Thanks Eclipse. Glad to see you back.
Egoism - An Essay by John Robinson
by eclipse 27 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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R.Crusoe
Absent lying for self advantage or utter pure self interest I can relate to the whole! And I can see how some, absent a critical path of truth telling their whole lives, may fit the whole!
The underlying essence of this persona though is one of truth about the external and I quiz myself as to how well one can assimilate such a perspective absent truth in themselves - unless of course being truthfull oneself obfiscates egoism in the first place and increases the time taken to realise such a perspective?
I see several permutations which may lead one to egoism and numerous mutations of its defining characteristics. Interesting and precise!
I wonder about the perceptions of those who aren't egoists and whether it is anything like those who are?
As appealing an article as your avatar!
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Anti-Christ
Nice.
Good to see you again.
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flipper
Good concepts Eclipse - many of which my wife and I agree with
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Rooster
Eclipse, are you trying to say that you are narcissistic? Or was this post intended for someone unnamed?
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BurnTheShips
Nor does he bow the knee to Morality - Sacred Morality! Some of its precepts he may accept, if he chooses to do so; but you cannot scare him off by telling him it is not "right." He usually prefers not to kill or steal; but if he must kill or steal to save himself, he will do it with a good heart, and without any qualms of "conscience."
Yes. Beyond Good and Evil. Without an universal external standard, we are free to kill, steal and lie, as our egos see fit.
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quietlyleaving
bts
And "morality" will never persuade him to injure others when it is of no advantage to himself. He will not be found among a band of "white caps," flogging and burning poor devils, because their actions do not conform to the dictates of "morality," though they have injured none by such actions; nor will he have any hand in persecuting helpless girls, and throwing them out into the street, when he has received no ill at their hands.
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Anti-Christ
Yes. Beyond Good and Evil. Without an universal external standard, we are free to kill, steal and lie, as our egos see fit
Now your getting it.
But seriously, to you really think it's better that people do good because they fear the punishment of an all powerful god? Or that people decide to do good because they want to live in a society that has a certain order and respect of others?
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BurnTheShips
QuietlyLeaving:
And "morality" will never persuade him to injure others when it is of no advantage to himself.
Applying this logic and going to it's conclusion if I see a woman I do not know getting raped, I will not harm the rapist in an attempt to stop him, there being no advantage to myself. If I do so, it will be solely at the instigation of my ego, and not out of a "moral" (snicker) sense of right and wrong. The rapist is merely acting out his own Egoism as well, right?
He will not be found among a band of "white caps," flogging and burning poor devils, because their actions do not conform to the dictates of "morality," though they have injured none by such actions; nor will he have any hand in persecuting helpless girls, and throwing them out into the street, when he has received no ill at their hands.
This is a red herring IMHO. It does not necessarily follow that with the one (a universal external moral standard) the other must exist. Yes, some outrages have been commited in the name of some external moral good, but this does not prove that the concept of such a morality is in itself wrong.
There is, IMHO, no such thing as a real Egoist, for the reason below:
.....they say things like this: "How'd you like it if anyone did the same to
you?"-"That's my seat, I was there first"-"Leave him alone, he isn't doing
you any harm"- "Why should you shove in first?"-"Give me a bit of your
orange, I gave you a bit of mine"-"Come on, you promised." People say things
like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as
well as grown-ups. Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the
man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man's behaviour does
not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of
behaviour which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man
very seldom replies: "To hell with your standard." Nearly always he tries to
make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the
standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. He pretends there
is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the
seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he
was given the bit of orange, or that something has turned up which lets him
off keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had
in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behaviour or
morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed.
And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals,
but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarrelling means
trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no
sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as
to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that
a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the
rules of football.....Burn
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BurnTheShips
He will not be found among a band of "white caps," flogging and burning poor devils, because their actions do not conform to the dictates of "morality," though they have injured none by such actions; nor will he have any hand in persecuting helpless girls, and throwing them out into the street, when he has received no ill at their hands.
Let me add that an appeal to an absolute standard is implicit in the above statement, it is a minimalist "live and let live" point of view.