Max Hartford

Holy crap! You are way overthinking this! If you still enjoy her company, then stay with her. If you don't, then don't.

Interesting point, but I'm not so sure that near-infinite life expectancy is such a sure thing. Perhaps at a certain point, the body just gives out (as it seems to do around 90-100 for most people), and besides turning people into cyborgs in a way that still makes life worth living (which would require a huge leap in technology), there's nothing much you could do to extend their life past this point.

Yeah, that's a good one: thanks for sharing. Uncharacteristically Max Stirner-like from Stef: I approve

Happiness and pleasure are things that you feel inside of you. Just because it is difficult to describe such emotions using words doesn't mean that they do not exist. Language is incomplete: it cannot describe all of reality. Yet when we say pleasure, most people know generally what we're talking about, because they have experienced the feeling themselves. The feeling associated most closely with sex and eating good food, but also with taking pride in our work, seeing something interesting, etc... So now, self-interest does not equal pleasure: self-interest is the pursuit of that primordial feeling. Now, to comment on your four reasons: 1. You're probably right: yet for me, the pursuit of happiness and pleasure trumps the pursuit of logical consistency. 2. Death is simply the cessation of life. It doesn't matter how 'meaningful' it is, because after it has occurred, all meaning disappears, along with your consciousness. Only the existence of an afterlife could change this: yet we have no reason to believe that there is such a thing and no idea what it's nature would be if it did. Not a smart thing to build your life around really. 3. Better to be happy (taken in the broadest sense of the word) and a slave, than miserable and free. Because what the heck's the point of freedom if it doesn't make us happy? You do a disservice to all those who believe in the value of liberty by positing misery to be its prerequisite. 4. I'm really sorry to hear that, man. I've found that the more we think about the meaning of life and such, the more miserable we are. You might try not thinking so much, and just try to enjoy the little things of being alive (the sights, the sound of the birds, the food, the conversation, etc...) There is no reason to enjoy these things: but the thing is, it doesn't matter that there's not. We are what we are: may as well make the most of it.

Hmm, but here we run into the problem of quantity vs quality of life. Is eating Krispy Kreme donuts 'objectively' against people's self-interest? On one hand, a lot of people find them delicious, and hence derive a lot of pleasure from eating them. On the other hand, they are unhealthy to the body, and increase the likelihood of an earlier death. I submit that only the individual, subjectively, can determine whether such a course of action is in their self-interest or not. The same applies for all of the other activities you mention, although more people will probably find it against their subjective self-interests in the cases you mention.

It's just my definition of the word: I don't know what you mean 'apply universally'. How could discovering what your self-interest is not be in your self-interest? These potshots of yours aren't making a lot of sense...

1. No I do not have any intention of raping, murdering, or assaulting anyone: I think that doing those things would be stupid and pointless. However, most moral systems prohibit more things than these. For instance, lying and cheating are often prohibited, things which I would definitely consider doing if the payoff was right. Some even suggest we have a duty to speak out the truth of politics and philosophy and such at all relevant times, something which could be quite damaging if followed. Also, I haven't, but would consider, hiring the services of a prostitute. In addition, I'm a minarchist libertarian, not an anarchist, so I could see people benefiting from certain uses of government coercion, such as to provide policing/defense, a bit of pure income redistribution, and occasionally using eminent domain for infrastructure projects. Being a devout moralist forces you to advocate anarchy, even if you don't believe it would be the system most conducive to our welfare. 2. Why? Why do we have to just choose one standard for all times? Why can't we prefer truth sometimes, and emotions other times? Logical reasoning in some circumstances, arbitrary opinions in others? 3. I don't care about the contents of morality: you're right about that. But I do care about helping others to self-liberate from the dictates of morality, whenever they prove to be counter to the individual's wishes. And don't bother asking me why I care about this: I just do. Tastes are a given.

I would define it as: whatever you, unencumbered by fixed behavioral ideas derived from universalistic systems of thought, feel would best advance your own happiness and pleasure at the moment. You're right: not everyone will always have a clear idea of what this is, what path to take. When faced with this, one option is to take refuge in religion, or other fixed codes of behavior, so that you can blindly follow a path forged by others, rather than blazing your own. I do not believe that this is the most rewarding option though: to persevere, to discover who you really are and what you really want out of life, I believe this is the road followed by the most fulfilled individuals. As Max Stirner so eloquently put it: “Therefore turn to yourselves rather than to your gods or idols. Bring out from yourselves what is in you, bring it to the light, bring yourselves to revelation.”

But there is a reason to care that there is no reason to care about morality: it enables us to pursue our self-interest more effectively. If you want to shut your ears to this, fine: but it's only you that loses out. Perhaps others will choose more wisely. And what the hell do you mean 'you can't choose to be correct some of the time and wrong some of the time'? Of course you can: I could say, 'Joseph Stalin was a man', and be correct, and the next moment say, 'Adolf Hitler was a woman', and be wrong. How is that 'just choosing wrong'? I'm on a philosophy forum, primarily, because arguing with moralists amuses me, and secondarily, because some people might actually see the value in what I'm saying (for the advancement of their self-interest, not because of 'reason'), which would be cool. Why are you? Come on, Mr. Metric, you know very well that there is a reason to adopt it. The reason is to advance our self-interest, as I've said many many times already. Just because you think that self-interest is fleeting, or illusory, or irrational, or whatever, doesn't mean that it's unimportant to the vast majority of the human population.The majority would probably consider it the most important thing in life to advance, well above 'reason', or 'virtue', or 'the truth', or 'UPB', or all these other concepts.

I said that because you kept obfuscating the very simple point I was trying to make: the standards required for discovering the truth are one thing, but there is no reason we have to care about those standards at all times. We only have to do so when we are interested in effectively discovering the truth, not at other times. If it came off insulting, than I apologize: that was not my intent. It's not necessarily 'unwanted': unasked for yes, but 'unwanted', not necessarily. The two are different concepts. Because of the nature of the subject matter, the fact of 'winning the debate' achieves little on its own, because most people wouldn't bother changing their behavior as a result. What would achieve something is if a response were convincing (ie. likely to make others change their behavior), the adjective which you have heaped so much inexplicable scorn on.

That's not universal: you only ought to do that if you're interested in exploring the truth via discussion. If you have no interest in that, then there's no need to hold that preference, hence it's not universal, but subjective still.

I agree with the mode of reasoning here (egoistic utilitarian reasoning), but not with all of the conclusions. For your inverse example, I don't think that this conclusion necessary holds for all people (ie. I'm pretty sure that some people have been able to benefit, on net, from aggressive coercion, despite the somewhat unstable relationship it sets up). Perhaps in a world of smarter, less gullible people this would not be the case, but in the current world, coercion can sometimes be a beneficial strategy.

Fair enough I suppose... It just seems rather academic to discuss the minutiae of something (moral rules) that has no real world relevance. Kind of like arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.

But if a 'moral rule' isn't binding, than what is it? A suggestion that isn't backed by incentives of any kind? If so, why bother working out what is or isn't a moral rule? Why not just make suggestions at random?

Good: means that you haven't been duped Moralists like to speak in universals in order to preserve an appearance of objectivity. But the question is: why does the mere fact of being able to be applied universally make a behavioral command binding? This is the question that no one has really been able to answer satisfactorily, at least to my knowledge.