Nigel Short: Women's brains not chess brains

That has to be one of the best comments in this trhead

AlisonHart wrote:

I rather like how this thread has basically just degenerated into the girls plus Elubas and Sheridan kitty talking philosophy - if we could just beam glasses of whiskey back and forth, it would be pretty perfect :)

I have wine. Two buck chuck, but wine in some capacity nonetheless.

power_2_the_people wrote:

Let us further suppose the birth and education of our women to be subject to similar or nearly similar regulations; then we shall see whether the result accords with our design.

What do you mean?

What I mean may be put into the form of a question, I said: Are dogs divided into hes and shes, or do they both share equally in hunting and in keeping watch and in the other duties of dogs? or do we entrust to the males the entire and exclusive care of the flocks, while we leave the females at home, under the idea that the bearing and suckling their puppies is labour enough for them?

No, he said, they share alike; the only difference between them is that the males are stronger and the females weaker.

But can you use different animals for the same purpose, unless they are bred and fed in the same way?

You cannot.

Then, if women are to have the same duties as men, they must have the same nurture and education?

Yes.

The education which was assigned to the men was music and gymnastic. Yes.

Then women must be taught music and gymnastic and also the art of war, which they must practise like the men?

That is the inference, I suppose.

that is the first and more serious part on the subject of women (Republic V).

This is pretty radical stuff considering how confined at least Greek women of social standing were:

http://www.pbs.org/empires/thegreeks/background/43.html

power_2_the_people wrote:

isn't it hilarious that kasparov also is preoccupied with the question of knowing how many men it takes to wage war?

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Essay:Kasparov%27s_Mathematics_of_the_Past

Absolutely bonkers. And very Eurocentric, which limited scope of knowledge of the rest of the world basically blast his theories to hell. Very nice rebuttle.

"From a philosophical standpoint, Kant's imperative is limiting and annoying, but, from the standpoint of practical ethics in cases such as treatment of criminals (something my darling Foucault pointed out very famously), Kant allows us to say 'majority be damned - it's not OK to treat these people like crap.'"

I actually thought it would be the other way around. Philosophically it sounds nice to just call things wrong/right, but in practice, if you don't kill 1 to save 1000, those families might get pissed at you.

I feel like utilitarianism is like what everyone goes to when they first learn philosophy, when their thinking becomes more flexible (do the ends justify the means, is stealing ok if it saves your family). But while I'm open to ends justifying the means, I don't think that automatically means that we shouldn't give a shit about the means. If we get too utilitarian I feel like we start to become calculators, rather than people who feel the beauty of humanity. I mean, people are always going to die anyway; at least if you don't kill the one to save the thousand, there is some beauty of morality going on there; if everyone always saves the thousand, more people are alive, but we also start to become disconnected from what draws us to morality in the first place. Arguably.

It's sort of like if everyone donates to others, then no one truly receives, because those receptions are then donated rather than used. To a certain extent you just kind of have to say fuck it, we can't save all the lives in the world, let's just be happy about the people who are alive, actually live our lives, and mourn for those less fortunate.

With that said though, I think arguments like of the sort that Singer makes, that we should donate unless it kills us (or something), still need to be addressed fairly. He shouldn't be dismissed just because it's annoying to look critically at your beliefs. So my last paragraph there is one way of responding to Singer, but I still feel like I'm addressing his concern fairly.

Post#1541: That's cool. That's probably the only reason you like Plato isn't it? Just kidding. He's a smart fucking dude.

"At the risk of hitting on abortion (too late) it's pretty easy to draw those distinctions because the pregnancy exists in one body"

Location. If you cause a lot of pain to something, regardless of the location, you caused a lot of pain to something. I used to think much of the fact that the fetus was in the woman's body, but it's a rather abstract consideration -- do we just forget about what it feels like to feel pain just because that pain occurrs in a special location?

