Moral relativism/subjectivism leads to the Thelema principle of “Do what thou wilt” and we see the world governed by hypocrisy and petty laws. While I agree with most of your brilliant points, especially the anarchical self-governance, objective morality exists and it is explained by Mark Passio in his many seminars of “Natural Law.” In a nutshell, objective morality is aligning one’s behaviors with Natural Law and not committing the transgressions of “murder, assault, rape, theft, trespass, coercion, and deception.” Natural Law also encompasses the “self-defense principle” and the “non-aggression principle.”
I'm a Voluntaryist as well. This is an exceptional article. Literalists turn God into an authoritarian that promotes fear and coercion in the same way government attempts to control...if you don't do this, then that, it's not true morality of it's superficially giving in to the pressure cooker of fear porn. You're right, morality must come from the inside and be done for its own sake, not because of guilt-shame-fear, not virtue signaling, not to pat the self on the back, not for gain or pretend. Morality is hard because it lends not a hand nor asks to be in command...it's the reason for peace and restful sleep amidst chaos. It makes more enemies than friends for morality is not a friend of the status quo ...and the paragraph about entitlement and toxic motivators is spot on.
Thank you for this comment. You brilliantly managed to accurately take the intended message and squeeze it into a concise paragraph. I intend to write more about this entitlement and toxic motivators. It's something not many out there seem to be addressing.
“Since a word is a symbol for a concept, it has no meaning apart from the content of the concept it symbolizes. And since a concept is an integration of units, it has no content or meaning apart from its units.
The meaning of a concept consists of the units—the existents—which it integrates, including all the characteristics of these units.
Observe that concepts mean existents, not arbitrarily selected portions of existents. There is no basis whatever—neither metaphysical nor epistemological, neither in the nature of reality nor of a conceptual consciousness—for a division of the characteristics of a concept’s units into two groups, one of which is excluded from the concept’s meaning.”
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology Leonard Peikoff, “The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy,”
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology by Ayn Rand
I disagree. The content of the concept is not always the meaning of the concept. Concepts are arbitrary constructs that may be given meaning beyond their mere contents, and oftentimes, excluding the contents.
I must concede that many men believe whatever they wish. But such men are either ignoring reality or lying to themselves. I leave it to others to decide which is worse.
Even our perception of "reality" is believing what we wish. Who says that your reality is actually real and mine is not? It's convenient that we all think we've got it right.
“Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.” (Voltaire)
Religion must be able to refute that man is capable of knowing his world by reason alone if divinity is to survive such scrutiny.
“Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.” (Voltaire)
If it can be shown that a domain exists (any domain no matter how small) where reason is blind or inept, that skepticism will open the door to mystical knowledge or faith.
Moral law or morality is what is good or bad for man’s life. Dennis Prager holds that without God the principles of good and bad are subjective and arbitrary. In other words, men would simply dictate to other men what is good and bad (e.g., community standards) for man’s life.
To begin our common sense inquiry on whether or not morality depends on God, let us start with man and examine man’s nature. What do we know about man and his world. Like all living things a man is mortal and lives for a finite number of years. Man can become sick with disease or die from poor health or hunger. Man is vulnerable to his world—nature itself is dangerous. Man is not the most dangerous being but has become over his history the master of all other living things because man is the only thinking being. Man must think and act to survive. In this way man has power over all other living things. Man not only understands his own nature but the nature of his world.
Man like all living things must be kept free from harm: from dangerous natural forces and other dangerous living things, including other men.
Man’s life must be maintained and protected from harm. From this objective truth about man’s nature we can derive the master key to morality and the first moral law.
First moral law: Man should act to maintain his health and protect his body from harm.
First moral principle: Man’s life must be valued and kept safe from harm because it is his primary value; without his life all other possible values could not be discovered and gained.
In sum, whether or not you believe in God is unimportant to me and has no bearing on morality or moral law. The master key to morality is harm because a man’s life is his primary value. Without man’s life, no values are possible. So to be good is to do no harm to yourself or other men.
Life is too complex for me to have any definites. I try to stick to some basics, but I couldn’t say “I’d never …”, life doesn’t always work out that way!
I pin my hopes on the situation never arriving that would test my ideals 🙏🙏🙏😂😅
I also don’t project my “ideals” on to anyone else, I don’t walk in their shoes and can see how circumstances have led to certain outcomes. Again, instead of judging, I thank my lucky stars I haven’t yet been put in their position.
😂 I appreciate that. I also appreciate your content! I enjoy works that challenge our own “stories” of how we see ourselves!
When I was a kid, dad bought me Dickens full works and as a teen he bought me some Dostoyevsky. I worked hard, revisited them often over the years, to see them again through different eyes, dependent on life happenings and just growing up. They challenged my world view and possibly, more importantly, the view I had of myself (I say more importantly, not in a “me me” way, but if you understand yourself better, you can navigate engagement with others in a more well rounded? way).
