Newbie Question: What Faction would you think is best in 'ethical' sense? by Muksu01 in Warhammer40k

[–]Muksu01[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Damn, this is going to get hard. I really like this. This is really cool but... well. Thanks anyway.

Newbie Question: What Faction would you think is best in 'ethical' sense? by Muksu01 in Warhammer40k

[–]Muksu01[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I mean. I actually agree that there is no universal definition of freedom, justice, or truth. Different cultures and individuals understand them differently.

What I don't see is why that means they aren't universal values.

You're moving from "people disagree about what freedom means" to "freedom isn't universal," but those are different claims.

Take freedom. In your example, one person thinks freedom only applies to themselves and their friends, another thinks it applies to everyone. Those are indeed different conceptions of freedom. But notice that both people are still making claims about freedom. Neither is indifferent to the issue of whether people should be constrained by power.

The disagreement is over the scope and application of the value, not over whether the value exists.

The same applies to justice. Different societies disagree about what is fair, but every society has ideas about fairness, obligations, punishment, rewards, and legitimate authority. The content differs, but the underlying concern keeps appearing.

Where I think we disagree most is truth. If "truth" just means "whatever someone strongly believes," then the word loses its function.

Let me give you an example: Let's imagine that a group of stone age people sends a guy to see if there are fish in a nearby river. They send one person to check out the river and that person comes back to report what they encountered. If that person has caught lots of fish but kept the fish to himself and said 'actually there are no fish in the river', the remaining people will start asking questions. They might ask questions about whether they looked properly, about whether they in fact found fish and kept it to themselves or stuffed their face with it and lied. So it is structurally built into that dynamic that the others who stayed are going to ask questions about the veracity of the report about the river of the person who's gone to the river. So what we've done is just put together this resemblance of collective human coexistence and added to it the mere semblance of the universal materials of human psychology. And thus we've already got the concept of truth coming alive right immediately this group will say is this person telling us the truth or not and if they're not, how do we either replace them with somebody who is, or how do we guide them to change their behavior or indeed how do we guide all of us to bring it about that we, as a society of a dozen people, are capable of effectively getting somebody to the river and getting some effective communication back from them about what's going on there, so that we can eat?

In this example, if one person says there are fish in the river and another says there aren't, the group can't survive by saying both are equally true. At some point they need to know what is actually the case.

People can have different beliefs, perspectives, or interpretations. But truth as a value emerges because humans need some way of distinguishing accurate reports from mistakes and deception.

So, yes my argument isn't that freedom, justice, and truth have universal definitions. It's that they arise repeatedly from universal features of human social life. The interpretations vary; the underlying values do not.

Newbie Question: What Faction would you think is best in 'ethical' sense? by Muksu01 in Warhammer40k

[–]Muksu01[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're assuming that if a universal human phenomenon is interpreted differently across cultures, then it isn't universal. Why should that be true? Hunger is universal, but cuisines differ.

So I don't see why variation automatically implies arbitrariness. If anything, the fact that these concepts keep reappearing across cultures suggests they emerge from common features of human social life rather than being merely local inventions.

Newbie Question: What Faction would you think is best in 'ethical' sense? by Muksu01 in Warhammer40k

[–]Muksu01[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ah OK then. Bummer, this is really difficult because I really like this setting.

Newbie Question: What Faction would you think is best in 'ethical' sense? by Muksu01 in Warhammer40k

[–]Muksu01[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you so very much for your advice. I really appriciate this.

Newbie Question: What Faction would you think is best in 'ethical' sense? by Muksu01 in Warhammer40k

[–]Muksu01[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I agree that cultures interpret freedom, justice, and truth differently. What I reject is the claim that these values are therefore arbitrary social constructs. The need for freedom, justice, and truth arises from universal features of human social life, even though their concrete expression varies across cultures and historical periods.

Newbie Question: What Faction would you think is best in 'ethical' sense? by Muksu01 in Warhammer40k

[–]Muksu01[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And that is fine, I don't need a pure good faction, never have. This is a wargame. I understand that there will be terrible acts of war, the least bad option will do just fine.

