@Leontion For some on the spectrum they do things that are the social norm that they have learnt not because it makes them feel good but because they have been taught that social norm. My student stopped telling teachers that they looked good not because he particularly wanted them to like him or to appease their feelings (he thought they were being silly about the whole thing) but because he accepted that the social norm was not to. It annoyed him to do the "expected thing" and people bug him when they don't follow his internal logic. The young man's sign could be the result (unfortunately) of being on the receiving end of bullies it would be interesting to find out why he believes you do not hit people.

As to being a pacifist I am definitely not I did Tae Kwon Do and Karate as a child/ teenager and stick fighting as a adult I love stick fighting. I am about to learn sword fighting. So using a physical method to deal with a problem was always available to me. However the masters I learnt under pointed out that it should always be the last resort used. Some days the phrase Stress is caused by the internal conflict of not slapping someone upside of the head when they richly deserve it applies so well. So as a child finding a way to solve a problem without resorting to physical was something I had to learn. That said I have never been in a true fight but have stood up to bullies and someone who was beating up a much smaller and younger child. His father was watching the fight and when I stepped in he said maybe it had gone on long enough, teenager me retorted with "Yeah because your son is about to have is ass whipped by a girl." my heart has never pounded so loudly or hard I was so scared but was not going to show it. The kid was head and shoulder taller than me, younger and probably faster. I was glad they backed down.

Interesting thoughts on where our ideas of right and wrong come from. I will break laws if I feel that it is in the greater good ie I have trespassed to collect two starving kittens from a porch balcony to get them to medical care. I would break the windows of a car to rescue an animal left in there to bake to death if it was visibly suffering. If not I would phone police and tell them. Could I say that rather than a pacifist I am an Avenger? If someone is suffering and can not change that then I will step in and do what I need to do to help them. Do I feel good about it probably but nine times out of ten I am scared while doing it. Feelings are so tied in with how we describe our interaction with the world that it is really difficult to define situations without a link to them.

So I guess I go back to ideals based on harming none as long as they are not harming anyone else.

@Leontion
Corruption and power aren’t ideas; they are force. I don’t buy the notion that force alone has held Epicureanism in check, the world over, for two millennia. Force is never that stable against ideas. But a useful psychotechnology is much harder to overthrow than physical might. Inventions like alphabets and mathematics for example, won’t be stuffed back in the bottle like Communism was, and like Corporate/Christo/Fascist Capitalism will be.

The fact that a lot of evil people (and a lot of innocent but ignorant people) have chosen to label themselves as Christian, is really only because it’s the most popular vehicle. But it’s the most popular vehicle because it originally offered a superior psychotechnology.

Homo sapiens’ secret superpower is our facility with metaphor. Christianity, and Buddhism before it, had already discovered a superior soteriology, and then they multiplied its effectiveness by embedding it in metaphor.

It could then be accessed by individuals at any level of development. That versatility is what gave Christianity its winning appeal. And if you’re going to corrupt something, you’re going to want to corrupt the winner, right? And so it was.

But it originally won by discovering and developing a superior psychotechnology. I’ve not studied Epicureanism and Stoicism deeply, and my impression might be wrong, but it appears to me their soteriology required constant, unending effort. It was an improvement over no soteriology. But Christianity and Buddhism had a soteriology that could reach the next level, namely a permanent, irreversible, and effortless state of bliss.

Probably only a relative few practitioners ever actually achieved it, but the mythology made unconscious inroads, and had a powerful, and useful, unifying effect.

But being actively invaded by corrupt forces wasn’t the only problem Christianity had. Its deepest message is one that is inherently nearly impossible to comprehend by any but the most persistent practitioners (that’s, incidentally, why “faith” plays such a prominent role). So that particular psychotechnology, under any brand name, is, by its own nature, exceedingly vulnerable to misinterpretation. So it will always be misunderstood by more people than grasp it properly. It remains, nonetheless, a magnitude greater technology.

Everything you dislike about Christianity, I dislike equally. But I will argue that none of what we dislike about it is authentic Christianity. I understand how outrageous that claim sounds, but for the persistent investigator, the evidence still sits there, laughing at us.

