Nalo question

Questions or discussions about Almea or Verduria-- also the Incatena. Also good for postings in Almean languages.
zompist
Boardlord
Boardlord
Posts: 3368
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2002 8:26 pm
Location: In the den
Contact:

Post by zompist »

rotting ham wrote:Do the mistresses have any notion of absolutism vs. relativism?
Hmm. If they had to choose, the Nàłó would be relativists. But they're not saying "Anything you believe is fine." They think rationalist systems are in error.
zompist wrote:What's a demonstrably false claim about the spirit world, or enlightenment?
Like you said, "they had no objection to reason as a guide in some domains such as mathematics". So if a mistress claims 2+2=5, then she's demonstrably wrong.
But that's not a claim about the spirit world or enlightenment.
zompist wrote:Of course this argument doesn't justify Nàló disciples converting to Haeló, but shouldn't it justify women adopting a rationalist stance as long as her feelings guide her in that direction? I mean, if people don't act "rationally" anyway, then isn't the folly of rationalists shortsightedness as to the nature and ultimate source of human motives rather than their pretense of rationality? That is, they see the tree of motivation as:

rationality -> actions

whereas in reality, Haeló disciples behave according to the paradigm:

feelings -> body of rational thought X -> actions
That would be one type of error (rationalization); Nàłó would happily point out many more, from errors in logic to badly supported claims. (To put it another way, they enjoy using rationalist tools against rationalists. It's good sport, but doesn't mean that they are devoted to those tools themselves.)
If Nàló is a school of philosophy, but not a body of thought, then doesn't this suffice as an apology for, and promote skeptical toleration towards, women who have already joined Haeló schools as long as their convictions keep supporting those specific rationalist traditions? If illogic (2+2=5) is tolerated in each other, then I can't see how a systematic criticism of other schools is justified.
As I said, reason is allowed in basic mathematics; what Nàłó doubts is the applicability to other domains. (They'd be sympathetic to Nassim Nicholas Taleb's views on the "ludic fallacy"— the mistaking of toy domains for reality.)

Again, Nàłó thinks that Hâełó is pedantic, hypocritical, legalistic, and riddled with errors. These problems don't go away even if we allow that the Hâełó thinker is motivated by nice feelings. Nàłó isn't a '60s guru intoning "Whatever make you happy, baby."

Remember, the very basic opposition here is whether or hâe, heart or mind, has priority. It seems like you're trying to envision an invidual who somehow prioritizes both. But you really can't say "I believe heart takes first place over mind, and also mind takes first place over heart."

rotting bones
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 409
Joined: Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:25 pm

Post by rotting bones »

zompist wrote:Hmm. If they had to choose, the Nàłó would be relativists. But they're not saying "Anything you believe is fine." They think rationalist systems are in error.
Thanks for clearing that up.
zompist wrote:But that's not a claim about the spirit world or enlightenment.
I see, so Haelo is fiercely opposed by the skeptics only when they attempt to impose rigid and fallacious systems of thought on weighty issues such as the spirit world and enlightenment, am I right? Relatively unimportant opinions like 2+2=5 can be taken in one's stride.
zompist wrote:(To put it another way, they enjoy using rationalist tools against rationalists. It's good sport, but doesn't mean that they are devoted to those tools themselves.)
Surely they would employ such tools in domains where they are applicable.
zompist wrote:As I said, reason is allowed in basic mathematics; what Nàłó doubts is the applicability to other domains. (They'd be sympathetic to Nassim Nicholas Taleb's views on the "ludic fallacy"— the mistaking of toy domains for reality.)
But such mistakes can be tolerated or ignored because mathematics is a relatively unimportant subject. It's also a toy domain, so extrapolating attitudes originating from mathematical study to nɔtǎn and the nɔŋǎ is meaningless handwaving, correct?
zompist wrote:Again, Nàłó thinks that Hâełó is pedantic, hypocritical, legalistic, and riddled with errors. These problems don't go away even if we allow that the Hâełó thinker is motivated by nice feelings.
Not "nice feelings", motivated by fidelity to one's heart. But this is also immoral when the heart is full of anger. When the heart is corrupt, the right course of action is to strive for enlightenment, not to reinforce the corruption.
zompist wrote:Remember, the very basic opposition here is whether or hâe, heart or mind, has priority. It seems like you're trying to envision an invidual who somehow prioritizes both. But you really can't say "I believe heart takes first place over mind, and also mind takes first place over heart."
That's not it, all this is being discussed under the assumption that heart takes priority. The question is, does it necessarily take priority in everyone, with some women deluding themselves as to this incontrovertible fact, or does one make a choice to follow her heart? If it's the former, then this still applies:
If people don't act rationally anyway, then isn't the folly of rationalists shortsightedness as to the nature and ultimate source of human motives rather than their pretense of rationality? That is, they see the tree of motivation as:

rationality -> actions

whereas in reality, Haeló disciples behave according to the paradigm:

feelings -> body of rational thought X -> actions

When a woman sees this complete picture, she is freed from attachment to a single system of rationality. At the the same time, she's able to work with different rational systems in domains where their applicability can be demonstrated to the satisfaction of skeptics.
If it's the latter, well, let me just rephrase my question: Suppose one's heart is bent on regarding a certain overarching system of thought as valid, and not without reason. Is this a condemned attitude like anger because it would involve rigid and potentially problematic reasoning in deciding questions about important subjects like the spirit world, or can it be tolerated as long as the decision is supported by one's heart?

