Is your post here driven by morality. It seems to me that I agree with the gist of what you are saying but any public agreement is necessarily ‘immoral’ as it is tied up in the whole ‘morality’.

Morality is essentially immoral.

Morality is about blaming [ ... ] — Tate

True of "Christian" morality, but not e.g. virtue ethics or negative utilitarianism.

Is morality opposed to self actualization? — Tate

Self-actualisation is usually understood in pro-social terms. Otherwise it makes no sense.

We are the products of our environments - both biological and social. So we need to tend to the health of both those environments, using our best endeavours.

The “moral” opposition between self and other then arises out of that. We need to be able to act in both competitive and cooperative fashion - as a intelligent choice - to do the best for ourselves, in our environments.

It is thus “moral” to be competively selfish - as that creates the free variety that any evolving system requires. And also “moral” to be selflessly cooperative or altruistic, as that ensures the overall cohesion and harmony the world we are taking a part in co-creating.

Morality is a win-win to the degree we are self-actualising in the sense of being able to step up to this critical kind of choice.

When to mix in, when to stand apart.

It is not about grabbing all the available power as some kind of bloated reserve. It is about being the intelligent switch that directs the available flow of power to best effect, from moment to moment.

Is your post here driven by morality. It seems to me that I agree with the gist of what you are saying but any public agreement is necessarily ‘immoral’ as it is tied up in the whole ‘morality’.

Morality is essentially immoral. — I like sushi

It's driven by a concern for the use of pesticides. We could say they're used because of the will to power. I'm basically arguing the side I don't like.

Morality would dictate that we have an obligation as stewards of the environment, but isn't this view doomed because it limits us? Doesn't it run afoul of the primacy of the will to power?

True of "Christian" morality, but not e.g. virtue ethics or negative utilitarianism. — 180 Proof

I guess I'll go with what you're calling "Christian" because it just is morality as I know it.

It is thus “moral” to be competively selfish - as that creates the free variety that any evolving system requires. — apokrisis

I thought of this, thanks for articulating it. When we condemn ourselves, we're acting as though we aren't earthlings like everything else.

The issue of determinism enters. What are your thoughts on that?

Seems as you are setting up a grammar in which will to power is doing what you want and morality is doing what others want.

So let's add ethics - doing what you ought.

The issue of determinism enters. What are your thoughts on that? — Tate

How does determinism come into it from your point of view?

From my point of view - the holistic systems perspective of natural philosophy - the whole that is our environment/society imposes “deterministic” constraints on us. But what ain’t forbidden is then what is freely permitted to happen and becomes the system’s matching degrees of freedom.

So constraints create freedoms, in the systems view. Determinism produces the indeterminism that is necessary to keep it youthful, creative and evolving.

Morality only arises in human history as part of taking that basic system principle to its next level of hierarchical complexity.

We have to be given more agency as “selves” to be a part of a sociocultural level of self-organisation.

It can be a bit of a rough fit of course, as humans are primarily still biological organisms and only through language capable of becoming a collective sociocultural organism.

Well chimps too are social and smart enough to make choices about the value of competing vs cooperating. But language - as the genes for culture - put Homo sap into a whole new realm.

But we can feel the step-up, especially as the gap becomes large enough where we might have some romantic or catholic choice between acting like ethereal angels, yet being weighed down by our animal needs.

Much silliness follows when your “moral philosophy” is allowed to get that much out of kilter.

Another similar degree of moral stupidity arises in neoliberalism where we are all meant to be self-making entrepreneurs acting in a free market … but that “angelic” aspect of our human nature is still anchored in the unfortunate material fact of only having the one planetary ecology to despoil. We still have to share the one commons.

So maybe your complaint is against patent moral imbalances - which are plentiful in the world right now. :razz:

Another similar degree of moral stupidity arises in neoliberalism where we are all meant to be self-making entrepreneurs acting in a free market … but that “angelic” aspect of our human nature is still anchored in the unfortunate material fact of only having the one planetary ecology to despoil. We still have to share the one commons. — apokrisis

Nice. Yes, I remember meeting with a climate change activist back in the days when it was called the 'greenhouse effect'. He said something like - 'People don't like to be told they need to change their approach and values for the good of the community. Sounds like communism to many and will be resisted bitterly, even if it means a collective suicide." That was around 1988.

Seems as you are setting up a grammar in which will to power is doing what you want and morality is doing what others want. — Banno

Will to power is a drive to dominate the environment. Morality is about transgression of transcendent rules. One assumes they transcend all of us.

How does determinism come into it from your point of view? — apokrisis

As soon as we think of ourselves as natural elements of the environment, we're no longer limited by morality, but just by whatever constraints are in the system. Our selfishness is an evolved trait. We don't really have any choice.

So constraints create freedoms, in the systems view. Determinism produces the indeterminism that is necessary to keep it youthful, creative and evolving.

Morality only arises in human history as part of taking that basic system principle to its next level of hierarchical complexity. — apokrisis

So morality also evolved. We don't have any choice about that either?

How do constraints give rise to freedom? I probably need the dummed down version.

Will to power is a drive to dominate the environment. — Tate

Ought one be driven to dominate the environment?

Ought one be driven to dominate the environment? — Banno

Good question. Humans are the only creatures you'd ask that of, correct? What's so special about us that we have to answer that?

Deflection. My cat said "Phrrrp".

Deflection — Banno

No, I'm playing devil's advocate. I have no need to deflect. Determinism just appears to me to be my best argument.

As soon as we think of ourselves natural elements of the environment, we're no longer limited by morality, but just by whatever constraints are in the system. — Tate

I think what you are getting at here is that determinism is understood as being told what to do, while constraint is the obverse of being told what not to do.

