You’re even scarier than my Christian teacher—I managed to make him stop targeting me using nothing but logic.
Uh, to be honest, I don’t know much about philosophy; I’ve only recently started taking an interest in it and have formed my own views as a result of an existential crisis.
The point of philosophy here is simply to examine whether a position is coherent and logically defensible. If your view is consistent, it will survive scrutiny; if it is not, then the contradictions become visible. Of course, it is not easy to craft a perfectly consistent worldview, as we are fallible beings, but we can strive to do our best — this is the principle behind reflective equilibrium in morality, though you are denying the realism of its normativity. Ultimately, existential reflection alone does not guarantee that the conclusions we reach are philosophically consistent. That is why examining the assumptions behind our claims is necessary.
I use language because it is the only tool the human brain possesses to convey information. Clearly, language is merely a biological signaling system; just as monkeys vocalize to communicate, it follows the laws of physical causality to serve the purposes of survival and reproduction—not because I believe in any particular philosophical value system.
The issue is that even if language emerged biologically, communication still presupposes norms of meaning and truth. For communication to work at all, words must refer to stable meanings, statements must be capable of being true or false, and participants must assume shared rules of interpretation. If language were merely a causal signal without epistemic norms, then the distinction between true statements and random noises would collapse. Yet your argument clearly depends on that distinction, because you are attempting to convey a truth claim about reality. The point is that using language to assert truths already presupposes epistemological structure.
A medium like language still adheres to basic logical laws. Therefore, my use of sectarian language to argue does not imply that I acknowledge the existence of a transcendent value system such as morality, religion, or meanings defined by a cult.
I never made the claim that logic proves the existence of morality. The point is that logical reasoning itself presupposes normative rules such as: contradictions cannot both be true, valid inference should be followed, true premises lead to true conclusions. These are normative rules about how reasoning ought to proceed. They are not simply physical events in the brain; they are standards governing correct reasoning. Thus, when you appeal to logic, you implicitly accept that some standards of reasoning are objectively binding. The rule is normative, and not a fact of what is, since it guides us to reason in a certain manner — such as we ought to treat inductive reasoning as reliable.
Logic is an objective linguistic system discovered by humans, just like 1+1=2 and words having meaning. It is neither good nor bad, and it does not prove the existence of a standard truth, such as humans having some purpose in life that transcends the instinct of reproduction.
I agree with you that logic alone is insufficient to prove a cosmic purpose; your argument, however, makes a claim much stronger than that, as you are not merely rejecting purpose, but claiming that morality, meaning, and normative structures are illusions. Yet logic and mathematics are themselves normative systems that serve to govern truth and validity, hence, if you accept them as objectively binding, you already accept that some non-biological normative structures exist. Otherwise, logic would simply be neurons firing randomly, not a standard of correct reasoning.
Similarly, using mathematics to calculate debt does not mean you acknowledge the banking system as correct or ethical.
This analogy misses the point. Mathematics is not just a tool which is used within the banking system, since it is the fundamental framework that determines whether the calculations themselves are correct. One can reject banks ethically, but he cannot reject arithmetic while simultaneously using it to prove something. If arithmetic were meaningless, the calculation itself would be meaningless as well by necessity. This is exactly the problem in your argument, since you are using logic to argue that normative systems are illusions, but the validity of that argument depends on logical norms being real and binding, as normativity is indispensable to our deliberation.
A logically sound argument does not make its conclusion morally correct or worth pursuing. I’m just using a bit of counter-argument against morality—what’s wrong with using logic?
A logically sound argument still relies on normative presupposition, such as what we ought to value as logically sound, and what should be our standard for truth.
No, I don’t mean that reproduction is a moral imperative. Like my old teacher, who would force the concept of morality into every argument just to refute me.
That clarification helps. However, a different problem remains.
Reproduction is the essence of life; it has nothing to do with morality.
if you claim reproduction is the essence of life, you must justify why that property is metaphysically privileged over other biological traits. Otherwise the statement becomes an unsupported assertion rather than an objective fact.
Nature is completely mindless and devoid of morality; it is not some metaphysical judge. Nature operates solely on the laws of cause and effect and natural selection. If you do not reproduce, your genes will disappear.
That's a descriptive claim which is correct, but the leap occurs when you move from a descriptive biological fact to a philosophical conclusion about meaning and value. This is a classic version of the is–ought problem. From the fact that reproduction occurs in nature, it does not follow that reproduction is the only meaningful feature of life. Nature also contains extinction, disease, parasitism, suffering, etc. If we treated natural processes themselves as the standard for meaning, then all of those phenomena would be equally meaningful, which is a repugnant conclusion that undermines reproduction itself.
I am simply restating an objective reality: every living being that exists today is the result of reproduction. Anything that hinders this process (such as illusions of morality, meaning, or sacrifice for the group...) are parasites that prevent some people from living out their destiny as living beings, especially us incels; as you can see, I have no intention of justifying any moral framework.
Do you notice how antithetical the language you are using is? You previously argued that morality does not exist and that nature has no normative authority. Yet here you introduce normative language: “parasites," "destiny," "prevent people from living properly."
Those are value judgments, not neutral biological descriptions. So even while denying moral or normative frameworks, you are reintroducing them implicitly through your language. You cannot deny normativity, and then repeatedly argue in the normative domain; it is a performative contradiction. You either embrace nihilism completely and accept having no stake about what ought to be done, or you justify the normative position you hold without appealing to naturalistic justifications.
I’m not judging you or anything; I just think you’re being manipulated by the cult’s illusions. Just like everyone else, as I see it, you’re simply rationalizing the emotions and the sect’s rules that have been drilled into you since childhood, and thus you’re only deceiving yourself into believing that it’s your own free choice; just as I live in a communist country where materialism has been drilled into me since childhood, it’s hard to break free from the beliefs I’ve accepted since I was young. In my experience, reason does not create morality, and morality cannot exist without reference to a cult (as any group of people).
Claiming someone is manipulated already assumes that truth exists, false beliefs exist, and that rational independence is preferable to manipulation. These are all epistemic and normative assumptions. Without these normative truths, the concept of “manipulation” would be meaningless, thus making the statement about it empty.
Also, the last part of your reply here is more of a claim about the origin of morality, but I would say that even if moral systems have developed historically within groups, that does not necessarily prove that moral reasoning itself is invalid. Mathematics and much of our epistemic normativity have also developed within cultures, yet the truth-value of these are not merely cultural illusions. The real question is whether moral propositions can be justified rationally (as well as what counts as a satisfactory justification), not merely where moral traditions historically originate.
I don't necessarily disagree with some of the things you said, especially the value of reproduction, as the continuation of qualia is highly important, and is a fundamental part of eudaimonia. Of course, this cannot be seen as a sole good, since that would be nonsensical and self-undermining, as it is more of a principle within a larger moral framework. It would simply be better for you to accept you are a normative realist instead of contradicting yourself.
