Mackie, Plato, and Beauty

Mackie argued that objective value (both moral and aesthetic) does not exist. His argument stems from the idea that if these values did exist they would  be so strange because they would supersede on other events and would be unlike any other property we know of.

This doesn't seem to be a conclusive argument. Plato contested that beauty was transcendental and 'visited' the world through different events and objects. This idealist view holds that there are universals and this is what we experience when we find beauty in different events and objects. It seems to me that this would be at least a consistent theory for objective values, which Mackie's argument does not discount.

(Just some quick notes in response to Mackie's Error Theory, Plato's Transcendentalism, and Roger Scruton)

Houses, houses, houses. Where is the sustainability?

In Britain, politicians seem to be talking about one thing: houses.

Apparently, we have a massive housing shortage in the UK at the moment and it only going to get worse because of our growing population.

Labour are talking about building new garden cities in the South East and the Conservatives are are thinking of giving bonuses to councils who build more houses.

However, there is a massive elephant in the room. We cannot keep building houses forever, as we will run out of country to build on.

We clearly need to build more houses, but when we do we really need to see more sustainable design being fundamental to the process.

Art and Context

I think that art can be different things.

You can see a painting or a sculpture and have an immediate emotional and/or intellectual response to it and you label it as art.

However, with more 'modern' art, if we saw it in the street, then we wouldn't perhaps consider it as art, but it can still be classified as such because context can give meaning to an otherwise everyday object. Hence, when people deride modern art as having no artistic value by citing examples in which people have mistaken water fountains or some other such thing in a museum as a piece of art (thus suggesting that people cannot tell the difference), they are wrong because the water fountain is not art....Wait maybe it is....What if the fountain was particularly beautiful? Then, one might say that it is a piece of art?...Are it's all subjective and vague!!

Happiness

I think for humans to be happy, we need to create meaning. Lack of meaning can make us unhappy. Creating gives us meaning and therefore creating can make us happy. If that be running a club, being part of a company, thinking of solutions to problems, teaching, or training....etc. I think creativity is key, or at least being able to see the fruits of your labour in full fruition. Isn't this what Marx is talking about when he talks of alienation?

Anyway, this meaning may be subjective, but it is all we can know. Camus pointed out that even if there was ultimate and objective meaning we could never know it, and the realisation of this absurd state of affairs could 'strike any man in the face on any street corner'. I like the idea that people can be walking around and then suddenly be struck in the face with a sudden sense of the meaningless of it all. I would hope their face would look something like this... http://www.reactiongifs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/imgur_9CUtI.gif

Honestly, though, I think this realisation can be quite freeing. If ever I'm feeling really tense about stuff I like to remind myself of how I am just a collection of atoms on a random rock in a universe that is bigger and older than I can even comprehend, and that my existence is a blip and eventually all of human history will be completely and inevitably destroyed forever (assuming a presentist theory of time) and the universe will continue just as it has always done. If I get this job or this grade or I sleep with this person or I go to Uruguay or go to the pub tonight or I tell someone what a dick they are or I buy this sandwich or I die tomorrow, ultimately and objectively it doesn't matter. It is all meaningless and realising this makes me feel calm and free.

My friend has a tattoo on his arm that reads, 'I too shall cease to be', which he says that he got to remind him of the very insignificance of his own existence and, as sayings on ones arms go, I think it is rather good. I once had a watch which had Sisyphus pushing a rock as a second hand, that served very much the same purpose.

I feel like I'm just writing what sounds like some airy-fairy pseudo philosophy, but I do honestly think the key to being happy as a human is to find subjective meaning through creating (or for want of a better word, a job - or actually maybe occupation is better, something to occupy yourself) and also through relationships with other people.

Friends and creative occupations. I believe this is the key.