, too. I have not spent my entire life in the US, and I understand political realities. I might or might not have been to war-torn places during conflict, and I might or might not have seen horrific things in those places. I also might or might not have seen the similarly brutal outcomes of merely personal political battles for physical or other power (people in the US smash skulls and sever limbs, too).
Don't assume that because someone is "nice," or "privileged," or living a mostly comfortable life, or from a big-dog country, that it is a consequence of ignorance, preciousness, or delusion that they have a largely positive view of the possibilities and qualities of mankind. It is possible to witness and comprehend horror and yet not derive all philosophical and real-life orientation from it, just as it is possible (though annoying) for someone to live the most insulated, coddled, protected, soft life and still sink to Hobbesian despair, or worse. Choosing to consider only the worst the world has to offer is choosing the conclusion before the analysis. It consciously omits the good, or consigns it to a small drawer in a locked cabinet at the end of a long, dark hallway somewhere on the 3rd basement level, without a justifiable or rationally deduced reason for doing so. It's merely a choice. I don't deny the will to power, but I don't grant it primacy or dictatorial favor. That is also a choice, but it is one that considers all factors.
No, art and beauty and altruism and care don't ensure territory or earthly dominion, but they matter, and they tell us that there is more than brutishness on the menu. The most "comfortable" nations are, coincidentally or not (...), those that recognize the individual, enshrine respect for higher-order human qualities, and aim to ensure that the inherent worth of human beings is buffered against lower-order tendencies. That approach is no more artificial than organizing a theory of the individual and society around submission to the basest and most destructive urges humans can conjure.
All of life is not an ER. That many live alienated from their higher capacities does not mean they don't possess them.
