Perhaps there is a golden mean by which compassion is mitigated by enough self-interested acts so that it can be sustained. — schopenhauer1

Correct, which is why I was primarily interested in those who are worse-off. We have to balance the input with the output. If tending to them does not hurt you as much as they are hurting, then it seems as though we really have no excuse not to help them. The point is to maximize your utility, and every one of us can do better even if we won't. Certainly other alternatives, such as becoming a monk, nun, or other kind of ascetic only makes sure that you are doing alright, but nobody else is helped.

Also, more importantly, you may be making a non-issue into an issue. You are countering the claim that people are not as moral as they claim to be or think they are. I would argue that not many people go around saying or thinking they are super compassionate necessarily. I think some people do compassionate acts every once in a while, or what "classically" looks like compassionate acts in our society, but I doubt many people go around claiming how super-compassionate they are. Even Schopenhauer who claimed that morality is based on compassionate sentiment, I doubt would claim that he himself was compassionate. Did you have quotes from him claiming otherwise? If I recall, he seemed to think it was rare for people to live with that much compassion. I'll try to find a quote or something if needed. — schopenhauer1

People probably do believe that they could be better, but overall they believe that they are a good person. How they are living their lives, the choices they make (that inevitably reflect self-interest) is not put into question. Many people would not see the harm in not donating your savings post-mortem, or of eating meat, or of any number of things.

Levinas wrote about the "persecution of ethics", and I think this is exactly what I'm talking about in this case. People in general do indeed feel compelled to do something when they think about the suffering of others, but not out of positive compassion but because they know it would be better if they did something. They come to recognize this and learn to push it out of their immediate conscious.

Just how many people could be saved if you didn't buy that new flatscreen television? Just how many animals could have been helped if you didn't spend all your time playing Call of Duty (irony intended)?

So when I say that morality stems from compassion, I mean that the recognition of suffering as an important thing is due to compassion. But the subsequent acts to remove or prevent this suffering need not be motivated solely by compassion. It can be a logical counterfactual proposition - if we view suffering as bad, then removing suffering is good. What is good is what we ought to do. Therefore, we ought to remove suffering, even if we don't want to remove suffering (which is what Schopenhauer had in mind and what you refer to as positive compassion).

And the rub here is that most of us, including myself, recognize that suffering is bad, and yet don't want to get off our asses and do something about it for our entire life. So you get a tugging feeling in your gut, which you inevitably repress by distracting yourself with things you like to do. The moral person need not enjoy being moral - but the virtuous person does.

In regards to your edit, I agree that people should be more educated as to what life entails exactly. Which is why I advocate political and social involvement while alive - it also gives you a purpose to live.

According to the article he particularly has in mind metaphysics in analytic philosophy, much of which is, he says, "willfully cut off from any serious issues". — jamalrob

"Philosophy in some quarters has become self-indulgent, clever play in a vacuum that’s not dealing of problems of any intrinsic interest." — Dennett

Seems to me that the average person would say the same thing about philosophy in general. Who the hell cares whether or not God exist, so long as I get to go to heaven?! Who cares whether a world exists beyond our perceptions, let's go have ice cream! Who cares what the nitty-bitty details of ethics are, the important thing is to not be a dick! Who cares about the epistemology of belief, I already know what I believe! "Who cares?!" is the response I get from most people when I tell them the specifics of my interest in philosophy. They really couldn't give less of a shit.

The point is that the average non-philosophy-inclined person, just like Dennett, has an agenda, in which certain topics are more important than others thanks to a prioritization due to the agenda. To the average person, perhaps instead of philosophy, it's politics, or professional sports, or manufacturing the next salvation of humanity, or droning on video games all day, or whatever happens to fill the vacuum of boredom in your life.

Personally, I don't really care whether or not we find yet another exoplanet, or yet another species of irrelevant fish somewhere in the depths of the oceans, or who wins the Superbowl, or whether or not Trump or Clinton gets elected, or if Costco is having a sale on their nachos. They aren't relevant to me.

So in order for Dennett's claim, that much of philosophy is self-indulgent and irrelevant, to make sense, he needs to support the background view which prioritizes other self-indulgent and irrelevant disciplines and pursuits, and show why they are not self-indulgent and irrelevant and why they should be taken as of practically universal importance.

I suspect Dennett thinks much of analytic metaphysics to be like his analogy to chmess - chess but with slightly different rules as to make an entirely new game and entirely different strategies. If this is the case (which I don't think it is), what still is happening is that these professional philosophers are enjoying what they are doing. And, in fact, they are indeed discussing a portion of the world, even if this portion is not as relevant or catches the eye of Dennett.

