Immoral Moral Philosophers

[BidenPresident]

“Of course it’s disappointing when anyone behaves badly. But it seems especially bad when an ethical thinker goes astray.” He agrees with this thought, but spends the post presenting and considering arguments against it, and instead for what he refers to as the “Schelerian separation between an ethicist’s teaching or writing and their personal behavior.”

(The idea is named for Max Scheler, an early 20th Century Catholic German ethicist who did not seem particularly troubled by the discrepancy between the ethics he taught and his “horrible personal behavior”.)

https://dailynous.com/2023/09/08/immoral-moral-philosophers/

 

[BidenPresident]

There's a story about Max Scheler, the famous early 20th century Catholic German ethicist. Scheler was known for his inspiring moral and religious reflections. He was also known for his horrible personal behavior, including multiple predatory sexual affairs with students, sufficiently serious that he was banned from teaching in Germany. When a distressed admirer asked about the apparent discrepancy, Scheler was reportedly untroubled, replying, "The sign that points to Boston doesn't have to go there."

https://schwitzsplinters.blogspot.com/2023/09/does-it-matter-if-ethicists-walk-walk.html

 

[Saint Guinefort]

That's an interesting view with regards to the "sign that points to Boston"...but it is still troubling to think that someone who is "pointing the way to ethics" would fail to follow his own teachings. Unless, of course, Scheler felt that those ethics were not worthy of following. Why would one teach ethics and be knowingly ethically compromised?

 

[evince]

Because he is a failure as a human being


Knowing about moral behavior doesn’t promise it in any individual

 

[Cypress]

I think it's why people tended to look with reverence on the Buddha, Confucious, Jesus, Ghandi, the Dalai Lama: they tended to walk the walk.

 

[BidenPresident]

I think it's why people tended to look with reverence on the Buddha, Confucious, Jesus, Ghandi, the Dalai Lama: they tended to walk the walk.

I find them boring and useless.

 

[Yakuda]

I find them boring and useless.

I find you retarded and wasting good oxygen.

 

[Cypress]

I think it's why people tended to look with reverence on the Buddha, Confucious, Jesus, Ghandi, the Dalai Lama: they tended to walk the walk.

I find them boring and useless.

That's okay.
But if the subject of your thread is the morality of moral philosophers, that list of people are generally believed to have walked the walk. I really don't think many people in the world are looking to Hagel, Nietzsche, Derrida, Satre as moral leaders.

 

[BidenPresident]

That's okay.
But if the subject of your thread is the morality of moral philosophers, that list of people are generally believed to have walked the walk. I really don't think many people in the world are looking to Hagel, Nietzsche, Derrida, Satre as moral leaders.

Derrida did not lecture about morality. Nietzsche called himself the anti-christ. Hegel wrote more about politics than on ethics.