Since anomie has been brought to the table

[Ian Livingston]

"'...[T]he very first foundation of virtue is the endeavor (conatum)
to preserve the individual self, and happiness consists in the human
capacity to preserve its self'.... Spinoza's statement rings clear as
a bell, but it does require elaboration for its full impact to be
appreciated. Why should a concern for oneself be the basis for virtue,
lest that virtue pertain to that self alone? Or, to put it more
bluntly, how does Spinoza move from oneself to all the selves to whom
virtue must apply? Spinoza makes the transition relying again on
biological facts. Here is the procedure: The biological reality of
self-preservation leads to virtue because in our inalienable need to
maintain ourselves we must, of necessity, help preserve other selves.
If we fail to do so we perish and are thus violating the foundational
principle, and relinquishing the virtue that lies in
self-preservation. The secondary foundation of virtue then is the
reality of a social structure and the presence of other living
organisms in a complex system of interdependence with our own
organism. We are in a bind, literally, in the good sense of the word.
The essence of this transition can be found in Aristotle, but Spinoza
ties it to a biological principle--the mandate for self-preservation."
(Antonio Damasio, Looking For Spinoza, 170-1.)


On Sat, Jan 7, 2012 at 4:11 PM, alice wellintown
<alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> If virtue is activity in accord with one's nature, such actions will
> give one power and pleasure.
>
> To act in this manner one must face the truth.
>
> The truth may be painful and hard, difficult to get at, but it must be faced.
>
> The truth is knowledge of god.
>
> For Aristotle, Thomas, Spinoza ...suicide is un-natural absence of
> virtue and thus the suicide is powerless and in the control of forces
> repugnant to his own nature.
>
> If we act in accord with our nature we are virtuous and happy.
>
> Such actions will be directed by reason and toward a common goal
> (knowledge of god...).
>
> Moderns killed god, so they can not know god in this sense.
>
> Betran Russell, a modern,  said, "The secret of happiness is to face
> the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible."
>
> He also said, "The only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation."
>
> I think Freud, also a modern, said pretty much the same; he thought we
> humans were just as driven to co-operate as we are driven to make war.
>
> But war, as Richard McKeon, another modern, argued, just makes a
> bloody mess of things we have to sit down and clean up, together,
> sooner or later, so war can not be our goal, though it sometimes seems
> like it is to irrational observers and cranky "historians. "



-- 
"Less than any man have I  excuse for prejudice; and I feel for all
creeds the warm sympathy of one who has come to learn that even the
trust in reason is a precarious faith, and that we are all fragments
of darkness groping for the sun. I know no more about the ultimates
than the simplest urchin in the streets." -- Will Durant