What I think ought to change is the longevity of these pursuits. For as smart and capable as these professional philosophers are, many of them continue to focus on issues that are, in some sense, beneath them. Let the amateurs and aspiring philosophers work on these fun (legitimate) puzzles and focus on bigger, nobler and radical theories - otherwise it's like a PhD computer scientist working on a Raspberry Pi.

These analytical metaphysical questions: persistence, identity, object-hood, property theories, etc are likely never going to be solved in the way they are currently attempted to be, which is why I think they are better off being studied by undergrads and aspiring professionals as ways of honing their skills and preparing them for the bigger problems.

I think the reason this is not happening, and why professional philosophers continue to discuss these perennial and yet more amateur questions, is that it's easy. For as much as ontology and metaphysics in general has exploded after Quine (regardless of whether or not it is justified), current analytic metaphysics is rather sterile and shallow. There are much, much deeper questions to be tackled that don't require the abandonment of metaphysics entirely. Compare what is usually discussed in analytic metaphysics today with what was discussed in the past or is elsewhere, and you will see just how limited the scope of analytic metaphysics really is.

Additionally, in their attempt to be be independent of the natural sciences, analytic metaphysicians end up isolating themselves from any real contact with the natural sciences. In my opinion, analytic metaphysicians have done this not (just) because they believe metaphysics is indeed a separate branch of inquiry (the a priori study of the possible, pace E.J. Lowe), but because they are scared of what might happen if they put their theories to the test against the sophistication of those of natural science and what the public will think of their discipline. It's what Harman said - philosophy today has a severe inferiority complex. They are scared of questioning the social hegemony of science - something Meillassoux pointed out when he argued that the austere correlationist can and should inform the cosmologist and geologist that what they are studying, the ancestral, never actually happened. (Meillassoux does not actually support this view, though, as he is a realist).

Metaphysical theories rise and fall with the evidence just as natural scientific theories do, and I do believe that many of these analytic metaphysical theories can withstand the so-called threat of scientism and the hegemony of modern physics (but many will not and are only kept alive by this isolation) - however, this will require a bootstrapping relationship between the two, and more importantly will require metaphysicians to step up their game and tackle the bigger questions, the questions that contemporary philosophers of science are trying to do right now and could be helped by those with more sophisticated metaphysical background. Specifically, they should focus more on issues of grounding, perception, mathematical (anti-)realism, speculative cosmology and especially causality and the nature of Being itself (i.e. what does "physical" actually mean?) - many of these pop-scientists could learn a thing or two from what these metaphysicians have to say. Additionally, the divide between analytic and continental philosophy, although claimed to have been dissolved, continues to exist and you get a severe lack of communication between the two when much could be gained if there was.

Instead of removing/rejecting metaphysics, metaphysics needs to be improved and established as an important and relevant discipline to anyone who has an interest in understanding how the world works.

So, it perhaps is just a problem of having an ideal that is never met, like a perfect circle. — schopenhauer1

Exactly. Our abilities (or lack thereof) do not dictate morality.

One feeling is being driven by some sort of negative (driving away) nagging feeling that, in a way, is a selfish need to not have that feeling anymore, the other comes out of a positive sense (driving towards) of wanting to see suffering alleviated for that other person. — schopenhauer1

However, if you used another basis that is not compassion, you may perhaps have a point. — schopenhauer1

The guilt comes from the fact that someone is ignoring a compelling experience. To not feel guilt when recognizing the plight of others requires one to place greater emphasis on oneself than other people, or to believe that one is more important than others.

This means that I am taking compassion and running with it - I am probing the limits of what compassion leads to, even if this is not actually possible. If we were more compassionate individuals, then we would help more people. Since we are not helping very many people, and instead attending to our own desires, it stands that we are not as compassionate as we think we are, and since morality stems from compassion, this means we are not as moral as we think we are.

So for me at least, it doesn't matter whether or not feeling guilty for not helping others is genuinely compassion-based in the positive or negative sense, for what matters here is that we can recognize the link between compassion and morality and see how we are deficient in both (which presumably leads to guilt, misanthropy, or perhaps self-improvement).

Rather, donating to organizations or being on the board of organizations that can help in a FAR GREATER capacity might be the best way. Or perhaps something even more impersonal and less-compassionate looking. It might even be the case that simply being a consumer in a capitalist economy turns out to be the greatest benefit as the taxes go into research and activities that do indeed help far more people in far more effective ways. — schopenhauer1

Indeed, I advocate donating all your savings post-mortem, and while alive, physically interacting with those in need as well as getting involved in politics and society in general. Maximizing your utility.

Not helping others at every moment of the day, and being egoistic, does not mean that one is enthralled with life. This is similar to the "if you think life is suffering, why don't you just kill yourself?" argument. Just because one does not commit suicide does not show that, indeed one must really think life is great. Rather, just like suicide, it is in most people's nature to be self-interested. Most people care enough to about their own lives to not be burned out emotionally and physically with other people's problems at all times. I accept this fact. — schopenhauer1

Right, but again, if we take compassion-based ethics to its logical end, then the conscientious support of an affirmative system cannot be acceptable, regardless of how we actually are psychologically and in general.

The overall point being made here is that you cannot be "comfortable" and also concerned with the well-being of others.

How is it that matter and space itself exist when the absence of anything could have more than easily sufficed? — Albert Keirkenhaur

How do you know the absence of anything could have been sufficient? It's certainly conceivable that the various things in the world are contingent, but it's not straightforward to say that this makes them actually metaphysically contingent, or that the simpler methods of existing are not necessary.

Personally I think that the only necessary constraint is the complete lack of necessary constraints, i.e. radical contingency, and an evolution of systems-within-constraints allows the emergence of stability.

I think it is impossible to act at all times out of compassion. You cannot will yourself to be compassionate. You may follow some abstract formula, or act out of some self-imposed duty, but that is not compassion. — schopenhauer1

This is also why I think it was in Schopenhauer's (and others') (literal) best-interest to identify as a misanthrope, because this allows him and others to squeeze around their responsibilities in pursuit of a self-centered ascetic life. This would allow him to be selective in his compassion - and fuck everyone else, they don't deserve to be helped. Thus Schopenhauer's antinatalism was not only compassion based but also aesthetically-based: don't create any more monsters. Humans suck.

So if you are a person who actually does hate humanity and other sentient organisms, then compassion becomes something of a black sheep. If that is you (or anyone else reading this), there's nothing more I can really say, other than that I think you have your values misplaced.

So yes, I agree that compassion cannot be sustained on the level I was talking about earlier (where every moment of our lives is dedicated to helping others), but that is a personal failure. Like I said before, how far away does someone have to be for them to be insignificant? If we were perfectly compassionate individuals, then we would recognize that distance doesn't have any importance here. If we hold a negative view of existence, then we are being disingenuous by continuing to live - and thus support - the affirmative lifestyle. Without trying to be cliche, we have a choice: to be active or passive, a 1 or a 0.

Now, I am not saying that it is wrong necessary to live in a world where every motivation would be to help others, with as much ability as possible at all times, but it would leave no room for other things, and thus the value of other things that are not ethics-related or compassion-related. This kind of world, for many, would be a world not worth living in. — schopenhauer1

The problem that I see with this is that, especially coming from a pessimist such as yourself, the world is already not worth living in, so these losses of other apparently valuable things are not really that bad, since they are just distractions. This is why I had previously said having a negative outlook but continuing to live affirmatively (i.e. "leeching" off of the affirmative community) is logically contradictory. The philosophical outlook and the subsequent lifestyle are not entirely compatible.

To say it another way, if the government adopted the philosophy of someone like, say, Schopenhauer, as domestic and foreign policy, as well as what I see to be the logical extension of it (as described above), we would not live in the same kind of society. It would be radically changed unlike anything we would have seen before. The aesthetics that Schopenhauer advocated for calming the Will would not longer be supported anywhere, as they would be seen as wasteful spending habits.

So I think it's sort of contradictory to hold such a bleak view of existence and yet be opposed to the deconstruction of society to benefit those in need. For what reason would you be against this that wouldn't undermine your own existentialism?

Guilt is indeed a motivator for action.

If everyone took good care of those closest to them for a start, including themselves, then I think there would be far less suffering in the world. — John

True. So the governments of countries with impoverished citizens are of most suspect - but the countries around it that allow this to continue are also suspect.

So even if someone else really ought to be doing something about it, you are still able to do something. And my claim is that if you actually come to terms with your own efficacy, you will realize just how much utility you are keeping for yourself.

In any case, if you were to go out and dedicate yourself selflessly and diligently to helping others, you would be far more likely to convince people that that is the best way than you are by trying to reason with them about it, or make them feel guilty. — John

I have and am trying.