Moral relativism/subjectivism leads to the Thelema principle of “Do what thou wilt” and we see the world governed by hypocrisy and petty laws. While I agree with most of your brilliant points, especially the anarchical self-governance, objective morality exists and it is explained by Mark Passio in his many seminars of “Natural Law.” In a nutshell, objective morality is aligning one’s behaviors with Natural Law and not committing the transgressions of “murder, assault, rape, theft, trespass, coercion, and deception.” Natural Law also encompasses the “self-defense principle” and the “non-aggression principle.”
Indeed, Aleister Crowley is not to be heeded. Thank you for your great comments.
Very impressive answer. You've been doing the 'great work'.
I'm a Voluntaryist as well. This is an exceptional article. Literalists turn God into an authoritarian that promotes fear and coercion in the same way government attempts to control...if you don't do this, then that, it's not true morality of it's superficially giving in to the pressure cooker of fear porn. You're right, morality must come from the inside and be done for its own sake, not because of guilt-shame-fear, not virtue signaling, not to pat the self on the back, not for gain or pretend. Morality is hard because it lends not a hand nor asks to be in command...it's the reason for peace and restful sleep amidst chaos. It makes more enemies than friends for morality is not a friend of the status quo ...and the paragraph about entitlement and toxic motivators is spot on.
Thank you for this comment. You brilliantly managed to accurately take the intended message and squeeze it into a concise paragraph. I intend to write more about this entitlement and toxic motivators. It's something not many out there seem to be addressing.
👏👏
“Since a word is a symbol for a concept, it has no meaning apart from the content of the concept it symbolizes. And since a concept is an integration of units, it has no content or meaning apart from its units.
The meaning of a concept consists of the units—the existents—which it integrates, including all the characteristics of these units.
Observe that concepts mean existents, not arbitrarily selected portions of existents. There is no basis whatever—neither metaphysical nor epistemological, neither in the nature of reality nor of a conceptual consciousness—for a division of the characteristics of a concept’s units into two groups, one of which is excluded from the concept’s meaning.”
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology Leonard Peikoff, “The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy,”
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology by Ayn Rand
I disagree. The content of the concept is not always the meaning of the concept. Concepts are arbitrary constructs that may be given meaning beyond their mere contents, and oftentimes, excluding the contents.
I must concede that many men believe whatever they wish. But such men are either ignoring reality or lying to themselves. I leave it to others to decide which is worse.
Even our perception of "reality" is believing what we wish. Who says that your reality is actually real and mine is not? It's convenient that we all think we've got it right.
Skepticism is the handmaiden to faith.
Elaborate
“Faith consists in believing when it is beyond the power of reason to believe.” (Voltaire)
Religion must be able to refute that man is capable of knowing his world by reason alone if divinity is to survive such scrutiny.
“Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense.” (Voltaire)
If it can be shown that a domain exists (any domain no matter how small) where reason is blind or inept, that skepticism will open the door to mystical knowledge or faith.
Moral law or morality is what is good or bad for man’s life. Dennis Prager holds that without God the principles of good and bad are subjective and arbitrary. In other words, men would simply dictate to other men what is good and bad (e.g., community standards) for man’s life.
To begin our common sense inquiry on whether or not morality depends on God, let us start with man and examine man’s nature. What do we know about man and his world. Like all living things a man is mortal and lives for a finite number of years. Man can become sick with disease or die from poor health or hunger. Man is vulnerable to his world—nature itself is dangerous. Man is not the most dangerous being but has become over his history the master of all other living things because man is the only thinking being. Man must think and act to survive. In this way man has power over all other living things. Man not only understands his own nature but the nature of his world.
Man like all living things must be kept free from harm: from dangerous natural forces and other dangerous living things, including other men.
Man’s life must be maintained and protected from harm. From this objective truth about man’s nature we can derive the master key to morality and the first moral law.
First moral law: Man should act to maintain his health and protect his body from harm.
First moral principle: Man’s life must be valued and kept safe from harm because it is his primary value; without his life all other possible values could not be discovered and gained.
In sum, whether or not you believe in God is unimportant to me and has no bearing on morality or moral law. The master key to morality is harm because a man’s life is his primary value. Without man’s life, no values are possible. So to be good is to do no harm to yourself or other men.
Interesting read! I like it!
Life is too complex for me to have any definites. I try to stick to some basics, but I couldn’t say “I’d never …”, life doesn’t always work out that way!
I pin my hopes on the situation never arriving that would test my ideals 🙏🙏🙏😂😅
I also don’t project my “ideals” on to anyone else, I don’t walk in their shoes and can see how circumstances have led to certain outcomes. Again, instead of judging, I thank my lucky stars I haven’t yet been put in their position.
I believe that your mindset is ultimately ideal!
😂 I appreciate that. I also appreciate your content! I enjoy works that challenge our own “stories” of how we see ourselves!
When I was a kid, dad bought me Dickens full works and as a teen he bought me some Dostoyevsky. I worked hard, revisited them often over the years, to see them again through different eyes, dependent on life happenings and just growing up. They challenged my world view and possibly, more importantly, the view I had of myself (I say more importantly, not in a “me me” way, but if you understand yourself better, you can navigate engagement with others in a more well rounded? way).
Dickens and Dostoyevsky. Nice.
Thank you, Ingrid