I think you are confusing 'ought' with 'is' a little bit.
There are two ways one can use the word 'cynicism', and it bothers me how people confuse the two. There's cynicism as in seeing the world as an amoral, unjust place where there is no omnibenevolent God or karma or whatever. And then there's cynicism as in acting unjustly yourself.
One doesn't necessarily imply the other.
Also, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, so you can definitely have empathy and still support bad things. Although, I would say that would make you a misguided good person, rather than an evil person.
Also, why is it called "Honesty-Humility"? Sometimes being humble might require being untruthful about yourself.
I'm only trying to use the word cynicism in the first sense. Do you think that someone who has "an attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others" has a good or virtuous attitude? If we want to speak of a good or virtuous person, would we not in a generic sense be speaking of someone who has virtuous perspectives? It's OK with me if you answer no...
...But on the other hand, there's plenty of research establishing that cynical people really do behave less morally than others as well.
> Also, why is it called "Honesty-Humility"? Sometimes being humble might require being untruthful about yourself.
>Do you think that someone who has "an attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others" has a good or virtuous attitude?
If a "good or virtuous attitude" means a desire to act kindly and justly towards others, then we cannot say. Maybe yes, maybe no.
>If we want to speak of a good or virtuous person, would we not in a generic sense be speaking of someone who has virtuous perspectives?
What is a "virtuous perspective"?
>But on the other hand, there's plenty of research establishing that cynical people really do behave less morally than others as well.
That is an empirical question, not a logical one.
This might sound like I'm being overly logical, but I think this distinction is actually important. We need to keep in mind that even if the world is amoral, that doesn't justify acting that way. Because it may turn out that the world actually is amoral, and if we don't keep what I said in mind, things would be even worse.
I'm looking carefully at what you wrote, and I can tell I don't really agree with you, but I'm not sure where exactly.
> > But on the other hand, there's plenty of research establishing that cynical people really do behave less morally than others as well.
> That is an empirical question, not a logical one.
Yes, and I am all about empiricism whenever possible. Logic and rationality can be very useful, especially when empirical options are limited, but there is a large body of research establishing that cynicism goes along with other behaviors that are generally referred to as immoral behavior.
I'm all set to give you a bunch of studies establishing this, because that's sort of the thing I do, but I'm not really sure this is what we disagree about. It may instead be this:
> We need to keep in mind that even if the world is amoral, that doesn't justify acting that way. Because it may turn out that the world actually is amoral, and if we don't keep what I said in mind, things would be even worse.
If morality doesn't exist, then why wouldn't it be OK to behave amorally?
the interesting place make me think about the narcissists i have known with very empathic agreeable and humble-to-a-fault partners, (a pathological complementarity), who still went off as flying monkeys to attack and harass the 'dis-loyal' ones. (Using narcissist survivor terms here). This is an interesting social ecology example of a possible pathway, of how an outcome of the urge to moralise and group together and should, in agreeableness, can end up as hierarchical structures called religions, and subsequently then the name for those structure is use to label the experience (and thus corral or colonise it) which then people inquire into as 'religiosity' --
Narcissism Predicts Support for Hierarchy (At Least When Narcissists Think They Can Rise to the Top)
I think you can be moral without being humble and agreeable. Those traits, like you suggest, probably predict submission to hierarchy more than morality. It's important not to confuse the two.
And (emotional) empathy is not strictly necessary either since sympathy also exists, although it probably helps.
In the last hundred years the words for morality and ethics have diverged in usage/meaning. They are the Latin & Greek for the same concept of community/polis/city social building & social maintenance work. But in recent generations we tend to use morality for top-down forms, while using ethics for individual conscience worrying. So "I think you can be moral without being humble and agreeable. " makes sense in this framework. (( some people say it is the other way around mind)) (I agree with you more). I just further argue that both top-down (moral) and conscience worrying (ethics) arise from the same urge, and that evolution selects individuals with that urge, and not the details or outcomes (aspect of a morality or ethics) we live by.
I think you are confusing 'ought' with 'is' a little bit.