I do think that most people, when confront with a case where someone was suffering terribly and they felt competent to do something about it; would do something about it. But that they provided help would not necessarily (and I think in most cases would not) be on account of them following any moral rule, but simply because they felt moved to do something about the person's suffering. — John

Then why is this not applied to the homeless African child, or the slave labor of China, or the constant mutilation of animals in the wild? Do you have to have someone breathing down your neck for it to make you want to help them?

From this it would then seem to follow that the typical person is a good moral agent; in which case, what's the problem? — John

What I meant here was that we are not taking ethics far enough. We limit our concept of obligation for our own comfort and security.

I would like to hear from other people as well. I'm not trying to be a jerk when I say this, but how do you live with yourself while knowing there are people who are suffering and will continue to suffer if you do not help them? Or while knowing that there are many ways you could educate people to stop them from inflicting harm upon other sentients, whether that be environmentalism, veganism, anti-space exploration-ism, procreative ethic discussions, etc?

Do you think you are a moral person just because you are "decent" or "adequate"?

Giving a bit of food or alms would send the wrong signals. — OglopTo

Or you do both.

hoping that the wielders of these nukes would be, again, you guessed it, acting in good faith. — OglopTo

I was more referring to the advocation of a nuclear winter to destroy the ecosystems.

May be true in an ideal world where everyone is sort of like enlightened or semi-enlightened. But unfortunately, we don't have this so I feel that actions, no matter how inconsequential, will perpetuate this 'unenlightened' unexamined sort of worldly thinking. Still, the context of this is the helping-street-children example I described earlier. It's either you go big or go home in helping them. — OglopTo

Not helping them would betray a form of misanthropy. Back in the days of the classical pessimists, then, misanthropy could be compatible with asceticism. Today, not so much, because we have ways of ending the apparent plague of humanity (nukes, for example).

This is also why I said we had to be politically active, so that we would help these street children and also make them grow up in a society which looked down upon perpetrating suffering.

This is an important point: we don't know how our actions are going to affect others, like a butterfly effect. But whereas there is merely a hypothetical possibility that someone is harmed because of what you did to try to help someone, there is an actuality that someone is harmed because you did nothing.

All this means is that we must be reasonable in our assessment of a situation, and realize that us helping someone in all likelihood probably will not come back to haunt us. Any bad things other people will do they likely will have done regardless of whether or not we help them. People need help and our fear of what they might do afterwards only insults them.

Ideally this principle should apply to not just yourself but to other people as well, thus such a fear would be unwarranted in a purely ideal situation where everyone is actually ethical or at least tries to be.

But while I arguably can't help but care about my suffering, why should I "have to" care about yours? So phrased this way, you already presume empathy as a brute fact of your moral economy? — apokrisis

Absolutely. Empathy and compassion are the primary sources of morality. Any attempt to ground morality primarily by different means, I think, gets the whole thing backwards. Ethics is supposed to be about welfare.

But what then of those who are wired differently and lack such empathy. Is is moral that they should ignore such a situation, or exploit the situation in some non-empathetic fashion? If not, then on what grounds are you now arguing that they should fake some kind of neurotypical feelings of care? — apokrisis

I think those who are unable to feel compassion/empathy are incapable of grasping the important aspects of morality.

So to justify a morality based on neurotypicality is not as self-justifying as you want to claim. A consequence of such a rigid position is clearly eugenics - let's weed the unempathetic out. — apokrisis

On the contrary I think neurotypicality results in what we see as morality, and those who are atypical are thus not within the realm of morality. In which case, this post can be directed towards those who do indeed experience compassion and empathy and thus can be considered moral agents.

Because empathy is commonplace in neurodevelopment, empathy is morally right. — apokrisis

Just to make my point clear - I don't think there is an objective morality. But for those who are involved in ethical discussion, as well as the average population, what they see as morality is sourced from compassion and empathy. If they are to act moral within this framework, then my post is directed towards them. If you are considering acting upon a compassion-based ethics, then my post is important.

So it is quite wrong - psychologically - to frame this in terms of people being lazy and selfish (as if these were the biologically natural traits). Instead, what is natural - what we have evolved for - is to live in a close and simple tribal relation. And it is modern society that allows and encourages a strong polarisation of personality types. — apokrisis

What is also seemingly nature is our ability to ignore the background static of everyone else outside of our tribe who is suffering.

