Cpt_Folktron t1_ivaukw9 wrote
No. Plato > Aristotle.
People say "subjective" and imply relativity, but if a subjective viewpoint doesn't conform to reality the descriptive capacities it enables fail.
What is a subject if not a type of object? And, as an object in a world of objects, its representation of being to itself must approximate accuracy in order for it to function.
So, for example, someone says that the grotesque is beautiful. For them this may be a true experience while others don't experience it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that aesthetics are relative. What if existence itself is beautiful? Everything is beautiful? Beauty is not made up, but transcendental?
Do you see what I'm getting at? Subjectivity isn't necessarily relative. It's necessarily limited. These are very different.
Objectivity is also limited. After all, subjects are the types of objects capable of knowing, and objectivity is a type of knowing. And, I hope we can agree on this much, subjects are limited.
The difference between subjectivity and objectivity is not the amount of effort put into realizing and eliminating limits of perception, nor the methods of that effort, but the claim of totalization.
Certain circles reserve the right to totalization for objectivity, but my God this is absolutely opposed to the scientific project. Logically and historically we know that our scientific descriptions of the world are limited, imperfect, and provisional.
But, hey, look, they conform to reality well enough to make accurate predictions. That's what makes them objective. Now, what about subjectivity releases it from this demand to conform to reality? That is exactly what every theory of morality (or any other topic the author relegated to subjectivity) seeks to do. They make predictions, and they're either false or true.
The testing ground for moral systems is the same as the testing ground for scientific observations.
So, does goodness exist? Test it. Test if it exists independently of the mind. If you find that it does not exist, fine. That's not what my experiments resulted in, but now we can at least begin discussing truth instead of summarily dismissing the great majority of human thought and experience as relative.
Don't just listen to these people. Go out and see, as best as you can, whether ideals inflect real properties of existence or simply inflect some biological propensities tempered by society and projected over dumb and mute matter.
contractualist OP t1_ivaxuv9 wrote
>someone says that the grotesque is beautiful. For them this may be a true experience while others don't experience it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that aesthetics are relative. What if existence itself is beautiful?
This is what I'm getting at in the article. The subjective experience that the person is having is real and we cannot judge this subjective sense based on the opinions of others. Just because others don't find this same thing as beautiful doesn't make the experience wrong, only unpopular.
Aesthetics isn't contingent on reason, its determined by subjective experience. Existence may be beautiful for some, awful to others, and those sensations are real, yet they exist in a different reality than material or metaphysical truths.
The objective is subject to empirical verification and testing, the subjective is not. There is no way to test whether I believe something, identify as something, or experience something outside of the belief, identity or experience itself. The meaning we impose on life or our personal ethics isn't subject to tests of right or wrong, but are within the realm of our subjective, which we are free to create.
Cpt_Folktron t1_ivb7ia9 wrote
Empirical testing means that hypotheses (predictions based on causal models) are confirmed or denied by carefully designed tests (the test design isolates causality).
The only reason you can't imagine such a test for, for example, the existence of goodness, is that you have already precluded the possibility. Your tautology doesn't allow it (because you treat your definitions as axiomatic, you can only arrive at conclusions that verify what you already belief).
But, if what you say is true, there either are no sufficient tests for the existence of goodness—and/or there are tests that would verify the relativity of goodness (i.e. we can confirm that we are free to create our own subjective evaluations independent of an objective reality, where free means that there would be no misunderstood or misrepresented causal relationships, the misrepresentation of which would become clear as the "real" world acts in a way that denies the validity of the evaluation).
I think you haven't even tried to test your idea.
So, I'm saying to you: Go out into the world and test it. Is goodness real, independently real, transcendentally real, objectively real, as real as sunshine or gravity? Don't base your conclusion on anecdotal evidence or axioms. Test it.
contractualist OP t1_ivb8je4 wrote
Someone has a meaning X for their lives. How do you test it? What do you test it against?
Cpt_Folktron t1_ivbpe1l wrote
Not someone, everybody. Not X, goodness. And not me—I've already done my tests—you.
You are testing for a transcendental quality of being. It applies equally to everybody, just like gravity or thermal radiation.
So, alright, I'll design the first test for you. I won't full out define goodness, but the test itself will sort of reveal that.
You need to give up something valuable to you to someone who needs it.
An underlying idea here is that goodness requires sacrifice. Simply giving up something you don't value won't work. Another underlying idea is that need takes precedence over want. Giving someone else something that they want is nice, but not necessarily good.
What do people need? They need food, water, clothes and shelter. That's the bare minimum, so your best bet will be one of those things.
You have to do this because you recognize the value of the person you help.
An underlying idea here is goodness requires appreciation for otherness.
In the course of one full day (sure, I will risk putting a time limit on it, even if that's not the best policy, I can't imagine you doing the experiment otherwise), if you don't receive something of greater or equal value to what you sacrificed, it's a failed experiment.
An underlying idea here is that goodness isn't a one way street. It doesn't mean martyrdom. Reciprocity is also a quality of goodness.
However, the reward shouldn't come from the act itself (feeling good) or the person whom you help. The reward should come from something seemingly unrelated.
It needs to come from something seemingly unrelated because you are not looking for emergent local phenomena. You're looking for laws of nature.
Now, correlation doesn't prove causation, right, so you need to not only be able to repeat this test, but you also need to try to disprove other possible causes of the reward.
That means that, if the first test is a success, try doing the good deed and then isolating yourself. If the reward comes anyway, you might want to start looking deeper into what it means to be human and perhaps designing even more tests. If it doesn't work, at least you will have tested for the existence of a transcendental reciprocal goodness with a one day time limit.
iiioiia t1_ivdcpr5 wrote
And this is just one approach.
People that think metaphysical reality cannot be measured with any objectivity are way too pessimistic.
contractualist OP t1_ivbsdcj wrote
> if you don't receive something of greater or equal value to what you sacrificed, it's a failed experiment.
This is part of the issue. No test can determine value or goodness, which is purely subjective. As explained in the article, the objective can provide the means, but the ends are within the realm of the subjective self.
There is no one way to be human that is to be measured against, but is the individual's responsibility to determine.
iiioiia t1_ivdcag7 wrote
> Someone has a meaning X for their lives. How do you test it? What do you test it against?
People who work in Facebook, Google, Twitter, {CorporationX} in the AI / user profiling department may know a thing or two about that topic.
Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments