The US and NATO are separate entities. Why do you think the US wars of aggression required a coalition of consenting nations? Only four of the thirty-two NATO members were involved in Iraq and six in Afghanistan - nowhere near two thirds. — Vera Mont

2/3 in terms of military/power. And I don't think the current US administration is all that worried about forming coalitions.

So, you can understand why Ukraine wanted to join NATO. They've been under threat from Russia their whole lives.

Ofcourse I understand it from the perspective of the Ukranians. But that's what I mean with not making it about morality. Europa had just been told to take care of it's own security after been asleep for 70 years. The economy isn't doing to hot, and you have the US waving with tariffs and supporting pro-Russian Far-right parties all over Europe. Should Europe have to carry a drawn out war against Russia, and devote a lot of its allready strained budget to the military, where do you think this is going? It's a trap strategically, and would make sure Europe will become technologically dependant on the US for decades to come because that's where it would be forced to buy its weapons.

In terms of market, a disunited and splintered EU offers much the same market and the nations can be played against each other to avoid moves that threaten China's interests. — Echarmion

They will try to play nations against eachother, but now that the US has forfaited its role as garantor, a European security is what make the most sense for Europe in this kind of world. Geo-political forces are driving it in that direction.

My problem with that is that multi-polar worlds aren't stable and degenerate into imperial spheres of influence, usually in the course of wars. — Echarmion

Maybe you could be right. Big imperial powers tend to become unstable too over time and split or dissolve, it's not certain for example that the US will still be there in a few decades the way they are going at the moment.

Of course they feel threathened by the loss of controle over Ukraine to a pro-western government. It's a country on their border and so that massively alters the balance of power. What's your point?

The present US government wouldn't recognize morality if it was rotting chained upside-down in its dungeon. None of this BS is about morality.

Poor little Russia was not shaking in its boots at the prospect of NATO, whicyh has never waged a war of aggression, getting one more member - that had been next door all along. But the countries were under Russian occupation not so long ago, especially Ukraine where Stalin perpetrated his greatest atrocity, have plenty to fear from Russia. Putin didn't attack Ukraine out of fear: he wants the grain and the minerals, as well as the territory.
All the oligarchs are out to eat as much of the world's wealth as possible before closing time. — Vera Mont

The US has waged wars of aggression, and that's 2/3 of the NATO. Not wanting an alliance specifically designed to keep your country in check, on your border, seems pretty reasonable to me.

Europe is still one of their biggest markets, a stable continent could integrate further via the belt and road they are already building. China doesn't want a world war, it wants to sell its products. And China is serious about climate change, at some point there will need to be coöperation to avoid a mutual assured destruction type of scenario...

If Europe builds up a unified European security and foreign policy to replace Nato it could become one of the powers in a multi-polar world. It's not going to be easy, but with an economy 10 or more times the size of Russia it shouldn't be impossible either.

We don't need further escalting conflicts at this moment. Russia doesn't need it either. What it needed was to not have a US-vasal state on its border. So open up diplomacy with Russia, agree to neutrality of Ukraine and end the war. If the US leaves Europe as it plans to do, a lot of the tension will go away... Russia felt threathend by the US, not that much by Europe itself.

Build up European security and foreign policy apart from the US, and try to normalise relations with Russia and China. This is the only way forward long term. We will need them (and they need us) to keep the continent stable, we need them economically, and we might need them to stop the US from derailing the world into a downward spiral.

We should defend our values, but stop trying to impose them on others... if we keep making geo-politics about morality we won't get anywhere.

Would it be a bad thing is the liberal world order ended Frank?

What's your goal? Reducing harm? Ok. Good goal. Lets discuss how to get there and hash-out the theoretics of X or Y course of action/policy.... This base-line is almost never set down and so the arguments proceed from one another's bias about how the motiviations (even though unknown) are somehow evil. There is no point talking about policies and actions unless you can hold them up to a stated goal and point out that either A. the goal is unwarranted, or B. the policies/actions wont achieve the goal. Even if this is purely practical, and its just that no ones going to listen to you when you can't even stop yourself from pretending to know their mind, that's totally valid imo. Don't do that.

I think their goal is to overthrow the liberal democratic world order we have had the past 75 years. This is not about some policy change left or right, but about a total system change based on core values that are not the same.

If this is indeed their goal, then what they are doing kindof makes sense.

Maybe from climate change? — frank

Yes that would be one of the main ones.

This strikes me as totally incoherent. They aren't related(on my first reading.. This isn't an impugning). the "philosophy of staying together" as a species? What thinker has broached this outside of sci fi? Real question, and not one I think is a gotcha. I'd like to know who to read on that, because its clearly a prima facie conservative line of thinking. — AmadeusD

Nick Land influenced a lot of MAGA ideology. They want closed borders, de-globalisation, multi-polar world, protectionism, less immigration etc etc.... as opposed to liberal democrats wanting open borders, globalisation, uni-polar world, free trade, more immigration. It's not necessarily about the stated goals of said ideologies, but about the policies they tend to support and the implications of those.

Yes or in socio-economic terms globalism vs localism/regionalism.

Purely in evolutionary terms diversity is more adaptive because you have a wider range of attributes that can fit changing circumstances.

We used to be a lot more genetically and culturally diverse in the past, but we generally went in the other direction the past 12.000 years culminating in the globalised world we have now.

The general arc historically has been towards more integration. But I don't think this is necessarily the direction we should expect the future to go.

For splitting apart of a species you need seperation and evolutionary bottlenecks. Maybe we will get seperation and evolutionary bottlenecks.

What's interesting to me about his tone is that the Enlightenment was supposed to be about freedom from the dark grip of religion. It was supposed to be about seeing the truth for the first time, and being able to speak about it: 'we aren't this way because God ordained it, we made it this way!." Land appears to be trying to crawl out from under what he sees as a rotten corpse of Leftism. But what I see when we push this corpse aside is a history of intolerance and nationalist bloodshed. The original Enlightenment didn't have that problem. — frank

What I think this comes down to is a 'Blood and soil'-type of reasoning. Historically different cultures arose from various peoples living over the world in different circumstances. Values are not reasoned out by some dialectical process, but evolve out of communities of people living in a certain place, tied to the land as it where.

The enlightenment as an outgrowth of universalist Christianity (and platonism before) sees morality rather as something objective and universal springing from (pure) reason or something like that.

If reason or ideal forms is the presumed origin of morality, then there is no apparent link to place or particular events anymore, and notions of seperate traditions of peoples connected to their land suddenly don't make a whole lot of sense.

If you believe however that any culture or morality worth its salt comes not from abstract universals, but from real historical traditions of people living their lives in certain places, then it starts to make more sense why you wouldn't want to much immigration.

Dark enlightenment seems something like the realisation that ideal forms or 'reason' is merely another justification for a people that has forgotten that its beliefs are really only the particular beliefs of a certain tribe from a certain place in time.

This is maybe overly generous, but I think there's way to read this as being about culture and ethnicity rather than race ultimately.

And of course it leads to conflict and bloodshed if you have various peoples with diverging interests and values. If you are to have a defined 'we', a group of people uniting to work together for a common goal, then you also have an 'other', otherwise the 'we' isn't delineating anything.

The question is what do you lose if you try to do away with the other? An all-inclusive 'we' that doesn't really mean anything anymore and nobody really cares for? Atomised individuals feeling like they don't belong to anything? Nihilism?

He thinks tensions, conflicting forces in ones 'soul' will keep us going forward yes. The word opposites threw me off, because he doesn't believe in opposites, that's one of the ways language can fool us...

I probably agree with you here about what he's getting at, I just wouldn't describe it as 'overcoming oneselves in ones opposite'.