These don't have to be mutually exclusive for as long as "feelings -> body of rational thought X -> actions" holds good. Rationalization is not a formal fallacy.
If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way. - Mark Twain

In reality, our greatest blessings come to us by way of madness, which indeed is a divine gift. - Socrates

zompist
Boardlord
Boardlord
Posts: 3368
Joined: Thu Sep 12, 2002 8:26 pm
Location: In the den
Contact:

Post by zompist »

I think you're getting it, except for the continuing attempt to reconcile the two schools. "Suppose one's heart is bent on regarding a certain overarching system of thought as valid, and not without reason"... that's just not a Nàłó point of view. You can't still be Nàłó and accept rationalism with all its errors and hypocricies and misvaluations; you can't be Hâełó with the attitude that the heart takes precedence over reason.

That doesn't mean you personally, or someone from the Beic sphere, can't try to merge the views; in fact in later centuries there were various attempts. But they were neither Nàłó nor Hâełó, just as (say) Thomism is not simply Aristotelian or Jewish.

rotting bones
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 409
Joined: Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:25 pm

Post by rotting bones »

zompist wrote:I think you're getting it, except for the continuing attempt to reconcile the two schools.
Thanks, but I'd still like an answer to this question: Does the heart ultimately take priority in everyone or do some choose to follow it?
zompist wrote:"Suppose one's heart is bent on regarding a certain overarching system of thought as valid, and not without reason"... that's just not a Nàłó point of view.
So this is a condemned attitude, right? Symptom of a corrupt and unenlightened heart.
If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way. - Mark Twain

In reality, our greatest blessings come to us by way of madness, which indeed is a divine gift. - Socrates

rotting bones
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 409
Joined: Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:25 pm

Re: Nalo question

Post by rotting bones »

So Haleza Grise wrote:"Nàłó did not condemn behaviors, only attitudes: e.g. murder wasn’t a sin, murderous rage was."

What about the case of a women who, with good intentions, unknowingly causes harm? I suppose the Nàłó response was that she wasn't really well-intentioned at all; she wouldn't have been paying attention to the right things. Or alternatively that if bad things happen out of good intentions, getting upset about it just shows the wrong perspective - one needs to be more holistic.

This seems like a bit of a blindspot to me, but I understand that all moral philosophies have some degree of handwaving and avoiding inconvenient questions.
Actually, I think this part is a very plausible idea. No matter what your intentions are, your actions bound to produce some tresspo results, both directly and indirectly. So from a certain frame of mind, you might come to conclude that actual consequences are morally arbitrary, and consequently, somewhat immaterial. True morality consists in making sure that you yourself are a woman of good character who doesn't get angry or hateful. This is how some actual systems of moral absolutism justify themselves. Even better, real world religions similar to Nalo handle the matter in a completely different way: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upaya
If you hold a cat by the tail you learn things you cannot learn any other way. - Mark Twain

In reality, our greatest blessings come to us by way of madness, which indeed is a divine gift. - Socrates

Mornche Geddick
Avisaru
Avisaru
Posts: 370
Joined: Wed Mar 30, 2005 4:22 pm
Location: UK

Post by Mornche Geddick »

Salmoneus wrote:Are you saying that SOME ethical conclusions are rational, or that ALL ethical conclusions are rational?
Well, would you say some logical conclusions are rational, or that all are rational? The same objections would apply. No amount of logic will make a conclusion rational if the premises are wrong. "All cats are gray. Tom is a cat. Therefore Tom is gray." is logical, but irrational, because the major premise is wrong. ("All cats are ginger. Jerry is ginger. Therefore Jerry is a cat." is irrational and illogical, because its major premise is wrong and it has an undistributed middle term.)
In saying that it may be impossible to think ethically without employing logic, you're admitting that there is no distinct 'ethical' thought that COULD be contrasted to rational thought.
No, because it is possibly to think logically without employing ethics. What makes thought ethical is whether it is about action which results in good or harm. Thought which is not about these matters does not come under the definition of ethics. Ethics is a domain of reasoning but not the whole of it.

It is as if I said "All bats are mammals" and you answered "Then there is no difference between mammals and bats."
And why do you link to an Enlightenment figure like Johnson
Just so that the old definition would be handy for use in the debate.
re-iterating the conventional definition: "when the conclusion is deduced from the unerring dictates of our faculties, we say the inference is rational". Barring some terminology, this would be acceptable to any modern economist or game theorist, I think, and explicitly excludes illogical ethical conclusions
And also excludes illogical non-ethical conclusions (such as the wrong solution to a quadratic equation). But it does cover logical ethical conclusions, such as the examples I included in my last post. (And they weren't "conundra". Conundra are riddles for which you have to discover the answer. These had the answer provided.)
as the dictates of moral intuition are clearly not inerrant.
Now we come to the nub of the problem. You consider ethics to be based on "the dictates of moral intuition". But what are the dictates of moral intuition that people act on? Most of the time they are ready-made ethical conclusions which are treated as axiomatic when they are not. People rely on other people quite as much to do their ethical thinking for them as they rely on other people to do their scientific reasoning for them.

There are very few genuine moral intuitions. They include these axioms (which really are inerrant) that it is good to do good, and bad to do harm. They belong with the axioms of logic. Nobody would dispute these; they would dispute about the conclusions which these axioms (and the corollary, that it may be necessary to do some harm to prevent worse harm) are used to produce, such as whether it is lawful to fight wars.
And in the quote he gives from Swift, we see the distinction already made between rational and emotional thoughts: "beware of letting the pathetic [ie. emotional] part swallow up the rational".
You are confusing ethical with emotional. That is probably an easy error to fall into, because the subject matter of ethics has a huge potential to provoke emotions and therefore a huge danger of falling into irrationality. But the fact that it is possible to keep your head when thinking about ethical questions, and the corollary that people often get emotional when they aren't thinking about ethics, shows they are not the same thing, and that the one is not a domain of the other. It is merely that they are often found together.

Post Reply