Grounded

April 19, 2009

2: What would you say if I were to tell you that every person's life is a battle?
1: I would say, "that's interesting."
2: Interesting enough to divulge what your battle is?
1: Don't you know?
2: How should I know?
1: Well, if it isn't apparent after a little reflection, I must be losing the battle.
2: Hmm. I think you are fighting for the unconditioned in the conditioned.
1: That's one way to put it. Am I winning?
2: It's a losing battle. You can't know what's unknowable. This world is conditioned to the bottom. There is always a limit, rules have exceptions, laws have loopholes.
1: So, your interesting observation is just a springboard into criticizing me?
2: I suppose you could say that.
1: What's the occasion? Why are you attacking me?
2: Because you are annoying as Hell with all of your highfalutin meditations on optimism and pessimism, submission and rebellion. I'd like more than anything to shut you up.
1: What so annoying about what I have to say?
2: The same thing that's annoying about watching an one-legged spider try to crawl away to safety. He's already mortally wounded, he should just give up.
1: So you're saying it's annoying to be in the presence of futility.
2: Exactly.
1: Then I won't shut up, and you'll be doubly annoyed--with yourself and with me.
2: Good point. At least I can take solace in knowing my own righteousness.
1: Where does your righteousness lie?
2: It is the obligation of every rational agent who wants to be rational to battle against ignorance.
1: What about me is ignorant?
2: The part of you that is constantly trying to justify beliefs by convictions and feelings. You cannot will the truth. Universal values don't exist because you want them to. The truth is cold and disinterested. We have to take it however it appears to us.
1: And if appears to me that the good is real?
2: Then I still win because it doesn't appear to me and if it doesn't appear to me than the good is not universal.
1: You could just be confused.
2: The same goes for you.
1: True, possibility doesn't entail anything.
2: But your confusion is much more likely.
1: How so?
2: Whereas I can get people to agree that we do not know the good, you cannot get people to agree we know the good.
1: And if truth does not depend on consensus?
2: We are human. We have no greater appeal than consensus. That is the core of democracy, rationality, and progress. That, over time, with increases in precision, we have greater expanses of agreement between people. We study the errors of those who went before and offer new, corrected hypotheses. We're beyond all that unconditional claptrap now.
1: How can there be progress in ethics if there's no real aim of ethics, if there is no good that we are striving to know?
2: There's progress in ethics because we are gaining a better understanding of what we can know. Taking our cues from science, we test knowledge claims empircally. Once we began understanding the sorts of things we could know certainly, we could then agree on the sorts of things we should do. Everyone knows that people have needs--shelter, clothing, food--and wants--to be pleased--and now ethics consists of giving people what they now need and want. All of your sacrifice for the sake of ideals, for the sake of some invisible dream...it's all so inhumane! People are suffering here and now and you tell them to endure, that it's not so bad because it will all be okay when you're dead. Your dear 'unconditioned' is getting in the way of progress. We live on the earth, buddy...and on the earth we can only progress by trial and error. The viewpoint you advocate is protracted obstacle. "Don't change the world, change yourself," you say. Well, I can't will myself to not need food, I can't change that. I can't make sadness into happiness. But I can...
1: Hold on a minute. You never answered my question. Progress implies some sort of fixed point. You can't move towards something unless you have something you are moving away from.
2: We are going towards an ever sophisticating version of what suits humans. We are consistently learning what makes people healthier, and we are implementing the means of getting healthier.
1: So then health is you unconditioned in the conditioned. It is your supreme endpoint.
2: No, it is not unconditioned. It is completely conditioned. We can state without controversy what a healthy person is. It entails a certain weight, blood pressure...
1: A level of psychological fulfillment?
2: No.
1: So happiness doesn't matter?
2: Of course happiness matters, but its a consequence of bodily health. When the body is in the right order, a person is happy. All the chemical are in balance.
1: So the good is the optimal state of the body.
2: Basically.
1: And how is the claim of what the optimal state of the body less ignorant than my conception of the good as a metaphysical, independent reality?
2: Because we can't know metaphysics?
1: Whereas you can know the optimal state of the body?
2: Yes.
1: Then what is it?
2: We're working on that.
1: But you don't know it now.
2: Of course not. We need to conduct more studies and improve our instrumentation. We have a good general idea, though.
1: I thought I had a good general idea, too.
2: You can't convince people of yours, though.
1: And you can?
2: Yes.
1: How?
2: The body of scientific discoveries concerning medicine, nutrition, and the like.
1: How could a person ever be convinced by something whose conclusions change all the time?
2: Because the change is par for the course. We admit from the start we are not there. We admit we are searching for the conditioned in the conditioned. You can't hold it against us.
1: I though bodily health admitted of optimality.
2: It does.
1: But that's unconditioned.
2: No it's not...I'll grant you it's theoretical, but it is empirical. Life is much better now as a result of our theoretical advances thus far. Life is better by any empirical measure than 200 years ago.
1: Perhaps on empirical measurements, yes.
2: There are no other sorts of measurements.
1: That is true. And that is tragic.
2: What do you mean?
1: The scales of qualitative difference are not precise like those of qualitative. I would suggest that for all the measurable improvement, we have not necessarily experienced a greater qualitative improvement. In fact, the contrary is more frequently the case for every individual who resides in this world where the metaphysical is so roundly shunned. You, the people you claim to be represented, have sacrificed ethics for epistemology. Your overweening fear of metaphysics, of the unknowable (not the unbelievable or unfeelable, mind you), has made you inconsiderate of happiness. You admitted as much just a minute ago. Pleasure is the consequence of a sentient body functioning optimally. Happiness is distinct from that. Your system cannot account for happiness for the simple reason it cannot be weighed or seen. Who is more feckless: me for justifying ethics by metaphysics or you by justifying ethics by nothing at all?
2: To justify ethics by metaphysics amounts to a state worse than justifying it by nothing at all--it justifies ethics by a lie.
1: When truth is only construed as what can be physically sensed.
2: As though there were any other kinds of sensation!
1: Oh, you poor man! Have you really lost all your intuition? Has your conscience shriveled up from lack of watering? Can you no longer sense beyond the colors a painting to the beauty within it?!
2: Here we go again. Would you just shut up with your groundless drivel?!
1: Only if you will.