Reddit reviews Nietzsche: 'On the Genealogy of Morality' and Other Writings: Revised Student Edition (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)
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Cambridge University Press
>can you please clarify your ideological position
Sure.
I'm a paleoconservative deep ecologist. This means I adhere to the oldest values of American conservatism and pair them with an interest in environmentalism through a more wholesome design of society.
I moderate /r/new_right because the new right ideas are closest to paleoconservatism in some ways. I tried to write a description of new_right that encompassed all of the ideas that the movement has tossed around.
Beyond that, I think politics is a matter of strategies and not collectivist moral decisions, am fond of libertarian-style free market strategies, and take interest in many things, hence the wide diversity of stuff that I post.
I've learned that on Reddit it's important to ask for people to clarify definitions before ever addressing any question using those terms. If you want me to answer any specific questions, we need a clear definition first agreed on by all parties.
I recommend the following books for anyone interesting in post-1970s conservatism beyond the neoconservative sphere:
Other than that, I'm pretty much a mainstream Republican. Not all links I post constitute endorsement, such as this fascinating article.
A conservative/reactionary reading list:
Jean Bodin - Six Books of the Commonwealth (1576)
Robert Filmer - Patriarcha, or The Natural Power of Kings (1680)
Edmund Burke - Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790)
Joseph de Maistre - Considerations on France (1797) and Essay on the Generative Principle of Political Constitutions and other Human Institutions (1809)
Thomas Carlyle - The French Revolution: A History (1837) and On Heroes and Hero Worship and the Heroic in History (1841)
Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil (1886) and Genealogy of Morals (1887)
Oswald Spengler - Decline of the West (1918)
Ernst Jünger - Storm of Steel (1920)
Jose Ortega y Gassett - Revolt of the Masses (1929)
Julius Evola - Revolt Against the Modern World (1934) and Men Among the Ruins (1953)
Bertrand de Jouvenal - On Power: The Natural History of Its Growth (1949)
Leo Strauss - Natural Right and History (1953)
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn - The Menace of the Herd (1943) and Liberty or Equality (1952)
>You espouse nothing but poor reasoning
You can't espouse poor reasoning. You can however espouse an idea supported by poor reasoning. Assuming this is what you meant, I still haven't done it. You have no examples for how my arguments rely on poor reasoning, you just keep insisting that they do. This is due to your own reliance on specious reasoning.
>You're an apologist. You've chosen that position and it's an ugly one.
Sigh.... You know what an apologist is right? Lets use the term in a sentence... "The christian apologists tried to defend their beliefs using reason, thinking that belief in god could be found through logic." Hmm... Maybe a definition would still be useful.
Ya... I'm not an apologist. I'm not arguing in defense of a belief. I'm arguing against a belief in moral realism. You, my friend, function as the apologist in this debate. Please stop using words without knowing how to use them.
>My morals are quite measured and I do not follow them blindly, with faith. I quoted this because this is all you do. You make stupid and baseless attacks because you have no defense.
Watch this: "My belief in God is quite measured and I do not follow him blindly, with faith." Just because you use reason to justify things after the fact does not make the original assumption true, or any less "faithful."
You seem to have a complete lack of knowledge when it comes to moral theory and what is possible through moral theory. Sam Harris, while an interesting individual, and right about many things, is fundamentally wrong when it comes to what science can do with regard to morals. Not in the sense that his moral system is untenable, but rather in the sense that you can't get his moral system strictly through scientific study—which he claims we can. Assumptions must be made before you can even begin the study of well-being and suffering, and even more must be made in order to say that you should promote one and avoid the other.
A person's insistence on the existence of universal objective morals is best termed as a FAITH. There is no evidence of universal objective morals, and they are fundamentally unscientific entities in the same sense God is—even if we wanted to, we could never find evidence of them. At best they are commonly assumed entities—like God is for most people.
And I repeat, because you seem to think I am some sort of moral heathen, THIS DOES NOT MEAN THAT MORALS ARE USELESS OR THAT WE SHOULD LET PEOPLE DO WHATEVER THEY WANT BECAUSE THERE ARE NO OBJECTIVE MORALS. Your feelings about me being somehow deficient are the same feelings a religious fundamentalist would have toward both of us due to our lack of belief.
That you think a bit of pop-science is somehow "important" for me to read is laughable. If what you know of morals comes from that book, I feel sorry for you. I understand that many atheists will praise anything that comes from the "canon" writers on atheism like Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, however, being a fan of someone does not make all of their work good, or even relevant. At best, Sam Harris is simply endorsing the naturalistic fallacy. At worst, he's willfully ignorant of what the naturalistic fallacy is, and simply wishes to push his view as a "counterpoint" to religious morality.
Since you so kindly left me a link to a book, allow me to do the same, by linking you to the most important books in moral theory for you to read, some of which argue directly against me, but at this point the idea is to get you educated, not to get you to agree with me:
Alisdair MacIntyre — After Virtue
Nietzsche — Beyond Good and Evil
Nietzsche — The Genealogy of Morals
Kant — Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals
Aristotle — Nicomachean Ethics
G.E. Moore — Principia Ethica
I've done my best to find the best editions of these books available (I myself usually default to the Cambridge editions of works in the history of philosophy). You may also want to check out some Peter Singer, along with Bentham and Mill, if only to know what it means to be a utilitarian. After that, read John Rawls, because he'll tell you one reason why utilitarianism is so controversial in ethical theory.
I hope to hear back from you about the results of your studies. I figure you can easily find pdfs of these books (though perhaps not the same editions I linked) somewhere online. Given about a month or two to read them all (I'm not sure how much free time you have... maybe more like three months) you should be up to speed. Hopefully I'll hear back from you after the new year. At that point, I don't expect you to agree with my view on ethics, but I at least expect you will understand it, and be able to argue your own position somewhat more effectively than you are at the moment. If nothing else, think of this as a way to learn how to "stick it" to people like me.
Maybe by then you'll have gotten beyond the whole "I'm taking my ball and going home" disposition you seem to have when confronted with someone who's better than you at debating ethics. I can only hope.
If you take ethics seriously at all, do this for yourself: study the shit out of ethical theory.