I have agreed with you from the start that pleasure holds the place you claim it does in the mechanics of motivation. I have never disputed that. My claim is that the knowledge of that fact does not, by itself, constitute a principle by which we can live the most ethical, and ironically, the most pleasurable, lives.

The alternative to simple pleasure-seeking is not a set of rigid rules to be followed, but, I would argue, a deeper understanding of human nature.

@Leontion
On gurus: There is no way to judge an authentic phenomenon by its imposters. And its imposters are going to be a lot easier to locate and study than the real thing.

You say: "Because I am saying that nothing can be recognized as ethical to begin with, minus feeling-- that the whole concept would never have emerged in humans, had we no pain or pleasure, and that fundamentally this is the way we really recognize what seems right and wrong, no matter what extra reasoning we may layer on top. And you disagree strongly with me on that point."
I'm not convinced we have understood each other fully yet on this issue. We could continue to work through it if we choose, or let it rest, but I don't think I disagree with what you think I disagree with. I think I just haven't communicated my view efficaciously yet.

The thing about psychotechnologies is that, in the beginning, only the elite initiates know how to use it; literacy, for example. But then a system of education is developed that eventually spreads through the entire population, until it is considered commonplace, instead of rare. This is what can, and needs to happen with enlightenment. I think it's teachable, and learnable by at least anyone who could, for example, pass a high school algebra class. Meditation isn't necessarily central, or even required at all for its accomplishment. Meditation wasn't even a big deal in Buddhism until about a hundred years ago. Trends and fashions come and go, but meditation was probably always the slow train to enlightenment. Liberation is nothing inherently mysterious or magical. It's just a fifth (optional) stage of Piagetian cognitive development. With this, as with all things, science retrieves it from the confusion of superstition, and makes it understandable and accessible.

@Leontion
I get accused of beating dead horses a lot, so I just wanted to make sure I'm not doing that. But if you're happy to go there, I'm happy to continue... as I am able to sort through it and figure out how to improve my communications.

Piaget did not, to my knowledge, describe a fifth stage, but it is my understanding that he did make some conjecture about one, and said, if it exists, it would be reached by an accumulation of knowledge. I can well see how the possibility of a fifth stage might attract all sorts of snake-oil salesmen looking for a ride on an established program, to legitimize their favorite woo project. And, although I'm not familiar with them, I don't doubt several serious researchers may also have proposed legitimate extensions of the Piaget scheme.

But I'm not talking, here, about anybody else's proposal. Nor am I trying to suggest Piaget himself would endorse my hypothesis. I'm just using the Piaget reference as an example of the kind of phenomenon it is more likely to be, instead of how we are accustomed to envisioning it in the supernatural box. There may be other schemes it might fit in, Erikson, etc. but it strikes me as most harmonious with Piaget, so that's the example I use. Just saying it's a natural human capacity, not magic.

I definitely see it more in terms of developmental sequences, or levels of complexity, rather than in moral hierarchies. I'm not interested in sticking any individual human in any category, any more than is unavoidable when talking about science. I am 100% a science guy, not a woo guy, or a moralist. My focus is not on the moral aspect, even though I realize there is a connection, however tangential or abstract it might be. My focus is virtually entirely on the liberation from suffering, and any moral implications would just be natural consequences of living a life free from suffering.

I understand and appreciate your insistence on treating every person as the real, and unique, living human being that they are. I couldn't agree more. It is exactly the kind of salvation from despair that I'm talking about.

@Leontion
All ethics is reducible to reward.
All reward is not reducible to ethics.

@Leontion
So pleasure alone is not a reliable identifier of virtue.

@Leontion
All reward is reducible to ethics?

@Leontion
I understand, and from the beginning I have agreed with you that reward is feeling.
So can you stand by the statement “All reward is reducible to ethics”?

@Leontion
Ok, maybe I misunderstood your intent. I thought you were inviting discussion. I don't need to press any further if that wasn't what you were looking for. I confess I don't have any idea how to engage something labeled philosophy (of any kind) if not by abstract debates over words. But I'd be happy to learn.

@Leontion
Ok, thanks.

@Leontion "If you had no feelings to enjoy survival with, why would it matter?"

Why assume that only feelings make life meaningful?
If some human society had evolved without feeling, I am quite sure they would develope some rationale as to why that is the normal default.