The morality system "Good and Bad" keeps this intact, the morality system "Good and Evil" breaks this cycle of overcoming in ones opposite. — DifferentiatingEgg

Overcoming in ones opposite sounds rather Hegelian, something Nietzsche was not. The problem with 'Good and Evil' isn't only that it flips the valuation of world based 'Good and bad' on its head, and are thus world and life-denying, but also that it distorts them in the process... it moralises them.

If your point would be that human beings have a certain telos (or design), and therefor morally (the way humans should act) is objective, I would disagree with that for a specific reason.

Evolution did not design human beings like we design basketball. But maybe you could say that biological lifeforms do have evolved a kind of telos. The point I would make is that while that is true generally for most life, humans are a special case because part of our telos as eu-social language using beings, is to develop culture. Because culture is not something that is set in stone, but changes over time and from place to place, there is an inherently indeterminate element in our telos… an element that I would argue gets filled in with the intersubjective.

Edit: The term intersubjective is maybe not entirely the correct term for it. It's more something akin to cultural materialism, where the intersubjective/cultural is also in part determined by the specific material circumstances a group finds itself in.

The problem you are noting is that we invented basketball, but this doesn’t make the internal goods to basketball subjective—that’s the key you are missing. These internal goods are relative to the design, irregardless if that design was imbued by a subject or subjects.

If it were subjectively the case that Lebron is a good basketball player, then I would be equally right to say right now that he is a terrible basketball and you wouldn’t be able to say I am wrong—because no one is actually right or wrong about it. — Bob Ross

I agree with all of this, never disagreed about this really.... but that is I think besides the point for the OP.

The point is that different societies have invented different designs, to use your terminology here. It isn't "subjective" what is right or wrong, because it objectively follows from the design, indeed. But what is right or wrong will differ from society to society because they have invented different designs. Maybe it's a bit like american football and soccer (i.e. real football), there is a different design, so a good football player will be something different depending on what design we are talking about.

That is why I argue that it isn't these 'in-group' moral standards that should be used to determine how one acts geopolitically, because they are particular to a certain society, but instead the standards that follow from what is agreed upon in the "internalional community" or in diplomatic dialogue between states.

I'm not sure this will come across because I have been restating basically the same point since the beginning.

No, no. A moral judgment is expressing something objective if its truth is independent of non-objective dispositions; and whether or not someone is good at some form of farming, chess, playing basketball, etc. is objective. E.g., it is not relative to anyone’s beliefs or desires that Lebron is a good basketball player—and, in principle, it couldn’t be the case. — Bob Ross

I don't disagree that Lebron is objectively a good basketball player, I'm saying that we have decided what constitutes a good basketballplayer collectively (or intersubjectively)... and then we can go comparing a specific player like Lebron to that conventional standard, and conclude on the basis of objective facts that he is indeed objectively a good player.

As an Aristotelian, I would say that there are objective, internal goods to things when those things have a Telos. E.g., a good farmer, a bad chess player, a good watch, a bad human, etc. — Bob Ross

I'm not sure what you mean with a Telos or internal good, because we invented farming, chess and clocks. These concept did not exist until we invented them... so how does one make sense of them having an internal good aside from the subjective values and goals we had in mind when devising them. I mean sure, good farming practices for instance will also be informed by objective things in the world, by how plants grow, or how weather fluctuates between seasons, but what it ultimately depends on is on what we decided farming should do for us (i.e. producing food, without to much work, in sustainable ways maybe etc etc).

If there is no actual badness, like you claim, then there is no such thing as a bad farmer. A bad farmer is a farmer that is actually bad at farming—this is not relative to anyone’s beliefs or desires about it. — Bob Ross

I'm saying there is no objective badness, and you're turning that into actual badness... as matter of definition it seems.

What is considered good or bad farming is subjective, in that you do have different ways of farming that have different values in mind (like say conventional, organic, permaculture etc etc...), where the one only is concerned with producing the most food, and other may be concerned more with doing it in an enviromentally healthy way. Once we agree on the cirteria good farming must meet (the standard of judgement is not objective), then we can go and look if a specific farmer meets those criteria (and that does depend on objective factors). I think you are confused between the standard of measurement and the measurement itself in relation to that standard.

