Can People Truly Change? (& Ethics & Schopenhauer/Efilism Contrast)
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- Are the people who think people can fully change at any point in their lives simply naive?
I think so. But I'm open to hearing divergent opinions.
For Schopenhauer:
Everyone believes himself a priori to be perfectly free, even in his individual actions, and thinks that at every moment he can commence another manner of life. ... But a posteriori, through experience, he finds to his astonishment that he is not free, but subjected to necessity, that in spite of all his resolutions and reflections he does not change his conduct, and that from the beginning of his life to the end of it, he must carry out the very character which he himself condemns...
Every human has a unique way of reacting to motives. This is called a character. It is the nature of the individual will. Human character has four attributes.
Individual - Like intellectual capacity, each person's character is different. Acts can't be predicted by knowledge of motives alone. Knowledge of individual character is also required in order to predict how a person will act.
Empirical - The character of other people or oneself can only be known through experience. Only by seeing actual behavior in a situation can character be known.
Constant - Character does not change. It remains the same throughout life. This is presupposed whenever a person is evaluated as a result of their past actions. Given the same circumstances, what was done once will be done again. Behavior, however, can change when a character learns how to attain its goal through a different way of acting. The means change, but not the ends. This is the result of improved cognition or education.
Inborn - Characters are determined by nature, not by the environment. Two people who have been raised in exactly the same environment will exhibit different characters.
Virtue cannot be taught. The tendency toward good or evil is the result of inborn character.
Are two actions possible to a given person under given circumstances? No. Only one action is possible.
Since a person's character remains unchanged, if the circumstances of his life were unchanged, could his life have been different? No.
Everything that happens, happens necessarily.
Through that which we do, we find out what we are.
('On the Freedom of the Will': en.wikipedia.or...)
![Rick Roderick on Heidegger - The Rejection of Humanism [full length]](/img/n.gif)
Tranquil thx so much for this response. I do agree with Arthur about the two ways in which you can look at other humans...stupid or fellow sufferers. And the feelings that arise from those two would either be contempt...or compassion.
Exelent video and analyses.
Can people truly change. Hmm well I think some foundation of our personality is more or less stable but if I look at myself just fours years ago I think I have changed in many ways. So I think we are stable in some regards but more fluid in our life in other regards. Often I hear people in the 40's talking about how they where diffrent in there 20's but one can debate just as Schopenhauer said how much a person really can change or if it is just a change in motives
Fantastic, Etienne! Make more!
Very good clip, thanks!
Hi. The answer is yes. There are numerous examples from the medical history,
when a brain-damaged patient changes his personality and alters his character. Drug-induced chemicals can also do this.
I think efilism is under a disguise of rationality but is actually an emotional appeal. The argument is based on a feeling of pointlessness, without feeling it intuitively no amount of examples and argument can change it. I also don't think we have to take this all the way to the character of a person since empathetic people may still not feel a sense of hopelessness, and there have been made several arguments against efilism without being unempathetic.
''Of course you do.''
No, I do not. The notion of free will doesn't make any coherent sense to me. i) causality ii) quantum indeterminancy iii) a square shaped triangle? I know not what.
''I feel that I am free, but know that I am not''
My feelings are determined by what I know to be the case because my feelings include desires for this to be the case. I therefore don't feel that I am free. I just feel that I am ignorant of most of the variables that lead to my behaviour and thought processes.
Thanks. I can say that for myself as well. I think the point is still valid though, that there are new abstract motives that simply overwrite the previous ones, but the character remains unchanged. For Schop., humans are capable of deliberation in which a stronger abstract motive outweighs other motives & necessarily determines the will to act. For him, real moral reform is not at all possible, but only determent from the deed. The fear of punishment overrides in some cases the previous motive.
I´m sorry if I wasn´t clear. I´m not sure that the fact that there are bad/good characters implies that those characters may not change. They may, as far as I´m concerned.
Behaviours change, and maybe the core of the person may change too. This is shown in behavioural therapy for example. First they make you change your behaviours, and then your convictions change with time because of the change in your behavioural pattern (this is a simplistic explanation of course).
Thanks for the comment, Corey. It's good to hear from you. I took a long break from it myself as it does have that effect on me as well. Also, I feel like there is quite a difference between reading pessimistic philosophy rather than hearing it on UA-cam. The former causes me no issues.
You should respond or PM me your thoughts on this if you feel like it. I remember a video of yours where you brought up Epictetus' 'dichotomy of control', which hinted at a solution. I liked that video.
Thanks. I would like to do a video on philosophical pessimism after I'm done with my book, but I don't want to put any efforts into YT, so it wouldn't be much. I hate this place.
Maybe. Nonetheless, one can also claim that maybe it was the patient's life choices (therefore his Free Will) that lead to him being sick and damage his brain. This does not apply in all cases, because a brain-damaging accident may have had occurred in a case where it might have been impossible to avoid and prevent.
"My feelings are determined by what I know to be the case because my feelings include desires for this to be the case. I therefore don't feel that I am free."
If feelings really worked like this a repressed homosexual could turn straight.
I watched a bit of it, it was a good laugh. What kind of philosopher would say "but, I swear, this movie really changed me!!". He is so naive. The only reason he made this diatribe is in his ignorance of the psychological defense mechanism of sublimation. He doesn't understand that a person transforms certain "bad" impulses into acceptable ones but that this in no way is evidence of change in their very character. Compassion is not taught, and clearly Gary's character betrays his philosophy.
