moral quandry

Are you really that bothered by death?
How much do you dislike that I feel sorry for you? Ha, etc.

Originally posted by Lord Shark
Both I think.

They are logically connected.

There is a fundamental incoherence here. If there is a moral imperitive for me to hate X then it follows that I ought to hate X. But 'ought' implies 'can'. And I cannot choose my emotional response without an infinite regress. Therefore, I cannot choose to hate X. So if I don't hate X, and cannot choose to ...[text shortened]... moral obligation to hate X.

So the assertion to the contrary is pretty obviously false.

I guess I don't agree with your "infinite regress." How did you reach that little tidbit, exactly?

Originally posted by twhitehead
Do you love and respect cockroaches, or do you not respect them enough to grant them the status of 'being'?

Yes ,I love and respect cockroaches.
Edit: I love and respect all beings in a relative way,ie. I love and respect them and respect them as much as they deserve. For example, I love and respect people more than cockroaches, however this brings me to another moral quandry, which is that true love should be unlimited , and so to measure such things takes a bit of intelligence and discrimination...Hmmm, this is still a thought in progress with me. I'm open to any suggestions.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
I guess I don't agree with your "infinite regress." How did you reach that little tidbit, exactly?

How did I reach the infinite regress? Like this:

Suppose I want to choose from A, B, C or D. I might have some rational means for doing so, but in the end I want to choose the best.

How can I judge 'best'? Assume there are clear criteria and 'C' fits my purpose best. That's ok, no infinite regress there.

But I chose C on the basis of my desire to fulfil my purpose. If I'd wanted to do something else I might have chosen 'A'.

So we can choose things on the basis of our desires. We might desire righteousness, and as long as the path of righteousness is clear, there should be no problem with a regress.

Does it make sense to actually choose our desires themselves though? Well, this is where the problem arises, since we can only do so on the basis of which desire we'd prefer. In other words, the one we desired to have most. So how did I arrive at the desire to desire? And the desire to desire to desire?

An infinite regress occurs when you talk of choosing desires or essentially involuntary emotional drivers like 'hate' towards (which is a kind of inverse desire).

That's why I asked you what you meant by 'hate', since you might have meant something like 'a commitment to oppose at every turn'. Then you'd probably avoid the problem.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Intense displeasure or dislike felt toward something.

Do you hate death? I do. While I have come to accept my inability to do anything about it, I still despise it--- everything it represents and everything it does. Someday, I'm going to seriously kick its ass, though.

How will you kick deaths ass? (on a side note, I always thought death rode on a horse).

Surely if you are a Christian, then you are suggesting that you either won't die, or will die but go to heaven.
If you won't die, then death does not exist (or will some of us die?) and it is illogical to hate that which does not exist.
If you will die but go to heaven, I hardly call that kicking its ass.
If however by 'death' you mean what happens to us atheists (going to hell perhaps?), then why do you hate it? You already believe that only those who deserve it will suffer it.

Originally posted by Lord Shark
An infinite regress occurs when you talk of choosing desires or essentially involuntary emotional drivers like 'hate' towards (which is a kind of inverse desire).

We can, and often do choose our desires without infinite regress. Many of our decisions start off as logical thought processes which are later translated into desires.
For example I may decide through some thought process that I shouldn't eat apples. I can over time come to actually hate apples as a result of the above choice.

Originally posted by twhitehead
We can, and often do choose our desires without infinite regress. Many of our decisions start off as logical thought processes which are later translated into desires.
For example I may decide through some thought process that I shouldn't eat apples. I can over time come to actually hate apples as a result of the above choice.

I disagree. There is no logical argument for not eating apples that does not depend on having a primary set of desires already. All the logic does is reveal that it is in your interests or satisfies your concerns not to eat apples. But to have interests or concerns is to have primary emotional drivers already. And you can't select those without an appeal to a further set, and so on.

I do admit that cognition and emotion interact. But supposing I thought apples were delicious. How plausible is it that logical argument would convince me to hate the taste?

Originally posted by Lord Shark
How did I reach the infinite regress? Like this:

Suppose I want to choose from A, B, C or D. I might have some rational means for doing so, but in the end I want to choose the best.

How can I judge 'best'? Assume there are clear criteria and 'C' fits my purpose best. That's ok, no infinite regress there.

But I chose C on the basis of my d ...[text shortened]... 'a commitment to oppose at every turn'. Then you'd probably avoid the problem.

The infinite regress is very illusory, really. It's the same type of thinking employed by Buddhists and others who claim that, really, it's all about nothing... and yet never live accordingly.

For instance, the 46-year old person who walks around with my name really isn't the same person who was given that name 46 years ago in St. Mary's Hospital there in Walla Walla, Washington. In fact, I've never been the same person since, despite my name remaining the same the entire time. My cells have died, regenerated, recycled and so on--- some more than others, but all of them, nonetheless, continually passing the torch of my personality to the next group of cells in order to perpetuate my temporary shelter. You could even make the claim that I've changed my mind a few times, as well, in addition to altering my course, my perspective and so on.