Survival doesn’t actually matter under your view: the best you can say is that if you value surviving then you should care about your society. — Bob

That’s what it means: I don’t think you understand what actual goodness entails—it is objective goodness: those are synonyms.

If you say something actual matters, then you are claiming to know at least some moral facts.

That you actually value something, is not the same as that something actually mattering. In other words, that you actually believe or desire for something to matter does not entail that it actually matters. For something to actual matter, it must matter independently of non-objective dispositions. — Bob

That you actually value something, is not the same as that something actually mattering. In other words, that you actually believe or desire for something to matter does not entail that it actually matters. For something to actual matter, it must matter independently of non-objective dispositions. — Bob Ross

That is true for facts about the world, but not for morality because those are not about "truth" in the sense of corresponding to some objective state of the world.

I just don't agree with what you seem to think follows from definition/is axiomatically true. I don't get what an objective value could mean, how do you find these in the world?

Then, you have to deny that there is such a thing as a bad farmer. — Bob Ross

I don't see how you got there.

Morality is useful for knowing what the right thing to do or not do is. — Bob Ross

Not everything is about morality. Morality pertains to human behaviour in relation to the group, by and large. People can and do value things that don't have a lot to do with morality... and can base their decisions for what to do on that. Geo-political decisions also rarely made predominately on the basis of a morality.

Ok, so it sounds like your view is a form of moral anti-realism; because you are denying that moral judgments express something objective; instead, they are inter-subjective. This is just as meaningless to me as if it were straightforwardly subjective: why should anyone care what some group of people think? It literally doesn’t matter, because you are denying that there is anything that actually matters. — Bob Ross

It does matter if you rely on your group for survival, which is generally the case outside maybe modern affluent society to some extend. You risk exclusion from the group.

And I don't think the realism/anti-realism distinction is very helpful here. It's real enough that a certain group of people, grown up with certain moral institutions and traditions, will have certain moral ideas which make them behave in corresponding ways... Morality has real imprints in they way groups are organised, in the people and also real consequences.

Also why should something be objective to actually matter? I don't get it. If I value something 'only subjectively', I do value it... why should I need something extra to actually matter?

I do believe they are doing something wrong according to my own (non-realist/non-universal) moral framework, but I don't necessarily think that should be a or the (only) determining factor in deciding to go to war with another country.

If there is no ‘objective’ morality, then your ethical theory isn’t really useful. It doesn’t matter if you believe that they are doing something wrong but not in the sense that it is actually wrong. — Bob Ross

There is no actual objective wrong, only conventional wrongs, yes.... that's just how it is descriptively. Usefull for what, to be able to declare war?

Is that like moral cultural relativism? — Bob Ross

It is relative between cultures sure, but not for individuals. They are beholden to the morality of their group... so it's not anything goes/up the the individuals choice, if that's what you're worried about.

It sounds like, contrary to your previous statements, you are a moral realist. Moral cultural relativism is a form of moral realism—although I don’t think it works. — Bob Ross

It's neither totally realist nor anti-realist I think. Morals are very real in that they exist as conventions for people to follow within certain groups, and are therefor not merely subjective expressions or choices of individuals... but they are also not the things you go looking for and can find as objective facts in the world. We create them over time.

Ehhh, then I submit to you that you should be amoral: don’t meddle into matters of right or wrong behavior—because you don’t think there is such a thing. I don’t know why you would even care if North Korea is committing mass genocide because you don’t believe they are doing anything wrong. — Bob Ross

I do believe they are doing something wrong according to my own (non-realist/non-universal) moral framework, but I don't necessarily think that should be a or the (only) determining factor in deciding to go to war with another country.