And even those changes are limited. A person can learn to be more knowledgeable and rational through education, but no matter the amount of education they will not be able to change their level of empathy and care for others. You do not teach a person to be kindhearted; it is inherently there or not.
'Virtue cannot be taught. The tendency toward good or evil is the result of inborn character.' - I disagree substantially with this statement. I recall vividly events from my childhood which caused me to 'learn ethical behavior' -- 'twas a sudden revelation that I had done wrong, and the knowledge of this, the learning, to be exact, changed who I was -- but, if there is anything that has been consistent in my character it's only that I regard my behavior with suspicion while many others do not.
(2) also just for the record, im totally on board with inmendham, i "believe" efilism is the best philosophy. i personally cannot understand how someone could want the world we live on to exist, for the numerous reasons discussed already by inmendham and others. it is totally an emotional thing for me, and the examples in life, the arguments on top, are simply fuel for the fire, not the fire itself. its not meant to be 100% rational and cold imo
I think character can perhaps be changed, but only under certain circumstances
Also, the effilist position of wiping out all life is not only a position they have arrived at through reason rather than compassion, it also seems heavily based on flawed reasoning, in the form of non-sequiters and non-logic in general
Good and well-spoken video
The brain-damaged patient did not change his personality, since he had absolutely no control over the changes that took place. It was not his own doing, but that of the brain damage he suffered. The claim here is that you cannot *will* to change your character, your character *is* a manifestation of unalterable will.
That's very interesting, thanks for your feedback. You see this is my point of view as well, but I get the feeling we're in the minority in the antinatalist camp.
n regards to change, I´m not sure if I agree that the character doesn´t change. I agree that there are bad ones and good ones (I hate this oversimplification of language, but how much can one write here?). Certainly behaviour can change, and that´s important to achieve.
I hope your family member gets better, take care.
I'm not sure I follow. You don't believe that, for example, an extremely goodhearted person can become very evil--or the opposite--but you believe character can change at the same time? Because if there are "bad ones and good ones" then you seem to agree with Arthur that characters are fixed and virtue can't be taught. Schop. did say that behavior could change but not the core of the person.
Thx for your wishes. He is very old, so we're hoping he's not leaving us just yet.
You don't think a person can come to regret actions he did as a youth, later in life? Many bullies, as adults deeply regret their actions as a youth, and are concerned with the damage they may have caused.
And the right ends justify whatever (pretty much) the means, right?
''Everyone believes himself a priori to be perfectly free''
Error. I do not.
Yes, it's two different things but that end up tying themselves together. If you do not have free will, and everything is dependent on the principle of sufficient reason (necessity, cause and effect) then your character evolves throughout your life just like anything else--from cause and effect only. It is not your own doing, *you* aren't changing it yourself. This leads us to the conclusion that we cannot change a person for the better, only circumstances in their lives will.
''As much as I am tired (and sick) of this topic''
Are you as sick as somebody in a palliative care hospital ward?
Ok. I guess I don't see the conflict with efilism or inmendham here.
Your feelings are the same as anybody else. You say "I" and you believe it. You don't understand that you are living a lie whenever you refer to a self that is an illusion. Everyone does the same. I'm sorry DE, but you really aren't that special. Your ignorance causes you to feel free even though you do know that you are not. No matter the thoughts you entertain, the illusory experience of agency is really all you have.
"To Live signifies to believe and hope - to lie and to lie to oneself."
I think you're talking about two very different things here:
One is about whether there is "free will". Inmendham would fully agree there is no free will.
The second thing, is whether our own actions, can lead to our character changing. I'd say yes. I can put myself in a circumstance (say a war), which will lead to changes in my character. But this has nothing to do with free will. Simply a chain of causes and effects.
Of course you do. You experience a freedom that is shown false a posteriori, that is all. You're simply playing on the word 'believe', but Schopenhauer did not write in English so who knows how it was initially worded. We know what is meant, and Cioran said it as such: "I feel that I am free, but know that I am not." Such is the case for all of us who know free will to be an illusion.
You are a frail human being with strong opinions, not an arbiter who gets to decide whose perception needs to be cleansed. I will not allow it on my comment page; you are in no way seeking to help with such comment but to demean. This place has enough drama as it is, go spread it elsewhere if you can't help yourself.
He certainly is suffering. That a person suffers doesn't give you more of a right to speak and act for them.
I would ask you to not comment on my videos if this is all you have to offer. This kind of guilt-tripping is completely unnecessary. And as a matter of fact, a member of my family is in the hospital at this very moment, and if he could tell you to go fuck yourself for speaking for him about the value of his life, he would.
I disagree with that. I find that when people understand other cultures better, when people are introduced to a culturally relativistic theoretical framework, their ability to empathize with people in general increases a lot, and not just with the culture studied. For the most part, people don't start out with an understanding of how differently other people can view the world, and that leads to a lot of misunderstanding and hostility, at least from my viewpoint.
But many people are not interested to know about other cultures and that's their nature I suppose. They have this view of them as inferior or whatever might be and nothing will change it no matter how many studies they have been introduced to. I really get what is Schopenhauer coming from; I have had pretty 'miserable' friends and I thought that they might be able to understand pessimism and then Anti-natalism, strangely they have never been able to say it's wrong to impose suffering or anything with similar meaning. They are compassionate for their family which is natural and nothing special about that. I don't believe when people say they agree with me on something especially irl, I can say that I have a friend who's now an Atheist Antinatalist because of me but I'm sure they are not. I wouldn't be surprised if they procreated or something.
umm lol
umm lol