And this complete individual self-abnegation is not a naturalistic answer. It is not going to be neurotypically average response - one that feels right given the way most people feel. — apokrisis

This is an important point: I don't think we are able to live moral lives. We are disqualified. Given that our morality here is sourced from compassion and empathy, we have to fundamentally ignore the extreme possible extent of our compassion and empathy in order to live "averagely" or "naturally". But there's nothing ethical about that, because this ignores compassion and empathy.

What difference does intention make here, aside from legal considerations? Standing idly by while recognizing the existence of suffering can still be said to be an act of moral negligence - indeed sometimes this is even criminal negligence.

The problem I see here is that you have not actually said why, it is wrong not to help others. — John

Well, I see little to no distinction between doing and allowing harm. What matters is that harm is happening, and you are complicit in it if you are not at least trying to help. You are an unused variable, a bystander-without-cause.

Also, I think you might find interest in at least some of what the analytics have to say, particularly Koslicki, Loux, Lowe and Tahko (hard-core hylomorphist neo-Aristotelians).

What I don't understand is why this view hasn't been brought to the table more often, if it is indeed worthy of discussion.

Yep. Most of those I would be in deep disagreement with. But now because they represent the reductionist and dualistic tendency rather than the romantically confused.

That is why I am a Pragmatist. As I said, reductionism tries to make metaphysics too simple by arriving at a dichotomy and then sailing on past it in pursuit of monism. The result is then a conscious or unwitting dualism - because the other pole of being still exists despite attempts to deny it. — apokrisis

Why is this reductionism a bad thing, what is this dichotomy, and what kind of monism do you suppose they are attempting to find?

Not with any great energy. I'm quite happy to admit that from a systems science standpoint, it is quite clear that the three guys to focus on are Anaximander, Aristotle and Peirce. Others like Kant and Hegel are important, but the ground slopes away sharply in terms of what actually matters to my interests. — apokrisis

Heidegger is extremely important, yo. He owes so much to Aristotle and yet also diverges from him fundamentally. Outside of philosophy he is also very influential in cognitive science programs, particularly those focusing on attention and perception.

But causality itself is not something that can be affected by cause and affect. It's a metaphysical term.

Why should suffering not be called an illusion in the same way for the same reason? — who

I think mostly because suffering illuminates our existential condition while happiness clouds our knowledge of it. We cannot be happy while actually confronting the void.

So I can say that the suffering if the poor and ostracised individual "isn't that bad" because someone else is being tortured on the otherwise of the world? That's just dishonesty.

Suffering isn't defined on some level of scale acceptability. "Worse" or "less" suffering do not define each other. A person who hurts defines the instance of either. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Well, no. But when we have to make a decision, someone's suffering being worse than another person's makes them of moral priority. My disappointed wish to own a new car does not compare to the starving African child. In these cases, there's a trade-off - a lesser evil, if you may.

But that's not true. Going extinct isn't a fake victory over future suffering. It's actual. In such a world, there is no longer anyone who suffers. In acting to go extinct, we have achieved this world. We've played the game and, in terms of the world after we are dead, won a victory. — TheWillowOfDarkness

We did not win, because we do not exist anymore. The universe forced our hand.

I'd also be more pissed if I had a headache and someone insisted I wasn't in pain at all. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Would you be pissed if someone passed up the opportunity to help you in order to help someone who had broken their leg? That's what I'm referring to here. Sacrifices. The fact that we have to make sacrifices is an element of pessimism.

If recognising the existence suffering is of no use, then it has no ethical relevance. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Recognizing the existence of suffering and coming to terms with it is the first step to doing something about it. If you care about suffering, you'll do something about it.

What you might be talking about just keeps getting muddier to me. — apokrisis

The late E.J. Lowe, Jonathan Schaffer, Tuomas Tahko, Ted Sider, Susan Haack, Michael J. Loux, the late David Lewis, Peter van Inwagen, Timothy Williamson, Amie Thomasson, Sally Haslanger, David Chalmers, Kit Fine, D. M. Armstrong, Trenton Merricks, Eli Hirsch, Ernest Sosa, Daniel Korman, Kathrin Koslicki, Jaegwon Kim, etc.

The analytics.

It's hard to be particular because the ways of expressing the generalised confusion of romanticism are so various. But anything panpsychic like Whitehead, or aesthetic like SX cites. I don't mind theistic approaches because they stick to a Greek framework of simplicity and so can deal with the interesting scholarly issues - right up to the point where God finally has to click in. — apokrisis

You read Heidegger, Husserl, the idealists?