There are two ways one can use the word 'cynicism', and it bothers me how people confuse the two. There's cynicism as in seeing the world as an amoral, unjust place where there is no omnibenevolent God or karma or whatever. And then there's cynicism as in acting unjustly yourself.
One doesn't necessarily imply the other.
Also, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, so you can definitely have empathy and still support bad things. Although, I would say that would make you a misguided good person, rather than an evil person.
Also, why is it called "Honesty-Humility"? Sometimes being humble might require being untruthful about yourself.
> One doesn't necessarily imply the other.
I'm only trying to use the word cynicism in the first sense. Do you think that someone who has "an attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others" has a good or virtuous attitude? If we want to speak of a good or virtuous person, would we not in a generic sense be speaking of someone who has virtuous perspectives? It's OK with me if you answer no...
...But on the other hand, there's plenty of research establishing that cynical people really do behave less morally than others as well.
> Also, why is it called "Honesty-Humility"? Sometimes being humble might require being untruthful about yourself.
I agree! It might help if you check out an earlier piece: https://thingstoread.substack.com/p/the-big-five-is-incomplete
>Do you think that someone who has "an attitude of scornful or jaded negativity, especially a general distrust of the integrity or professed motives of others" has a good or virtuous attitude?
If a "good or virtuous attitude" means a desire to act kindly and justly towards others, then we cannot say. Maybe yes, maybe no.
>If we want to speak of a good or virtuous person, would we not in a generic sense be speaking of someone who has virtuous perspectives?
What is a "virtuous perspective"?
>But on the other hand, there's plenty of research establishing that cynical people really do behave less morally than others as well.
That is an empirical question, not a logical one.
This might sound like I'm being overly logical, but I think this distinction is actually important. We need to keep in mind that even if the world is amoral, that doesn't justify acting that way. Because it may turn out that the world actually is amoral, and if we don't keep what I said in mind, things would be even worse.
Ethics does not depend on delusion.
I'm looking carefully at what you wrote, and I can tell I don't really agree with you, but I'm not sure where exactly.
> > But on the other hand, there's plenty of research establishing that cynical people really do behave less morally than others as well.
> That is an empirical question, not a logical one.
Yes, and I am all about empiricism whenever possible. Logic and rationality can be very useful, especially when empirical options are limited, but there is a large body of research establishing that cynicism goes along with other behaviors that are generally referred to as immoral behavior.
I'm all set to give you a bunch of studies establishing this, because that's sort of the thing I do, but I'm not really sure this is what we disagree about. It may instead be this:
> We need to keep in mind that even if the world is amoral, that doesn't justify acting that way. Because it may turn out that the world actually is amoral, and if we don't keep what I said in mind, things would be even worse.
If morality doesn't exist, then why wouldn't it be OK to behave amorally?
the interesting place make me think about the narcissists i have known with very empathic agreeable and humble-to-a-fault partners, (a pathological complementarity), who still went off as flying monkeys to attack and harass the 'dis-loyal' ones. (Using narcissist survivor terms here). This is an interesting social ecology example of a possible pathway, of how an outcome of the urge to moralise and group together and should, in agreeableness, can end up as hierarchical structures called religions, and subsequently then the name for those structure is use to label the experience (and thus corral or colonise it) which then people inquire into as 'religiosity' --
Narcissism Predicts Support for Hierarchy (At Least When Narcissists Think They Can Rise to the Top)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1948550616649241
I think we need a new word/framework.
I think you can be moral without being humble and agreeable. Those traits, like you suggest, probably predict submission to hierarchy more than morality. It's important not to confuse the two.
And (emotional) empathy is not strictly necessary either since sympathy also exists, although it probably helps.
In the last hundred years the words for morality and ethics have diverged in usage/meaning. They are the Latin & Greek for the same concept of community/polis/city social building & social maintenance work. But in recent generations we tend to use morality for top-down forms, while using ethics for individual conscience worrying. So "I think you can be moral without being humble and agreeable. " makes sense in this framework. (( some people say it is the other way around mind)) (I agree with you more). I just further argue that both top-down (moral) and conscience worrying (ethics) arise from the same urge, and that evolution selects individuals with that urge, and not the details or outcomes (aspect of a morality or ethics) we live by.