I'm a social constructivist, so yes morality would typically only apply within a certain group, within the group that develloped those morals. But typically there's a dialogue between groups/countries too, and you get trade agreements, treaties, pacts, allies and enemies etc etc.... that would be the geo-political analogue for the social contract, but then between states instead of merely within the group. And so I think justification of wars should be evaluatted within those geo-political conventions, and not solely on the bases of the morals of a particular in-group (like you seem to be doing as a moral realist).

Of course you can. That’s how ethics is done. What you are arguing for is moral particularism—which doesn’t work.

The reason it matters to analyze imperialism on its own merits, is that it changes how one thinks about politics ideally. If you are absolutely anti-imperialism; then you will never try to subject another nation to one’s nation’s values out of principle—irregardless of the consequences. — Bob Ross

Yeah, we have a different sense of what morality is it seems... I'm not sure we can get over this in this discussion. I'm not a moral realist, and I don't think this is how we should do ethics at all.

None of this is true. China abuses the environment and does nothing about it. They are the largest annual emissions since 2006, and their total energy-related emissions is twice that of the US. — Bob Ross

The West has been exporting its production to low-income countries like China for decades to get its products cheaper, it's the production-center of the globalised world... and China's population is three time the size of the US like I said, of course it will have larger emmissions at this particular moment. But it seems hardly fair to only judge a country on that singular metric without regard to historical context.

Then you have no good reasons to ever attack a country; for you are not basing it off of what is actually good, which belongs to ethics. — Bob Ross

Yes, I don't view things in terms of some overarching actual good.... "Actual good" in war is usually merely things valued from the perspective of the one citing it as a justification for war.

That’s true, but despite the point. — Bob Ross

Besides the point you are trying to make maybe, but I think these situational practical concerns typically are more important than any moral concern in deciding to go to war. I don't think anyone should be morally obliged to attack the US for instance, whatever it does, if only because they would loose that war horribly.

Really? If you could invade and conquer North Korea with no casualties nor with starting any other wars (with other countries), you would choose to let the north korean people continue to be butchered and tortured? — Bob Ross

I don't think you get to strip away everything that is salient about a concrete situation, and still have something usefull or applicable to say about how to act in that situation. There usually are casualities in a war and allies that join in... why would we want to ignore all that to determine the morality of an action?

China is the biggest polluter; and renewable energy produces more pollution to manufacture and maintain than fossil fuels. — Bob Ross

China is at least acknowledging the problem and trying to do something about it. It also pollutes way less per capita because it has 3 times the population, and has less historical pollution build up... The US is also the architect, protector and main driver behind this whole global system we have that is the main cause of all of this, so I really don't think there is much of a case to made for not seeing the US as the main culprit... if we had to assign blame anyway.

If it actually were an existential-planet-threat and other countries actually had a way to significantly reduce pollution (other than population control), then yes. I can do you one better: what if the US decided that they were going to detonate a 1,000 nukes for fun—why wouldn’t other countries try to stop them? — Bob Ross

Does it really need to be an existential threat? I don't think so, there's plenty of non-existential damage that could be totally unacceptable, like say the damage we are on track of doing because of climate change. And if the US was a threat to earths biosphere, or if it detonated 1000 nukes for fun, than I guess it would be justified for other countries to try to stop it because that would be a threat to the security of all those countries. So maybe my counter-example wasn't the best example for the point I was trying to make, that morality by itself seems like a poor reason to attack a country.

So, if the Nazis would have stayed in Germany, then you think no one would be warranted in stopping them? — Bob Ross

I don't think you have to invade them, no, if they have no intention of attacking you or your allies... there are other measures. Besides avoiding WWII seems like another solid argument no to do it.

He's a question for you. Now Trump is elected one could make an argument that the US poses a treat to the health of earth's biosphere, as it is one of the biggest polluters and under Trump it also has no intention of doing something about it. Are other countries morally obliged to attack the US in order to prevent further damage to earth's biosphere?

However, that’s because countries were taking each other over for bad reasons. — Bob Ross

The reasons for the war don't necessarily have a lot to do with successful installation of a new political system... it's one factor of many maybe.