Also, contemporary realist metaphysics is largely concerned with ontology and not with the broader metaphysical stories. It's far more conservative than your version of metaphysics, with the only notable things I can think of being discussions of supervenience, grounding, causality and semantic meaning. And perhaps time.

Your didn't talk about any of that. The comments were directed at how the suffering of the childless family wasn't as bad as they felt it was. In that you aren't making an argument that doing something else is more important. All you were doing is trying to placate them, to say they don't really suffer as they feel.

You weren't stepping forward and saying with honesty: "You ought not have children. The ethical course of action is the agent of your suffering and it ought to be (and so your terrible suffering) to save future life from suffering." Everything went into belittling their suffering rather than recognising it. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Everything went into "belittling" their suffering in order to recognize the existence of a much worse suffering.

But does not the required moral action qualify as an acceptable condition? At least in the way you describe it. The way you speak treats "minimisation" is as if it's a victory over suffering. In the way you describe suffering, you fear it above all else-- if only life would be put to end, then we could finally say the world was at its best. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Well I wouldn't call it a victory - I mean extinction doesn't really sound very victorious to me. But rather it's just the most rational action after coming to terms with our raw deal.

Think of how Nietzsche saw the under-man sneak his morality into the social sphere and thus "winning" over the ubermensch. It's a fake-victory. Similarly, ceasing procreation and going into extinction is not really victory, it's just deciding not to play the game.

A sort of deep necessity for a world without suffering, to a point where one might say: "With the presence of suffering, life is meaningless." — TheWillowOfDarkness

Life is meaningless with or without suffering, suffering just brings this fact out.

I think this is failed pessimism because it causes a turn away from suffering. Since any suffering person is viewed as meaningless wretch for living in suffering, it's more interested in looking to a final "minimising" than it is instances of suffering themselves. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Acknowledging the existence of suffering does not help anyone. If you had aspirin and I had a headache, and you refused to give me aspirin, I'd be pissed.

So on the contrary, I'm very much pessimistic because I believe our dreams will never be fulfilled, that happiness is an illusion, and that our best-course of action is extinction, something that is not very inspiring and yet the most reasonable reaction to our predicament. A fizzle-out philosophy.

I'd still like to know what you think are examples of bad metaphysics.

How is that the statement of a philosophical pessimist who full appreciates the nature of suffering? You've just given every "Suck it up. It's not so bad." excuse philosophical pessimism is trying to expose. — TheWillowOfDarkness

Because I'm also a consequentialist, and I think some actions are worse than others depending on what their consequences are. So I'm not dismissing the suffering of the potential parents, I just don't think it's as important as stopping the creation of future sufferers.

I would be willing to argue that it is indeed a byproduct of pessimism that we have to sacrifice things even though they make us suffer. Suffering is inescapable.

How exactly is a course of action which is suffering for someone helping them? — TheWillowOfDarkness

Would it remove a worse suffering? Like I said, suffering is inescapable. No matter what you do, someone, perhaps yourself, is going to suffer. We have to pick the course of action that minimizes the suffering that results, not because suffering is some impersonal and vague bad but because we inherently understand what suffering is like and wish it to not be spread.

Minimisation is a lie. It foolishly generalises suffering. Supposedly, there is a certain level of suffering which is acceptable. If only we would "minimise" suffering to a certain level, then it would be all okay-- a suffering-based Utilitarianism if you will. But it's not okay. All instances of suffering are unacceptable. We cannot generalise them into some rule which absolves the problem. Every single instance of suffering hurts too much. We cannot "minimise"-- prevent to get suffering down to an acceptable standard-- only "prevent," avoid individual instances of suffering. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But now you're putting words in my mouth. I never said that suffering itself was acceptable, only that the action that minimizes suffering is acceptable (and rational).

Minimization need not necessitate acceptable conditions. Only required moral actions.

As I've already said, I see metaphysics and science as united by a common method of reasoning - the presumption the world is intelligible because it is actually rationally structured in a particular way. — apokrisis

What is this particular way? The semiotic trifold?

And I am afraid we do see that other showing its Bizzaro head and claiming to be doing Bizzaro metaphysics (and also crackpot science, of course). — apokrisis

Again, you have any examples?

But still, if we are talking about who is best equipped to do metaphysical-strength thinking these days, that is a different conversation. — apokrisis

I'd wager probably those who have a background in both science and philosophy, and the history of both.

But yes, I am saying something much stronger than merely that romanticism does not fit easily with rationalism. I'm saying it is the maximally confused "other" of rationalism. — apokrisis

Do you have any examples of this?