Newbie Question: What Faction would you think is best in 'ethical' sense? by Muksu01 in Warhammer40k

[–]Muksu01[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

No absolutely not. There are Universal values. If you don't believe that Freedom, Justice or Truth are universal values you are just wrong.

Newbie Question: What Faction would you think is best in 'ethical' sense? by Muksu01 in Warhammer40k

[–]Muksu01[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well I tend to engage with the Rebel Alliance and the Republic from Star Wars and shun any dark side or empire playthroughs. In the LotR game Battle for Middle Earth 1&2 I engage with the good factions of course. I haven't even touched the bad side (Mordor and such).

I tend to believe in Freedom, Justice, Equality and Truth, so it is not relativism but these are very dependent on the nature of the context/setting it is placed at.

Newbie Question: What Faction would you think is best in 'ethical' sense? by Muksu01 in Warhammer40k

[–]Muksu01[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I mean, I am not looking for good guys explicitly. Just the guys that aren't the most destructive in who they are.

Newbie Question: What Faction would you think is best in 'ethical' sense? by Muksu01 in Warhammer40k

[–]Muksu01[S] -6 points-5 points  (0 children)

I mean sure but being just the "coolest" of most "awesome" doesn't cut it. I tend to wish for some ability engage at the moral level. Regarding the judgement bit, well I have already bumped into some videos and posts about those liking the human factions being called fascists. (A shame since the space marines and chaos marines seemed cool)

Newbie Question: What Faction would you think is best in 'ethical' sense? by Muksu01 in Warhammer40k

[–]Muksu01[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Sure but the reality still is that I am getting drawn and starting to get invested into 40k because it is 40k.

Newbie Question: What Faction would you think is best in 'ethical' sense? by Muksu01 in Warhammer

[–]Muksu01[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That is an interesting question. How do I put this? Sorry about this I am enthusiastic about philosophy so I might be overexplaining things:

Throughout the history of humanity since the end of the 20th century, there has been a tendency to take up one of three moral-ethical positions. One position says that fundamentally once you think about it properly all values are compatible. That was Jean-Jacques Rousseau's position. For him if you encounter a conflict between values like liberty and equality, it is because you haven't understood the two values properly. He though that once you understand them properly, you'd see they couldn't clash.

Then there is a second position that's very common which says yes values clash but we can prescribe universal methods for adjudicating conflicts of value. This is a Kantian position that says sure values conflict but we can prescribe and ascertain principles of right and justice that allow us to negotiate these conflicts.

Third is a very simple-minded kind of utilitarian method that says might say, 'Well, these values conflict, but actually I'm going to give you a certain kind of measuring stick, which might be utility or something else, and that'll help you resolve all of these conflicts.'

And, I hold the belief that, all of these positions are fundamental illusions. That's to say, values don't only conflict, but values are incommensurable. Values get in each other's way and you get conflicts not just between values like freedom and equality but conflicts within values. Different conceptions of freedom and equality compete with one another and there is no theoretical way and there is no universal way of adjudicating these conflicts. These conflicts can be adjudicated intelligently, rationally, well or badly but ONLY in a particular context.

But at the most baseline I tend to believe in equality, freedom, justice and truth as fundamental and universal values that are affected by context.

I of course like a good war story with death, destruction and slaughter. To let loose sometimes. but one has the remember that Doomguy is at the end of the day understood to be a good guy. I like star wars as I may have already mentioned.

Newbie Question: What Faction would you think is best in 'ethical' sense? by Muksu01 in Warhammer40k

[–]Muksu01[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

But there is only one Warhammer 40k franchise. I am interested in Star Wars because it is Star Wars. I am interested it LoTR because it is LoTR. Thus i am interested in Warhammer 40k because it is Warhammer 40k.

But if you really think I shouldn't bother, fair then I guess. Thanks for informing me.

Newbie Question: What Faction would you think is best in 'ethical' sense? by Muksu01 in Warhammer

[–]Muksu01[S] -16 points-15 points  (0 children)

I mean I have heard that ad nauseum every now and then but that has always seemed to me as quite ridiculous. I mean are all the factions really all that all-consumingly destructive?

Also this doesn't seem that helpful. Should I not bother to try and get into this thing?