logic and compassion aren't polar enemies

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It was not stupid, both pointed to violent action based upon the "dominance gene" and self-interest and all sorts of other evils as both the boxer and the dog act to suffer for the amusement and joy of others and even die for that amusement. Both are bloodsports. Whether or not the actor has a choice has no affect on the reason why this thing occurs and that is what some of your argument focused upon, because whether or not the animal has a choice is meaningless because animals don't have rights in a human society. Because of the fact that it is just as wrong for a person to enjoy boxing as it is for them to enjoy a dog fight, and because there is no objective reason for a human society to give an animal rights, dogfights should therefore be legal.
Interesting, because I never listen to the religious right and don't care about what they claim. You assume too much to argue that I have been brainwashed by a group when I was the decider of my morality and built it upon my logical assumptions and not on any propaganda. Logic dictates less structure than you give though, as cognitive beingness has no meaning in the context of society. Rule of law is the only thing that is necessary for a working society. The only belief necessary for rule of law is the belief in law.

That is ridiculous. You would wish for the death of every man, woman and child, even if a system worked and allowed for human happiness? That is only the argument of an extremist.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 10 Jan 2007, 8:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

His choice I suppose. Really though, I do love that statement by you. Arguments should not be taken personally, and although I will admit that sometimes I might deviate from the pursuit of truth due to human perfection, truth is the goal.

Now, I will state that I agree that logic is the correct way of decision making, in my opinion.

I think logic depends on what you want the outcome to be. If you want it to fail, logically, you will choose the wrong choices but if you want it to succeed to option 'a' then you'll choose this, option 'b', you'll choose this. Its not black and white.

Logic does not depend on what you want the outcome to be. Decision making does, when you want a certain outcome, you have an emotional desire for it, when you have that then you have a danger that this emotion will interfere with logical truth-seeking, when this occurs certain premises are invalidated on flimsier claims and certain truths are purposefully ignored and certain premises assumed that should not be, this ends up leading to that certain conclusion but it is based upon imperfect logic. Because decision made on this information about the truth is incorrect, another logic-based claim can refute it based upon the bad assumptions, and ignored truths and ultimately replace it, and this can keep on going on and going on until the imperfections caused by emotions are stripped down as much as possible. Because man does not have a perfect brain, perfect knowledge, and has emotional drives that we debate. It adds to knowledge, it compensates for imperfection, and it reduces the effects of emotion.

I want to see it as 'black and white' but part of me doesn't want to. The best I can throw at you is logics role in deciding a split 50/50 choice.

Let me just advance it further. If a is true then logically (not a) is not true. In your point it can be assumed that option b != a. Therefore b is under the category of (not a). Therefore if a is true then b is not true and if b is true then a is not true because the two are mutually exclusive by nature otherwise we wouldn't be deciding only between a and b and would have a myriad of options. Even then though, if a consisted of ideas/possibilities r, h, and j then each of these ideas could be judged as true or false. Essentially though, there can only be one set of idea options that are true because by their nature their truth conflicts with the truth of other ideas because truth is by its nature mutually exclusive 1 + 1 cannot equal 2 and 3. Therefore perfect information combined with perfect logic can only arrive at 1 conclusion.

Anyone here heard of the work of Antonio Damasio?

According to that line of research, when it comes to real-time decision making, people can only make wise and effective decisions when the parts of the brain responsible for emotional value judgments are reasonably integrated with the parts of the brain responsible for logic. When these two are separated by brain damage, the people can talk the talk but they can't walk the walk - they make the most short-sighted and foolish decisions.

So the whole idea that logic and emotions are separate are kind of a philosophical misunderstanding of the Western tradition. When they are actually separate, as in people with Phineas Gage-type brain damage, the results are disastrous, and far from what we think of when we think of a sensible logical person. This implies that what we normally think of as "rationality" is not simply logic but the coordination of logic and emotion to make wise decisions. Logic is important because it can stop us from automatically just giving into our first or strongest emotion when it is unwise to do so; emotion is important because it is the energy that moves us to make a decision in the first place.

When I take the care to look, I find that small, subtle emotions are running through me all the time, and they influence what I do and even what I think. I am a highly emotional being, even though I tend to strike people at first glance as "logical" because I don't express my emotions either in words or in writing with the strength and fluidity that some other NTs do.

Oftentimes, my emotions have left me divided against myself, but after reading enough stuff about human nature and considering it all, I'm of the mind that human capacities in general tend to work best when they work as a team - and not, preferably, a team that is at war with other teams, because then the costs of war cancel out the benefits of teamwork.