WTF? Have you ever taken a biology class? Are you so completely unaware of the impact that science's understanding of constraints has had on metaphysics? Next you will be saying Newton and Darwin told us a lot about falling apples and finch beaks, and contemporary philosophy shrugged its shoulders and said "nah, nothing to see here folks". — apokrisis

It might have had a great affect on your particular conception of metaphysics - again, we're having a meta-philosophical debate here, and your version of metaphysics is not automatically the gold standard. Analytic metaphysics today is largely independent of these kinds of debates, although definitely evolution poked a hole in Aristotle's natural kind ideas.

It's true that those employed in philosophy departments struggle to produce anything much that feels new these days. The real metaphysics of this kind is being done within the theoretical circles of science itself. The people involved would be paid as scientists. — apokrisis

Bingo. They are to be considered scientists. Theoretical physics. Why not just call it this and eliminate the confusion?

What legitimate differences are there between your conception of metaphysics and theoretical physics?

I think you may just have an idea that science is somehow basically off track and you need a metaphysical revolution led by philosophers to rescue it. — apokrisis

On the contrary I think most scientists don't really care about philosophical problems, at least not enough to publish anything substantial about it and instead stick to what they were trained to do. Nobody pays you to think about the world, they pay you for results that can be applied to the economy in some way, and everyone's gotta pay the bills. Of course they can, and have done so, especially in the beginning of the 20th century. I just don't see this happening today.

That's the transcendent fiction talking. In this understanding, you are ignoring the suffering of the living and treating like the absence of future suffering solves the problem. — TheWillowOfDarkness

I don't see how I am. People are suffering, and they will continue to do so while they are alive. It's akin to taking an aspirin for a headache. You remove the source of suffering.

What of the people desperate to have children? An anti-natalist policy only makes them suffer. Even as a personal responsibility, for it would be akin to someone denying an integral part of their identity-- how would you feel if you felt an obligation not to be a philosophical pessimist, yet still had the same feelings about suffering? — TheWillowOfDarkness

The suffering they experience from not having children does not, necessarily, make up for them having children. Furthermore they wouldn't suffer themselves if they hadn't been born, or had they died earlier. And if death or non-birth is too extreme for this situation, then not having children must not be that big of a deal.

The end of life being a preferable/rational option doesn't help their suffering, no matter how ethical it might be. — TheWillowOfDarkness

It doesn't help their suffering, but it certainly would help them.

Suffering cannot be minimised. Any instance of suffering is too great. Not even the absence of any future suffering can help. If we are to prevent suffering, it's not as an absolution or minimising of suffering which is occur. Rather, it is about preventing the instances of suffering themselves. — TheWillowOfDarkness

While I basically agree, I'm also a consequentialist. Suffering can indeed be minimized. The instance of one person suffering is better than the instance of two people suffering. It would be wrong to pick the latter option if you had the choice. So we can indeed, and should, minimize suffering, because suffering is bad. Elimination is also a form of minimization.

I don't see why we need to make a distinction between prevention and minimization. They're two sides of the same coin.

Suffering is not absolved in death, only prevented from occurring again. Our end does not provide a transcendent victory over suffering. Those who lived still had horrible lives. — TheWillowOfDarkness

This same reasoning could be applied to birth - suffering is not absolved by abstaining from procreation, only prevented from inflicting it's harm. Part of pessimism like you said is that there is no transcendent, victorious solution to the problem. Only more preferable/rational options that minimize the problem. We can minimize the problem so that it no longer is problematic to anyone and is only a problem in a counterfactual, aesthetic view.

So everything reason does, Romanticism would want to do the opposite. — apokrisis

I don't really understand what you have in mind when you say "romanticism" or "PoMo". Do you not appreciate Spinoza, Descartes, Husserl, Heidegger, etc? Only some? Only those who aren't easily fitted into your pragmatism?

Yes, the business of measurement is various.

But I thought you were saying there are other methods of seeking intelligibility itself - methods that aren't just the general method of scientific reasoning. — apokrisis

Well, yes and no. If measurement is the only way of understanding the world (what I see as empiricism), then either is must be shown how philosophy utilizes measurement, or it must be seen with skepticism.

Outside of measurement, I'm not sure. Surely we need some kind of cognitive architecture to be able to even measure to begin with, something Aristotle, Aquinas, or Plato would have called the Intellect/Soul/Mind/etc.