That's partially fair; but I would note that imposing important and vital political systems is good. E.g., if you are against imperialism completely, then we wouldn't have any justification to take over North Korea, Talibanian Afghanistan, etc. Nations have a moral obligation to imperialize sometimes. — Bob Ross

I would say they only have a moral obligation to conquer other land if it's in their own vital security interests. But to the point of imposing political systems, would you say historical track records are good for these kind of projects?

For those who are upset at my rhetoric (and perhaps the lens by which I am analyzing this), I challenge you to try to justify, in your response to this OP, e.g., why Western, democratic values should not be forcibly imposed on obviously degenerate, inferior societies at least in principle—like Talibanian Afghanistan, North Korea, Iran, China, India, etc. Some societies are so obviously structured in a way antithetical to the human good, that it is virtually impossible to justify leaving them be in the name of anti-imperialism. E.g., if we could take over North Korea right now without grave consequences (such as nuclear war), then it is obviously in our duty to do so—and this is a form of imperialism. Why would you not be a Western supremacist? — Bob Ross

I would be in favour of some kind of in-group supremacism for all groups, a healthy culture should celibrate itself, but I would be against imperialism because of issues of scale and cultural context. The justification for anti-imperialism would be the scale of imperialism. I believe a "culture" is something that is tied to a specific land and everything that comes with that, a certain climate, what kind of foods you can grow etc etc... There also need to be a certain sense of being culturally unified to speak of a culture, which implies that you cannot spread it to thin geographically. The problem of imperialism is that it disconnects peoples from the traditional ways of their land and their context, which typically causes problems done the line for centuries to come no matter the intentions.

We also have habits and instincts, yes. And many perfectly reasonable decisions that we don't dwell on, simply because they're obviously the correct response to a situation. Reason can't have been invented in response to being challenged: that's the wrong way around. Who was there to challenge an action prior to the concept of rational thought? — Vera Mont

No, but what I'm saying is that "reasons" are not necessarily the result of conscious rational deliberation either. Instincts are obviously prior to all of that, and instincts are to some extend already reasonable. Instincts are the original 'reasons'... then great apes evolved language as a tool of communication as social group animals, then we develloped rationalisation or justification, i.e. delineating and expressing in language, after the fact, the reasons already inherent in behaviour guided by the instincts (or perhaps expressing reasons that weren't even there in case of dissimilation). And then eventually, socrates put forwards the notion that we should have conscious rational deliberation prior to the act as the golden standard.... rational thinking instead of instinct.

You act as if a mind or a self is a thing. A brain is a physical thing, a mind is merely a kind of metaphor for what the brain does. Strictly speaking we do no 'have' a mind, we have thoughts following eachother. That's why I don't think any of this matters a lot, 'en matière'... one mind/two minds, a mind is just a kind container concept to point at the amalgam of thoughts the brain produces. One forest, two forests, a bunch of trees together, to some extend its arbitrary where you want to draw the lines for the concepts you are using.

I prefer to be carefull not to reïfy things, because usually that muddles more than it clarifies... So I'm happy leaving it at "I have conflicting thoughts and drives" without any talk of minds, selfs or wills.

Didn't people have a reason for their actions until somebody forced them to explain? — Vera Mont

I dunno, that is the question right? And that question in turn depends on what you would consider "a reason". Does a chicken have a reason the scratch the ground when looking for food? As I alluded to in a previous post, the chicken also seems to be scratching the floor when it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. So a lot of that behaviour seems to be instinctual. I do think there's a reason, or a 'rationale' to a lot of these instincts, but I also think those are not the result of some conscious rational deliberation... what one would consider "rational thinking".

I think a lot of what we humans do is more or less the same, we do seem to do a lot of things without conscious rational deliberation, out of instinct. Most of these behaviours are probably "reasonable" in that they do serve a purpose or goal, without necessarily having a reason in mind. And so no, often it's only afterwards, when asked, that we consciously think of "reasons".