Okay boys and girls. Here's what Nietzsche had to say about Kant and his Categorical Imperative:

"

A word now against Kant as a moralist. A virtue must be our invention;
it must spring out of an inner most personal need and defense. Every other
acquisition of it is a source of danger. That which does not belong to our life menaces it; a virtue which has its roots in mere respect for the
concept of "virtue," as Kant would have it, is pernicious. "Virtue,"
"duty," "good for its own sake," goodness grounded upon impersonality or
a notion of universal validity, these are all chimeras, and in them one
finds only an expression of the decay, the last collapse of life, the
Chinese spirit of Koenigsberg. Quite the contrary is demanded by the most
profound laws of self-preservation and of growth: to wit, that every man
find his own virtue, his own categorical imperative. A nation goes
to pieces when it confounds its duty with the general concept of duty.
Nothing works a more complete and penetrating disaster than every
"impersonal" duty, every sacrifice before the Moloch of abstraction. To think that no one has thought of Kant's categorical imperative as dangerous to life!... 
The theological instinct alone took it under protection! An action prompted by the life-instinct proves that it is a right action by the amount of pleasure that goes with it: and yet that
Nihilist (Kant), with his bowels of Christian dogmatism, regarded pleasure as
an objection.... What destroys a man more quickly than to work, think
and feel without inner necessity, without any deep personal desire,
without pleasure - as a mere automaton of duty? That is the recipe for decadence, and no less for idiocy.... Kant became an idiot. And such
a man was the contemporary of Goethe! This calamitous spinner of cobwebs
passed for the German philosopher - still passes today!... I forbid
myself to say what I think of the Germans.... Didn't Kant see in the
French Revolution the transformation of the state from the inorganic
form to the organic? Didn't he ask himself if there was a single event
that could be explained save on the assumption of a moral faculty in
man, so that on the basis of it, "the tendency of mankind toward the
good" could be explained, once and for all time? Kant's answer: "That
is the (French) revolution." Instinct at fault in everything and anything, instinct
as a revolt against nature, German decadence as a philosophy, that portrays
Kant!

"

I myself find Nietzche a lot more simple and easy to understand. And as a philosophy, I'm inclined to call myself a gardener: Epicurianist. I had a good laugh reading this book by Nietzsche.

What's that got to do with anything? Sounds kind of random, don't you think? What's the context?

I thought pragmatism was more of an epistemological position, rather than a moral one.

Absolutely.

My "existing" beliefs? What do you mean? Which beliefs are you talking about and how are they an obstacle? You see, what you are doing is addressing me personally, rather than addressing the content of my post with the quote. Did you read that quote by the German? There is a word for such an action.... what was that again?

Kant always seemed quite Stoic to me. Both are adverse to emotions in general, and Epictet's talk of the inner will/self comes awfully close to Kant.

"Some things are in our control and others not. Things in our control are opinion, pursuit, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever are our own actions. Things not in our control are body, property, reputation, command, and, in one word, whatever are not our own actions.

The things in our control are by nature free, unrestrained, unhindered; but those not in our control are weak, slavish, restrained, belonging to others. Remember, then, that if you suppose that things which are slavish by nature are also free, and that what belongs to others is your own, then you will be hindered. You will lament, you will be disturbed, and you will find fault both with gods and men. But if you suppose that only to be your own which is your own, and what belongs to others such as it really is, then no one will ever compel you or restrain you. Further, you will find fault with no one or accuse no one. You will do nothing against your will. No one will hurt you, you will have no enemies, and you not be harmed. ."

Found an Epictet quote on women:

40. Women from fourteen years old are flattered with the title of "mistresses" by the men. Therefore, perceiving that they are regarded only as qualified to give the men pleasure, they begin to adorn themselves, and in that to place ill their hopes. We should, therefore, fix our attention on making them sensible that they are valued for the appearance of decent, modest and discreet behavior.

If only you had written that in a word processor before posting.... I would like to understand what that means, and the spelling mistakes don't add to the pleasure of reading it.

Okay. The continuation of the discussion of Categorical Imperative and it's flaws has officially been sweeped under the rug. Great!

Que? It's quotations from the Enchiridion.

I'm not familiar with that. Let me elgoog that. I thirst for knowledge. Ah, it was written by a Stoic philosopher of the 2nd century - a disciple of the Stoic Epict(a)etus. I don't know these people...