So a constraints-based morality is inherently permissive. What ain’t forbidden is free to happen, and indeed expected to happen with exactly that freedom. But an authoritarian morality would have to tell you exactly what to do at all times, forever. And so there could be no meaningful local agency. God is watching and judging your every tiniest sin. Hellfire awaits.

So morality also evolved. We don't have any choice about that either? — Tate

No. All our choices shaped it.

Enough bad choices and you collectively go extinct. Next batter up. :grin:

How do constraints give rise to freedom? * probably need the dummed down version. — Tate

Again, apophatically. Constraints tell you what not to do. And in doing so, they clearly define your freedom to do whatever.

The lines on the tennis court define the limits of the game. Within that, I can try any kind of game strategy I like. The asphalt of the highway defines the limits of where I can drive my car. Within that, I now have the freedom to drive any route I can find.

Our human world is engineered according this basic systems logic of global order that gives scope to local creative freedom. Infrastructure is how we distribute the power of personal choice.

Communism failed as it is a top-down command structure. Market places and social democracies are what work because they follow the ideal of a constraints-based evolutionary system.

You both enforce a collective order, and yet let it be the lightest form of order possible. You allow people to make “moral” mistakes. A degree of error is essential to the evolutionary process of learning how to do better.

Determinism — Tate

So... you have no choice as to how you act?

Then there is no point in discussing your reasons, since they can make no nevermind...

So... you have no choice as to how you act?

Then there is no point in discussing your reasons, since they can make no nevermind... — Banno

True. There's no need to criticize people who use pesticides unnecessarily. They're driven by the will to power, and they have no choice.

Invincible argument, huh?

As soon as we think of ourselves as natural elements of the environment, we're no longer limited by morality, but just by whatever constraints are in the system. Our selfishness is an evolved trait. We don't really have any choice. — Tate

That might be how some view this, but I don't think this is inevitable or has to follow. I think of myself as a natural element in an environment. I don't think of morality as limiting, more as supporting the formation of my community. There's an ongoing conversation in community (which I participate in) about what constitutes moral behavior and these boundaries are explored and do change. Selfishness is no more an evolved trait than selflessness. Personally I see no reason to accept a 'will to power' model, it seems reductive and tendentious as a 'will to sex', 'will to be loved', 'will to whatever'...

I don't think of morality as limiting, more as supporting the formation of my community — Tom Storm

Exporting buttloads of coal, as your country does, supports the formation of your community in far reaching ways. So I guess that's moral?

Invincible argument, huh? — Tate

And yet here you are.

What will you do now?

Is morality opposed to self actualization? Or does it temper the will to power, which I interpret as the will to dominate one's environment? — Tate

If you’re referring to Nietzsche’s notion of Will to Power, it is not a will to dominate one’s environment.

Will to power is the self-differentiating creative impetus of willing. Deleuze says:

Will to power does not mean that the will wants power. Will to power must be interpreted in a completely different way: power is the one that wills in the will. Power is the genetic and differential element in the will; it does not aspire, it does not seek, it does not desire, above all it does not desire power.”

I don’t think this clarification detracts from the distinction the OP is making between morality and Will to Power, except that for Nietzsche morality is itself a debauched form of will to power.

What will you do now? — Banno

I already switched sides. See my answer to Tom.

If you’re referring to Nietzsche’s notion of Will to Power, it is not a will to dominate one’s environment. — Joshs

Nietzsche wasn't clear about what he meant. It's often taken to mean the will to dominate one's environment.

Will to power is the self-differentiating creative impetus of willing. Deleuze says:

Will to power does not mean that the will wants power. Will to power must be interpreted in a completely different way: power is the one that wills in the will. Power is the genetic and differential element in the will; it does not aspire, it does not seek, it does not desire, above all it does not desire power.” — Joshs

Oh god, Deleuze. That idiot. :razz:

Our exporting buttloads of coal seems mainly to be supporting dysfunctional and monomaniacal billionaires.

Our exporting buttloads of coal seems mainly to be supporting dysfunctional and monomaniacal billionaires. — Banno

It supports the whole Australian economy, but nice try dodging responsibility.

Nietzsche wasn't clear about what he meant. — Tate

:roll:

Will to power is a drive to dominate the environment. — Tate

IIRC, Freddy teaches we ought to strive – repurpose (cultivate) the "will to power" drive – to dominate ourselves first and foremost (e.g. via the existential-psychological challenge of "the eternal recurrence of the same"). Synonymous with a will to create oneself (i.e. "become who you are"). This way of becoming oneself transvaluates – goes "beyond" – rules for conforming ("good") & blaming ("evil") into habits of affirming ("Good") & not affirming ("Bad"). :fire:

Oh god, Deleuze. That idiot. — Tate

Apparently, I gave you too much credit, Tate. You're just nother D-Ker banging your head on a keyboard. Good luck with all that. :sweat:

This thread is not going well.

dodging responsibility — Tate

You seem to lack the capacity to stay on your own topic.

You seem to lack the capacity to stay on your own topic. — Banno

Well, in your immortal words, bugger off if you don't like it.

Oh god, Deleuze. That idiot.:razz: — Tate

It’s not just Deleuze who reads will to power this way. Most postmodern interpretations of it emphasize that power is not under the control of the will , because the will does not have any control over itself. It is splintered into competing drives.
The self-actualization of the will , which is tied to Hegelian dialectics, is a form of moralism that Nietzsche critiques.Creativity for Nietzsche is more about celebrating what thwarts our will than about willing what we want.