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Anonymous's avatar

Have you seen Hans-Georg Moeller's work on amorality and the "moral fool"? He takes the Nietzschean critique of morality and identifies moral *language* as the problem (using Wittgenstein's lecture on ethics). If you strip the content of moral language and just talk about how to optimise human flourishing, for example, it no longer manipulates but rather makes an argument based on evidence and an objective, measurable value. It's a good way out of the problems of moral grandstanding and coercion that you're discussing here. This critique of Sam Harris covers the main ideas of the theory: https://youtu.be/NGt0I5MbQSI?si=kG9-4oB0F1Ekav3K

Brett Andersen's avatar

No I haven't heard of that but I will check it ou!

Hermes of the Threshold's avatar

Hi Brett, nice post and glad to see you're back. You may appreciate this old archived post by Spandrell on this topic, which he calls "bioleninism", if you havn't seen it yet: https://archive.ph/IllH2

Graham L's avatar

Brilliant. Sorry I don't currently have anything more intelligent or articulate to offer. Just glad to see you back.

GrapplingwithReality's avatar

So happy to see you back Brett. Cheers and best of luck on your future endeavors from someone who has gleaned many insights from your work!

OldManFlappyNuts👹's avatar

I thought the thumbnail was a partially pealed banana for a sec

Brett Andersen's avatar

Tarantula, banana peel... I get them mixed up all the time.

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Comment deleted
Jan 6, 2025
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Brett Andersen's avatar

I’m going to write about what I think is interesting and important. Your approval or disapproval isn’t interesting or important to me unless you have specific objections to specific claims.

Tom Morgan's avatar

Of course, I love you either way.