Well, yes, emotions are necessary for real-time decisions and I have heard of that guy. The only thing is that this discussion isn't of all emotion vs all logic, but rather more emotion vs more logic and essentially speaking it goes back to the question on whether or not emotions should be a part of philosophical ideas, real-time decisions aren't a thing that really we care to examine, we both know that use of emotions in those choices can be logical and necessary due to the fact that the decision isn't that important. The big question is one of epistemology and about whether or not emotions hurt the pursuit of truth. Really though, that psychology stuff is sort of interesting, I will say I do think that logic and emotions are separable but not in human action but rather in the abstract.

hmm...

For one thing, I'd disagree that real-time decisions are not that important. What about the brain damage patient who gave up his livelihood for a risky entrepreneurial venture with a sleazeball who screwed him over and caused him and his family to go broke? What about politicians and defense personnel who have to decide what to do about terrorists?

Granted, a lot of politicians do make lousy decisions, and in theory you can blame that on emotions. But in practice, it may be that they were listening to the wrong emotions.

Emotions can, in theory, hurt the pursuit of truth if one unwise emotional agenda overwhelms all the others - especially, perhaps, if the desire to gratify your own ego prevails over the humble and cautious practice of science. But I think there are also dimensions of reality that are best approached with a healthy emotional sensibility. Emotions are their own realm of truth worthy of investigation from the inside as well as the outside, and can shed light on the truth about, say, how we should approach other people.

It appears that through much of this thread, the originator, Snake, was arguing against ethical nihilism, which can result if you try to approach all things with "pure" logic. (He also seemed to be reading some of your statements as advocacy of ethical nihilism, which may not be accurate.) This kind of "pure" logic as found among ethical nihilists is actually not as pure as it seems, but is in fact employed to support more subtle emotional agendas, such as not having to consider taking responsibility for your own unwise decisions, perhaps out of fear of being a "bad" person and facing the shame associated with that. Now, I think that to dismiss someone who did something foolish as a "bad" person is also unwise most of the time, because it (a) sets up an "us vs. them" that allows you to disidentify with "bad" people and continue to hide from reality and (b) even if you think of yourself as a "bad" person it can still crush the spirit that could be harnessed to prevent further unwise decisions.

I think that there really is no way of getting away from emotional agendas in the human experience. What people have to do is acknowledge their emotional agendas and do their best to figure out the wisest decision to make, which one to prioritize over the others. Perhaps this is what you mean by logic, and if so, this is part of what I think logic evolved for - to serve as a referee among emotional interests. It also evolved to interpolate and extrapolate beyond immediately present situations, and this is all fine.

Perhaps the only problem with the traditional view that we need to be "more logical and less emotional" to get at the truth, if there is a problem, is that it misunderstands and underestimates the role of emotion in all human endeavors. Perhaps we do need to be more logical, but I'm not sure if we CAN be less emotional, never mind should be. Instead, what we may need to do is use our emotions more wisely, and do our best not to let the unwise agendas rule over wiser ones.

Sorry, I screwed up there. I was thinking of time spent and all of those things, but yeah, usually we try to think over the really important decisions unless we don't have the time to do so. So, I mean, the forced fast decisions are what this comes in to be important for, while the ice cream vs cookies or the tuesday vs thursday isn't that important.

I disagree with you upon the use of emotions. Decisions should be made as scientifically as possible, this does mean you regard the emotions of others but not to regard your own emotional biases. Emotions do give us a natural glimpse in how to act to others but that does not mean it is truth though, truth would be a psychologist's glimpse of it, emotion is just imprinted patterns which can often be useful.

I will admit that I am the ethical nihilist but this is more philosophical from my part. I argue that everybody has different emotions and different beliefs on these issues so the best way to look at the issue is more utilitarian, as we should regard the government as trying to set up rules in order to protect the interests of those inside the nation, as opposed to promoting its own moral views. In regards to my biases, I do take responsibility for my unwise decisions a majority of the time, and I act in a manner that is probably more lawful than most of my age, and this discussion originally took part on one about animal abuse where I argued that people should have the right to abuse animals and took a position of human dominance over animals in the context of our society due to the nature of why we set up societies, in which I took a Hobbesian view. Once again, it should be noted that I don't abuse animals and would never even go to a dog fight so I was not arguing for my interests but rather my amusement.

Emotional agendas do exist, and that can be admitted. I agree with your assessment somewhat, and I aim to essentially strip back emotional bias to a relatively logical standpoint. This does not mean that others cannot be illogical but rather that they should not push their illogical views upon others but rather allow others to act based upon their own inclinations so long as no human third party is hurt.

I think we can be less emotional. The reason I state it like that is to indicate instead of frothing at the mouth at a point we disagree with, we accept it and confront it on its biases. This may be defined by you as simply less emotional relative to the amount of logical rather than less emotional period.