It seems to me that part of resolving tensions in what you want is resolving what you can or could do. — Harry Hindu

I don't know, I don't get it I think, the tension is in what you want... and then you maybe refrain from doing certain things to resolve the tension in what you want.

Maybe an example can help. Let's say I want two things that compete with eachother. I want to be healthy, and I also want to smoke (because I'm addicted). The one (smoking) has an adverse effect on the the other. To resolve the tension in favour of health, I should try to reduce my addiction, my wanting of nicotine, otherwise I will keep having to deal with these two conflicting wants. The way to do that is to try and refrain from smoking. The first couple of weeks after I quit, I'm probably still addicted to nicotine, I still want sigarettes. But then this addiction gradually wanes the longer you stop with it, until you don't want it anymore. At that point, it's not that you have to limit yourself, you just don't want it anymore.

You speak as if everyone has split personality disorder where multiple personalities, or wills (subconscious and conscious) battle to control the decision-making process. There is one will that has many options at any given moment. I enjoy chocolate but I also like to be healthy. I have a decision to make. It doesn't necessarily have to be a black and white issue. I can eat chocolate in moderation thereby achieving both eating chocolate and being healthy. Notice how I was able to explain it using just one will - I. — Harry Hindu

One thing with many aspects, or many things that combine and "fight" to result in one outcome at a particular time seem philosophically the same to me. I'm not sure how one would differentiate between to two empirically?

So it seems like maybe this is just quibling over how we would want to name and frame the same underlying thing.

And ultimately I think my kind of framing is closer to how I experience it. I really do sometimes seem to be torn between two minds. One simple example is, I want to stay fit as a longer term goal, but then I also like eating food that isn't the best for reaching that longer term goal. Is that one will with two aspects, or two wills that battle with eachother? Does it really matter how we frame it ultimately?

I'm going to answer in a somewhat longwinded way, but this is a philosophy forum so...

Do animals have rational thinking? Do animals have communication skills? Is intuitive thinking rational or maybe something better? — Athena

I'd say instincts are to some extend rational, if by rational we mean doing things that furthers attaining desired ends. A chicken for instance will instinctually scratch the ground periodically while eating. In doing so there's a chance that they reveal all kinds of tasty stuff like worms or grains that where previously not visible. So the instinctual behaviour of scratching the surface could be said to be rational behaviour if we assume the goal they want to attain is getting food.

The difference with humans is they can't seem to adjust these instincts very much to fit changing circumstances. If you give them a bowl of grains for instance, they will still tend to scratch the surface eventhough in that instance it does very little as they have enough food in the bowl. Humans have an extra capacity to reflect on and reason about certain behaviour, which enables them to adjust more to changing circumstances.

Is it rational to believe illnesses are caused by the gods? Is it rational to believe a god created man from mud? — Athena

I think in this case something similar is going on as with instinctual behaviour of animals. We are social animals, and tend to create religious/mythological superstructures that promote certain values and social cohesion that benefits the group overall if you would compare it to a group that doesn't have members adhering to their superstructure. Piety, i.e. believing in and adhering to the traditions of your group, promotes social cohesion (Asabiyyah), and can from that point of view probably be considered "rational" in that social cohesion improves overall survivability of the group (which can be considered as the desired end). The flip-side is that like animal instincts it isn't very granular and adjustable to specific circumstances... it's rational only viewed in the context of the longer historical and evolutionary arc.

Socrates (and Plato) thought we could do better than that and started questioning the Gods and turned to rational thinking instead. We will have to see (although we probably won't be there anymore :-)) if that turns out to be a better strategy long-term.

There is probably a continuum of strong and weak wills. This is likely based on the degree of strength which a person has learned. Also, it is possible to be weak in some areas but strong in other aspects. For example, a person may be strong in resisting violent impulses, but be weak in bingeing on chocolate. — Jack Cummins

It certainly is a continuum. And yes the idea is that you give up on/sublimate some desires or values that are contradictory with others that you do want to pursue more.

But some self-control I would presume would typically be part of that process, and that probably would include resisting both bingeing and violent impulses.

