Presents the author’s view of the best current positions on certain core philosophical and psychological problems. These positions together suggest a skeptical or nihilist perspective modified by evolutionary psychology and contemporary philosophy that embraces our desire to live as best we can and the relative and psychological reality of values, free will and other phenomena while recognizing limitations on their foundations and our understanding. Readers may want to start with the first entry. - Marc Krellenstein (personal info here)
The existentialist accepts nihilism but aims to counter it with acts of will and choice, creating value where none exists to start. This may be a good strategy for a nihilist to try to live by, though what will work for one may not for another. More significantly, a modern nihilism forces us in the end to reject the claim that the existentialist can necessarily create value in more than a personal sense through acts of will…some may experience that, others not…and these acts will not necessarily persuade others of the value of a particular course of action.
As a practical matter, we have deep-rooted beliefs, or at least deeply felt emotions about what we want or believe is or isn’t acceptable even if we can’t offer completely convincing explanations to ourselves or others and don’t view them as absolutes. Personal values — the values we have and adopt even if we can’t consider them absolute — play a significant role in living the life we do. To the extent we examine our beliefs (and we may not very much or at all) we may adopt a pragmatic viewpoint, accepting certain things as quasi-foundational. We then reason (or more often rationalize after the fact, if Haidt is correct) from such beliefs as we have and towards such goals as we have and choose (to the extent we choose them). We choose to be with others with similar values…or to express ourselves…or value others…or maximize our sensual pleasures (or, more commonly, some combination of these and others) and perhaps we choose some of these because, for us, there really is no other choice…or some choices work better for us even if we can’t ground that choice in anything beyond dispute. Some things we do because of temperament and/or because we were raised that way (learning morality has been likened to learning a particular language: a natural proclivity is elaborated with a certain set of rules, but the specifics can vary…no one rule is absolutely right any more than one language is) — and choose to so raise others (or just fall into doing so) — or there was another reason we did them initially but they become habitual (and habits are extremely useful time and effort savers). The psychology of ‘functional autonomy’ suggests that whatever is habitual may become valued in its own right. We come to accept, or not, the absence of clear foundations and the limitations in our understanding.