Usually philosophy utilizes things like counterfactual reasoning, thought experiments, etc. Other fields use these as well. These are generally "fuzzy" in their nature, though. When a philosopher thinks up something like, let's say, Neo-Platonism, it's extremely abstract and fuzzy.

If it can be modelled, then presumably it can be theoretically seen in action, i.e. able to be measured. Metaphysical things, on other hand, seem to be able to be at least conceptualized but never actually seen outside of how they manifest in other things. For example, you can't imagine a "constraint" without associating this with various other things, whether that be a metaphorical image of a fence, or a set of numerals, or anything else. Similarly, we can't imagine a "property" without associating this with an object. We can't imagine "God", we can only know what he isn't. We can't imagine what these metaphysical "forces" (that structure reality) by-themselves - if we could, then a physicist or some other scientist would be studying them as a specimen in-themselves.

In other words, a constraint is a totally different kind of thing from a zebra. The latter is studied by biologists, the former (as it is-itself) the metaphysician.

Nope. That seems an utterly random statement to me. Do you have an example of current metaphysics papers of this kind? — apokrisis

I'm referring to contemporary realist analytic metaphysics.

There's different methods within this broad "scientific" account you presented. If you're an astronomer, you'll use a telescope. If you're a microbiologist, you'll use a microscope. If you're a chemist, you'll use a thermometer and a plethora of other expensive equipment; same goes for practically any scientific field.

So I guess what matters here, then, is the subject matter. Different subjects require different equipment, methods, specialization, etc. The point being made, though, is what exactly is the subject matter of philosophy, in particular metaphysics, that makes it a legitimate attempt to understand the world, and why this subject matter is usually unable to be studied by more..."mainstream" science.

We can be realists here and go Aristotelian, and say that metaphysics studies being qua being, or being itself. The most general attempt to understand the world. But as it is currently practiced today, metaphysics is quite different from any other sciences. It doesn't have to go out and explore the world like all the other sciences do. There aren't really any "discoveries" within metaphysics, just explanations of what we already see on a day-to-day basis. Why is it that this field is such a black sheep?

It is a faulty binary to go about saying science is empirical, philosophy is rational, therefore the two are mutually exclusive. Sure, you can advance that theory of the world in a way that makes it intelligible for you. But measurement should demonstrate the faultiness of such reason.

You yourself just said Schopenhauer was a rather empirical chap. And science is a deeply metaphysical exerercise, explicit in making ontic commitments to get its games going.

So you are applying the method by which we attempt to achieve intelligibility - trying to force through some LEM based account of the world. But you are failing to support it with evidence. — apokrisis

I'm not trying to separate philosophy and science per se, merely point out that there seems to be more than one method of understanding the world. In other words, what I'm trying to access here is a systematic understanding of how we come to understand the world in the first place. Surely it is not as simple as the naive realist "self-object" dichotomy, but requires at least a third instance, or perhaps a transcendental element if we are non-realists.

Preventing suffering does nothing to make the suffering which has already occurred better. For anyone who has suffered, the world is still just as bad as it ever was. Suffering is still unresolved where it counts. — TheWillowOfDarkness

But the spirit of preventing future suffering can make sure something that happened in the past does not happen again. The universe does not keep score, when someone dies, all their memories die with them. The suffering that occurred, the injustice and obscenity, all of this goes away after death. Forgotten.

Camus' rebellion would be a pseudo-solution, though. What would make life already meaningful?

You should read The Last Messiah. It's a short essay available online outlining his metaphysical views on all this. Humans require meaning in a meaningless universe.

Yes, indeed, pain is not equivalent to suffering. But pain without meaning (amongst other factors) constitutes suffering. Zapffe touched on this: humans have a metaphysical concern for meaning that their environment cannot give. All meaning is thus contrived, artificial, and a pseudo-solution, and thus everything we do can be seen as a way of escaping our higher-level concerns. If that doesn't count as suffering, or at least something undesirable, I don't know what would, other than extreme pain.

We can replace "predominantly" with "structurally necessary" and get the same general conclusion, albeit a more aesthetic one. Although I think it's largely both.

There is no warrant for claiming that life predominately consists in, or must predominately consist in, suffering for others. — John

The point of phenomenology is not to evaluate your own personal experiences but to make a science of consciousness, i.e. to create a generalized account of conscious experience/presentation. I think it's clear that life has suffering, what is the issue is whether it is predominantly suffering.

If you count aesthetic disillusionment and spiritual decay as suffering, then yes, the un-manipulated life is indeed filled with suffering.