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giving up on "right"

Murray Hamhandler

02:22 / 03.12.01

So this thought I've been having lately is this: nothing can be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt and so nothing that we consider to be right truly is. Especially when you get into the realm of unquantifiable abstract notions. So I've givem up on rightness. I think this may stem from my pretty severe disgust towards intellectualism, which in turn stems, I think, from severely disgusting intellectuals being convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that their beliefs are right. The more I think about it, the more I realize that I can't say with absolute certainty that anything is absolutely right. There is no way that anyone could take all variables into account when considering the rightness of knowledge. We're all just a bunch of monkeys whose heads got too big for their britches. So. What's the verdict, everyone? I'd elaborate a bit more, but I think what I'm saying is pretty straightforward. Give me your thoughts.
Arthur Sudnam

ONLY NICE THINGS

07:32 / 03.12.01

I think that, if you reject the idea of it being rationally possible to identify the "right" response, meaning by "right response" a response which is in absolute terms the correct response to give, the next stage of enquiry is to ask why you take the actions you do. Do you not believe that there is any point considering what to do before you do it, and thus follow instinct as being as "right" as any other process and less time-consuming? Or do you just not care whether or not you are doing the "right" thing?

As a side-salad, I think it's pretty dangerous to react against ideas because you don't like people.

[ 03-12-2001: Message edited by: The Haus under the Ocean ]

Our Lady of The Two Towers

15:16 / 03.12.01

Arthur- Why do you think only intellectuals think they are right? What about the BNP, Sun writers, Mail writers? If Ann Intellectual said that fascism is wrong, would you disagree?

Murray Hamhandler

15:34 / 03.12.01

Lozt Cause-Didn't mean to give the impression that only intellectuals think they're right. Everybody thinks they're right. Even me, admittedly. I just don't think that that belief, no matter who you are, makes it so.
Arthur Sudnam

Murray Hamhandler

15:42 / 03.12.01

Haus-I think you've hit the nail on the head, as far as the 'instinct outweighing overthinking' thing is concerned. I think that human beings overthink things, need to find a 'right' answer to every problem. I think that there are as many right answers to a given problem as there are people to provide those answers. Although I could be wrong...

But, yeah. I think that people tend to think that, because we're supposedly more intelligent than our fellow organisms that we have some moral responsibility to think everything out before doing anything. I think that all of this thinking has allowed us to do some horrible, god-awful things that would never have taken place if we'd just stayed dim-witted hunter-gatherers. Not that I'm calling for widespread primitivism or anything... I just think that everyone stopped being so convinced of their rightness, the world would be a decidedly better place overall. And I wouldn't call this feeling of mine a reaction against anyone. It's a reaction against certain people's need to be right all of the time. And, no, I'm not too fond of that need at all, obviously.
Arthur Sudnam

01:13 / 04.12.01

liberating, non?

ONLY NICE THINGS

10:46 / 04.12.01

And yet you want to be right about this. You need to be right about this and you have adopted it as a position to defend polemically.

Are you actually failing to see the inherent contradiction in this?

You are, aren't you?

Excellent.

11:03 / 04.12.01

Something entertaining that occurred to me:

When someone abandons a position they previously held, they say, "I was wrong." The reason I think that's so funny is, the implied full statement is, "I was wrong, but now I'm right from here on out." I've never heard anyone say, "I am wrong."* It doesn't even sound like a grammatically correct sentence (to my ears).

quote:
...severely disgusting intellectuals being convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that their beliefs are right...
Why discard "rightness" when it seems you're more taking issue with people who don't question/test their opinions?

[*edit: Except that "Flux = Wrong" has made me a liar!]

[ 04-12-2001: Message edited by: doubting thomas ]

ONLY NICE THINGS

11:13 / 04.12.01

Also worth noting - Arther appears to be conflating "right" meaning morally good, "right" meaning factually correct and "right" meaning best course of action. He's certainly not the first person to do this, but nonetheless it's a bad idea.

.

16:35 / 04.12.01

it all depends on whether you think:
1) there is a right and wrong, but due to the complexity of the matter, we will never have access to it, or
2) there is no one rightness, and things are just subjective and equally valid, and thats why talk of right and wrong is flawed.

now if 1) is the case, then why not still talk of what is right? after all, it might not be known with certainty, but it can certainly be aimed towards...

and if 2) is the case, then why not still talk of a definitive right? after all, anyone who believes in a definitive rightness is as justified in believing that as anything else if all things are equally right or wrong.

17:52 / 04.12.01

Let's not get too bipolar about this.

Simply because one doesn't know and can never know whether a particular concept or course of action is 'right' in any of the above senses does not automatically mean that we are doomed to be 'wrong'. There is a gradation of possibility and we can attempt to gradually draw closer to a 'factually accurate truth' through experience and assessment whilst simultaneously realising that attaining 100% certainty will remain impossible.

Or in other words: I don't think this statement is 'right', nor do I think it is 'wrong' - I believe it contains elements of truth... I take an 'educated guess'.

18:10 / 04.12.01

I admit to not being too clear on this whole argument, largely because I am on my second bottle of Jacob's Creek white wine, which was the right choice for me to buy from the off-licence because I decided on the spot that was what I was going to buy.
It would now be wrong for me to get behind the wheel of my car and go for a drive, possibly back to the off-licence to buy some more wine.
It is also, I think, right that if I drink the second bottle I will have drunk two bottles.
To reiterate in playschool language what Hause said, is this a case of right factually, right morally or right personally?

Murray Hamhandler

18:30 / 04.12.01

Okay. Look. Here. This is what I'm saying. Whether you're talking about moral righteousness or factual correctness or whatever, there are things that people consider to be wrong and things that they consider to be right. Would you agree thus far? Now, my whole argument is that I don't think (THINK!!! This is my own personal opinion.) that because a person thinks that something is right that it is necessarily so. If we're talking morals, there may be very good reasons for another person to not do what you consider to be the right thing to do. If we're talking facts, I don't think that I've ever been 100% convinced of anything that was supposedly factual. Maybe I'm a little too skeptical for my own good. Whatever. All of the philosophical wangling on the subject does absolutely nothing for me, at any rate. It's not really much of an intellectual problem. You aren't going to be able to suss out the logical validity of it. I'm not saying that I'm right about there being no 'right'. That's obviously contradictory. The whole 'right' problem is really just a facet of my problem w/people overthinking things anyway, and 'philosophical solutions' aren't going to solve my problem, I don't think. Does a dog think about whether he's doing the 'right' thing when he buries a bone? Does he wrack his fevered brain about it? So why should we? Note that I'm not as comfortable saying that there is no 'wrong'. I would have no problem chalking quite a number of human achievements into the 'wrong' category.