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Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

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Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#131

Post by CamperBob2 »

macintux wrote: post #110
CamperBob2 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... a group based on a religion responsible for no small amount of evil in itself. As the GP suggests, replacing one brand of stupidity with another isn't the solution. It's the whole problem. Bonhoeffer's essay is worthwhile, but it's also true that his closing paragraphs provide a flawless example of what the previous ones warned about.

> ... a group based on a religion responsible for no small amount of evil in itself. As the GP suggests, replacing one brand of stupidity with another isn't the solution. It's the whole problem. Or, maybe, only a powerful belief in something can provide the strength to actively resist the encroaching darkness.

Valid point there for sure. They say that if you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything, and there's plenty of proof of that across the entire political spectrum.

And it works both ways: if you have faith in your own purpose while your adversaries remain disorganized and irresolute, you have a hell of an advantage regardless of whether your cause is just.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#132

Post by User23 »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #130
User23 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is insufficient about it? Your opinion isn’t a valid ethical premise. It has no basis beyond your whims. Someone else might believe that it’s good and how would you refute them without claiming that your opinion is somehow more authoritative? > Even if so can the aggressor and wider society know that ahead of time? Obviously, in general, no. You can’t know that shooting a random person in cold blood wouldn’t p…

> But this discussion ... it’s about whether the normative science of ethics can have any nontrivial conclusions without an objective foundation What is a more objective foundation than independently verified, experimental evidence? > The limitations of human reasoning are one of the reasons I’m convinced a correct ethics must have a superhuman author. So the apparent presence of this limitation is evidence of a high…

> What is a more objective foundation than independently verified, experimental evidence.

This sounds like the classic is-ought problem. Experiment can, up to epistemological and ontological limits, only tell us about what is. It cannot tell us about what ought to be. If it appears to you that it can then you’re implicitly slipping in an additional ethical premise.

> So the apparent presence of this limitation is evidence of a higher power? How can you be sure that what you consider 'correct' ethics is objectively good?

I can’t. That’s one of the limitations of abductive reasoning. Unlike deduction it cannot reach absolutely certain conclusions. And if I could this entire thread would be moot. As for correct ethics, I accept Peirce’s view that ethics, like logic, is a normative science. Just as logic is defined to be the normative science of what is true or false, ethics is defined to be the normative science of what is good or bad. Hence my question about whether or not that science is trivial and admits whatever conclusions anyone says it does, or not.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#133

Post by HackOfAllTrades »

@pugio (Interpreting Bonhoeffer) "If you put your fear of God (in other words, some power higher than, and distinctly external to, any social group) you begin to liberate yourself from caring too much about what other people think."

And as such he is making exactly the same mistake, because he is assuming that his God is a higher power, when in fact his God is defined by his community.

Where did he learn what it means to live "The responsible life before God"? From the community he grew up in of course. (My assumption is that God did not appear and teach him in person.)

When stripped of the appeal to the authority of God, his argument becomes "My community values independent thought over group conformity."

I totally agree with him. I just don't find it a solid argument.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#134

Post by mbrodersen »

pkphilip wrote: post #123
mbrodersen wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My argument was that I (for one) doesn’t worship Jesus Christ, the Buddha, Ra the sun god, humans, myself or anything else. So the argument that we all worship something is false. Dietrich might have been worshipping a god or humans but that is besides the point.

The term "worship" isn't limited to the worship of any deity alone - as the quote itself indicates. It includes worship of things such as beauty, youthfulness, fame, wealth... or whatever that consumes your thinking

Agree. And I don’t worship any of those. Which was my original point.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#135

Post by mbrodersen »

pstuart wrote: post #111
mbrodersen wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure I don’t warship anything. Not even logical thinking or reasoning. Nothing is perfect. Everything is flawed or limited in applicability. No human is either 100% good or evil. Everything depends on context. So what is there to worship?

> So what is there to worship? David Bowie.

That made me smile :-)

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#136

Post by stkdump »

User23 wrote: post #121
stkdump wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ethics cannot be deduced from logic and aesthetics. To give an example, why exactly is rape wrong? Rape is wrong, because it induces bodily and emotional harm. You can deduce your whole ethics and morals from the 'reduce the suffering you cause' view. You don't need religion for that.

That’s begging the question. Why is harming another human being wrong? It could be the benefit to yourself and others is greater than the harm caused. The children born of that rape may well think that their being alive is a net good. In fact, it’s statistically certain that all of us have at least one rape victim somewhere in our ancestry and thus wouldn't otherwise be alive. Just because you personally think harmin…

So your argument is that imposing the view that harming others isn't good is worse than imposing harm? Sorry I don't follow.

Also are you arguing that the fact that people harmed others has happened that somehow means a world where this happened less often or not at all is a worse one? With that line of argument you are excusing any crime at all that ever happened, because by vrtue of the butterfly effect we have to assume every action ever taken created the world we live in and is somehow sacred that way.

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#137

Post by UncleOxidant »

gastroturf wrote: post #114
UncleOxidant wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He's discussing one way out of the trap of conforming to group/tribal beliefs. If you put your fear of God (in other words, some power higher than, and distinctly external to, any social group) you begin to liberate yourself from caring too much about what other people think. This is well said. I believe it was the theologian Stanley Hauerwas who said in the 70s that the decline of religion in America would inevita…

I could not find that particular statement by Hauerwas, but it seems to be a (valid, IMO) narrow interpretation of his perspective in this paper[1]. Do you have an exact citation? Prescient indeed, and to me, disturbing. [1]: https://stanleyhauerwas.org/the-importance-of-being-catholic... edit: typo

Sorry, not Hauerwas, Lesslie Newbign, probably in his Foolishness of the Greeks from '86, but I suspect he wrote earlier on the topic as well. See: https://www.pastortheologians.com/articles/2020/10/28/politi...

Re: Bonhoeffer on Stupidity

#138

Post by mbrodersen »

dandotway wrote: post #115
mbrodersen wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am pretty sure I don’t warship anything. Not even logical thinking or reasoning. Nothing is perfect. Everything is flawed or limited in applicability. No human is either 100% good or evil. Everything depends on context. So what is there to worship?

> Nothing is perfect If logical thinking is, as you say, imperfect, is it possible that your own conclusion that no perfect things exist is itself an imperfect conclusion? If you use this word perfect , you at least have the Idea of Perfect , even if no perfect things exist. This kind of funny talk I'm using about Ideas of perfect things goes back 2400 years to Plato and his Theory of Forms[1]. According to the philo…

Yep it is fun to think about. Especially when you realise that information is not abstract but physics. I recommend reading the “Constructor Theory of Information” if you haven’t already. It is free online.
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