Hello Philosophy Society!

Discussion 1: Existentialism
Our discussion began with a brief overview of some existential ideas and thinkers. First was the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir and one of her best quotes, “One is not born a genius, one becomes a genius,” from the book The Second Sex, in response to the disadvantages women had flourishing in their own areas of passion.
The second mentioned was her partner, Jean Paul Sartre, who wrote the book, Being and Nothingness. Sartre discussed many ideas, one of which was the other objectifying the self. An example he gives of this situation is where you may have lost your key to your apartment and looked through the keyhole to see into your apartment. At the time he was writing this, doors were different than they are now and there was a keyhole you could see to the other side. If some other person saw you peeping through the hole, they would have a very different impression of what you were doing than what you were actually doing. They would be reducing your identity to their objective view of what they observed and not the actual subjective intention behind what you were actually doing.
The final existential thinker mentioned was Albert Camus and his story of the Myth of Sisyphus. One idea behind this story was about the human condition itself in that we are always moving towards some kind of goal and suffering in its attainment. Once we have that goal, it is only a brief moment of appreciation we have for our accomplishment before we desire another goal. Here is the story:
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly roll a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.
If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Egina, the daughter of Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that Esopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.
It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife's love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. But when he had seen the face of this world again, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods was necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his joys, led him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him.
You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward tlower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.
It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour is like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.
If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.
If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy arises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Oedipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles' Oedipus, like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.
One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. "What!---by such narrow ways--?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd. Discovery. It happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returns toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
http://dbanach.com/sisyphus.htm
Discussion 2: Nihilism
Nihilism is the belief that there is no truth, no values and no knowledge. It was first discussed by Nietzsche as a response to the theological influence on culture from Christianity. Nietzsche was observing a response to the Christian influence declining. He also discussed other major ideas within his overall aphoristic philosophical career such as the Will to Power, the Eternal Recurrence, the Ubermensch or Overman, and the Revaluation of Values. These ideas are very important philosophical tools when understood in the correct context.
Nihilism can be self-defeating for a belief in no values or truths would also include nihilism itself and hence be a self-contradictory. Sometimes we can find ourselves in a psychological state where giving up all of our existing beliefs and coming to a conscious state of nothingness is the best step for our psychological development. If we let go of what we have and embrace ‘nothingness,’ then we can create space to build something new. Nihilism can be a very good ‘rock bottom’ stage in a cycle of our psychology. A hazard of an inappropriate use of Nihilism can be found in its application to ethics and morality. This can lead to not being able to resolve moral dilemmas.
Discussion 3: Moral Issue of Suicide
Firstly, Kant states that suicide is wrong because of the categorical imperative. We are human and to kill ourselves is to kill a human being which would go against humanity in general. Suicide is a symptom of a mental illness, specifically depression. It is only people who are depressed that face the problems of suicide. In our understanding of depressed people, it is their negative thoughts or distorted perspective of themselves or their experiences that is leading them to thoughts of self harm. When those thoughts are addressed and replaced with realistic and empowering thoughts, the symptoms of suicide begin to subside. In extreme situations, people will have to be hospitalized and medicated to help them until they are able to guide themselves out of negative thinking patterns. If an individual is not neurologically in control of their thinking patterns, they may need to be medicated long term.
There is a fundamental contradiction in suicide for we are an existing being. To hold the belief of killing oneself, which is to terminate one’s existence through some action or inaction, would contradict the nature of the existing being. We have a self-preservation instinct that prevents us from doing this, aside from the case of mental illness. Any rationalization for suicide is simply evidence of some mental health issue hidden behind the faulty reasoning.
Suicide is different than euthanasia where a person or decision maker would kill a person who is suffering. The conditions of euthanasia would apply in medical cases where the person has a terminal illness and their suffering compromises their well-being to the point where life is only painful. The existence of an individual in this case is different than the depressed person who wants to end their life due to psychologically induced suffering that can be corrected with CBT or medication.
Discussion 4: Objective Ethics
An easy way to resolve the problem of moral issues and culturally relative moral codes is to ascribe morality to cultural groups and reserve ethics as objective principles. In certain cultures or religious groups, a specific moral code would apply to people within that group but not to outsiders. A behaviour, like drinking alcohol, would be seen as immoral in one group but not for people who do not follow a specific religious dogma.
Ethical principles can be used to apply to the various moral codes to determine the quality of their ethical significance. For example, what harm is being caused or is the individual's autonomy being respected? The ethical principles are used in biomedical ethical cases that doctors and ethics committees use to make decisions in hospitals. We can also add Kant’s deontological framework to this list as well. They are:
Beneficence - Do Good
Non- maleficence - don’t harm
Autonomy - respect agency
Justice - respect fairness
Utilitarianism - greatest happiness for greatest number
Categorical imperative - don’t use people as a means to an end
Universalizability - can this action be applied to everyone in a functioning society?
The goal of applying these principles is the end of having a harmonious society we can all live in. The application of these ethical principles is where Aristotle’s practical wisdom comes in. We need to learn from our experiences of how to make ethical decisions in certain states of mind and within certain situations.
In any system of belief, we will have axioms or assumptions, like ‘the cosmos is an ordered universe,’ and goals ‘we want to live in a utopian society,’ that guide the beliefs within the system. Once a system is structured with sound axioms and coherent goals, we can input the intermediary steps to achieve those goals. Ethics are a tool for us to live well together.
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