It is hedonism directed at no end.

Timocrates wrote:

Etzelnik wrote:

It is hedonism directed at no end.

Men have spilled millions of words saying what, in sum, is just that.

 
Haha

It took me a couple of years of fumbling the question to get there.

Timocrates wrote:

In my experience wrestling with things philosophically, I have found that clarity does not come easily but once it comes it's almost difficult to understand how you could ever have believed otherwise or doubted the truth. That is, it is as if it was obvious all along.

 
Yeah.

I think of it like geometry.

iwpoe wrote:

Etzelnik wrote:

It is hedonism directed at no end.

It is hedonism directed at permanence and respectability, which is not an unvirtuous end. It could be properly Epicurean.

Consider carefully bolded statements above. That at best amounts to a parody of virtue and is, arguably, even worse as a consequence.

Last edited by Timocrates (7/09/2015 1:36 pm)

Timocrates wrote:

iwpoe wrote:

Etzelnik wrote:

It is hedonism directed at no end.

It is hedonism directed at permanence and respectability, which is not an unvirtuous end. It could be properly Epicurean.

Consider carefully bolded statements above. That at best amounts to a parody of virtue and is, arguably, even worse as a consequence.

Only if you think you cannot emerge from out of a worse state into a better. Would you have every man be virtuous before he be virtuous? This is a matter of self-cultivation.

Being in a deficient state can point you to a better one: one learns to shoot by way of shooting badly for a long time.

I think it perfectly comprehensible that homosexual couples see their present situation as not sufficiently serious and want to structure it towards something higher. I've never been in such a relationship, so perhaps this is an inherent impossibility, but I do think it's laudable as an attempt.