Each of those events could be micro-analyzed in order to make the determination as to what caused each one. And then, what caused that one, or the one before it, and it, and so forth. Soon, it is ten months before I'm born and I've been effectively reduced to a gleam in my father's eye... assuming we can stop there, of course. But, somehow, magically, I don't exist. Well, of course I don't exist: it's 1963! But you can't hold 2010 to what was known in 1963 and walk away with anything remotely non-absurd.

Hate is a stance, and while it is variously employed with great emotion, it is a policy of thinking toward any given object or idea. As you excellently defined it, a commitment to oppose at every turn succinctly describes that stance. As I did not describe hate as an emotional response, I apparently have avoided the problem. Therefore, it is an appropriate response to evil.

Originally posted by twhitehead
How will you kick deaths ass? (on a side note, I always thought death rode on a horse).

Surely if you are a Christian, then you are suggesting that you either won't die, or will die but go to heaven.
If you won't die, then death does not exist (or will some of us die?) and it is illogical to hate that which does not exist.
If you will die but go to h ...[text shortened]... then why do you hate it? You already believe that only those who deserve it will suffer it.

How will you kick deaths ass? (on a side note, I always thought death rode on a horse).
Points for humor.
My kicking of death's ass is to declare that I am not going to be stopped by death. Then again, neither is either atheist. We all live forever: some in eternal bliss and the rest in eternal torment. Death seals the latter in their state, whereas for the former, death is merely a bridge.

If however by 'death' you mean what happens to us atheists (going to hell perhaps?), then why do you hate it? You already believe that only those who deserve it will suffer it.
I hate death because it wasn't what was intended. It is an affront to life. It crushes. It destroys. It steals. It lies. It hurts.

Originally posted by Lord Shark
I disagree. There is no logical argument for not eating apples that does not depend on having a primary set of desires already.

But of course the desire in question might be seemingly unrelated. For example you may desire to live, and apples may be poisonous. It is still a logical deduction that eating apples may lead to your death and this may lead to you hating the sight of apples. But even though it may seem that your decision not to eat apples is a result of your desire not to die it is not that straight forward and you may yet still be considered to have a choice in the matter.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
My kicking of death's ass is to declare that I am not going to be stopped by death. Then again, neither is either atheist. We all live forever: some in eternal bliss and the rest in eternal torment. Death seals the latter in their state, whereas for the former, death is merely a bridge.

So does anyone die? I am not quite sure any more what you are saying.

I hate death because it wasn't what was intended. It is an affront to life. It crushes. It destroys. It steals. It lies. It hurts.
Yet it appears from your statements above that that does not happen. So do you hate something that doesn't exist? Is that logical?
And even less logical is kicking an imaginary creatures mode of transport.

Originally posted by twhitehead
So does anyone die? I am not quite sure any more what you are saying.

[b]I hate death because it wasn't what was intended. It is an affront to life. It crushes. It destroys. It steals. It lies. It hurts.
Yet it appears from your statements above that that does not happen. So do you hate something that doesn't exist? Is that logical?
And even less logical is kicking an imaginary creatures mode of transport.[/b]

So does anyone die? I am not quite sure any more what you are saying.
I often forget that some have not had the same background. I know it sounds silly, but I have often felt that most atheists/agnostics are simply Christians with the same exposure who simply wanted to try something new. My bad for the assumption.

Death occurs only to the body. The soul lives forever. Where (or the state of its existence) depends upon the person's response to the offer of salvation. Those who choose to accept the gift live forever in eternal bliss with the Creator of the universe. Those who reject the same live forever in eternal torment.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
The infinite regress is very illusory, really. It's the same type of thinking employed by Buddhists and others who claim that, really, it's all about nothing... and yet never live accordingly.

For instance, the 46-year old person who walks around with my name really isn't the same person who was given that name 46 years ago in St. Mary's Hospital there ...[text shortened]... rently have avoided the problem. Therefore, it is an appropriate response to evil.

Well, I don't agree with what you have said about the infinite regress, but I do agree that you avoid the problem by construing hate as a stance.

So call it 1/2-1/2?

Originally posted by twhitehead
But of course the desire in question might be seemingly unrelated. For example you may desire to live, and apples may be poisonous. It is still a logical deduction that eating apples may lead to your death and this may lead to you hating the sight of apples. But even though it may seem that your decision not to eat apples is a result of your desire not to ...[text shortened]... is not that straight forward and you may yet still be considered to have a choice in the matter.

I really can't see how this relates to my point at all.

There is no logical argument for not eating apples that does not depend on primary desires. The fact that you use logic to deduce how to meet a desire, like the desire to stay alive, does not count against this point.

But even though it may seem that your decision not to eat apples is a result of your desire not to die it is not that straight forward
In what way?

and you may yet still be considered to have a choice in the matter.
Well we can choose to act according to our desires. We can't choose our desires without an infinite regress. You have supplied no argument to counter this so far.