Does not "resolving its own inner tensions" involve limiting the amount of choices one has going forward vs being "consumed by contradictions" which would be having more choices, some of which are contradictory but are still options one could choose? Most people are equating freedom with choices. So the more choices, contradictory or not, is really just more freeom you can jave. Should I buy a new computer or not buy a new computer? I can't do both but both are options I can choose. By limiting contradictory options are you not limiting your options, and therefore your freedom? — Harry Hindu

You are resolving tensions in what you want, not in what you can or could do. So you still have the choices, you just don't want it anymore... so I would say no it doesn't limit your choices, it just give you a more clear idea of what you really want so you don't get pulled in all direction getting nowhere ultimately.

Maybe this is not what you're looking for, but I would suggest one can maybe better and more clearly speak of what you are pointing to in terms of weak and strong wills, instead of in terms of free and unfree will.

As I think truely 'free will' is a logical impossibility as it leads to a kind of infinite regress (previous posts), what we really are pointing to is a will that isn't overly constrained by outside social forces, and/or a will that resolved some of its own inner tensions (strong will) and a will that is more influenced by outside social forces, and/or weakened or consumed by its own contradictions (weak will).

And in that quest, for a more unified unconstrained will, philosophy definitely can play a role I would say in resolving some of conflicts in values, and in inoculating oneself from social manipulation/propaganda/plain bad ideas that are floating around.

Exactly.

This is an interesting way of looking at it, but I think many would say if we don't determine our will, we don't have free will. You've defined the problem away, but are we automatic programmed machines or aren't we? — T Clark

I don't think there is a real problem, I think there's a problem with the language/concpets we use, i.e. free will. At some level we probably are like "programmed machines", just very very complex ones, and also very different from the machines we build in that we are organic and they are not.

I dunno, it's not because we have a concept for something that that thing necessarily exists.

I don't know what you mean by saying the concept is incoherent. On the other hand, I think the whole free will vs. determinism controversy much ado about nothing. — T Clark

It's incoherent like a square circle is incoherent.... a logical impossibility. If it's will it's not free, and if it's free it's not will.... we have a will, that is all. Construed that way the free will vs. determinism controversy just goes away, because will by itself is not contradictory with determinism.

This is not true at all, but it's outside the scope of this discussion, so let's leave it at that. — T Clark

It's Nietzsche 101, just to be clear where I'm getting it from.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The question of free will usually arises when we talk about determinism - if everything is determined by the motion of particles and energy that can (theoretically) be predicted by the laws of physics, where is there room for us to truly act freely. — T Clark

I explain what I mean with this the rest of my post(s). Since we are our will, and that is the agency part of us, it doesn't make sense to expect that part also to be determined by us, by itself. We are free to act on our will, not to choose it.

Determinism is looking at things from a different perspective. It doesn't preclude the emergence of biological life with wills that determine how they act. Truly metaphysical free will would be impossible under determinism, but that shouldn't really concern us as that particular concept of free will is incoherent to begin with.

No. It's metaphysics, although it might have moral implications. — T Clark

Well the one doesn't preclude the other, in fact I think most metaphysics are inspired by morality and religion. As meta-physics is by definition not constrained by anything physical/empirical, it usually ends up being shaped by our moral/religious beliefs, which is typically what we are really after.

My thoughts (and feelings, memories, perceptions, and a bunch of other stuff) are me. — T Clark

Yes that is what I meant, there is no I (as a separate agent) doing the thinking, we are our thinking.

I would agree they tend to fail because they are to superficial. Maybe they require a change at a deeper level, like adjusting ones values (our will), but often more important or just as important I think, is change in lifestyle/circumstances because change of our core values is not allways that easy.

Addictions are usually a result of other underlying problems, they typically serve a function, like alcohol may be self-medication because one is too stressed. If one were to merely stop drinking, but doesn't find other ways to deal with stress, or change the circumstances that cause stress... at some point the chances of starting drinking again are probably rather great.