We are emotional beings because emotions allow communication in survival situations at a very rapid speed. If we hear a human scream, the emotions we feel instantly spark adrenalin.

I see this as assumptive.
"You could plan, etc, but you wouldn't enjoy any of it or care one way or another."

This seems to indicate that you think people on the spectrum are not fully human, because they may not experience emotions as you do. As emotive beings, we have a very wide spectrum of emotionality among us. For myself, I find it impossible to concieve, truly concieve/imagine, a world with no emotions.

Take a rare socipathic mind, which does not experience emotions. To such a human everything in life is whatever they want to make of it, and sometimes this leads them to be violent, or even monstrous. However studies show a lot of us have strong sociopathic tendancies, especially among the highly successful. They are able to easily compatmentalize emotions, if and when they have them, and that is also a survioval trait.

This does not follow to me.
"But what I'm saying is that you wouldn't have any reason to care about the outcomes"

If I did not experience anger and humiliation by being duped by a car salesman, it does not change the fact that I lost in the transaction and it had a real world effect to my income.
That alone is a reason to care about the outcomes.

How you feel about it is often secondary.

When you get a Cancer diagnosis, the Cancer does not care about you or what you think about it as it eats you. Your feelings about that cancer also have no import. Only your actions will.

I see emotions as an asset and a liability, depending on the circumstance.

I live my life by Ethics, Tempered with Empathy, which would not be possible without emotions. Emotions allow us to try and walk in the other persons mocassins. They are also directly responsible for a lot of human woes.

Emotions are a mixed bag.

@Leontion "lack of money or hunger or homelessness didn't cause you any pain"

Ever been hungry to the starvation point?
Ever been homeless?

Why would you figure that actual homelessness and actual hunger are of less import than how those states make you feel?
How you feel about starving is of more import than starving?

I did not say people had zero, I said people show a wide diversity, which you seem to want to disavow, because (I think) of how you feel about it.

"But whether a person wants to pursue treatment is guided by their feelings"
I hope the hell not "Gee, I like the red treatment not the blue treatment, to hell with what science or the doctor sys, I FEEL like red even if its less or ineffective."

I imagine some patients are like that, and many are not. Many actually look at all the evidence and evaluate that and then decide.

THIS
"Only the person deciding knows what their feelings are."
Is leading me to conclude that you are using the term feelings as a catch all for the entire thought process, to which feelings are an integral part.
YOU seem to be either lumping all thought under feelings or disavowing the rational choice you yourself describe as a rational process . . ."If chances are small but they rate their hope for cure as more potent pleasure than the side effects, then they choose treatment if they have the resources. If the treatment is highly likely to work but they assess the pain (physical or mental) to be worse than dying earlier, they decline treatment. This is what I observe happening over and over."
with the catch all "how they feel about it"--"Only the person deciding knows what their feelings are."

with thought discounted, only how they feel about it, as if their reason had no place at all, only their fear.

I already told you I cannot imagine a world without emotion because I am an emotive person. I just fail to put emotions on the pedestal you have, or we are miscommunicating over the term because your using it as a catch all to describe the totality of thought (which includes emotional content).

"try to imagine meaning without feeling"
Easy, gravity, light, electricity, and on and on.
How you feel about your car does not affect your car any more than your cancer, and your likely to feel little or nothing for most cars, unless they cannot get you to work.

I would agree with this with one minor addition . . .sometimes
"But when people say meaningful, in my experience they are including a positive feeling",

I often experience meaningful things with no emotion whatsoever, new discoveries in science are interesting and meaningful (full of meaning), but since I am not in that feild mean little to me and do not produce wonder or awe, but perhaps an "ah ha, that is how that bit o nature works!", not even a powerful feeling, or wondor moment, but juyst an acknowledgement of something.

Like when you learned to add, were you amazed, or just going yea I see how that works.

"To remove feeling from meaningful is to change it beyond recognition."
mean·ing·ful
1.having meaning:

How you feel about that meaning is another topic.

@Leontion Not alone, and not always, of a certainty I do not mean to say that.

I do mean to say you seem to have a notion that without emotions there is no life worth living.
On the one hand that seems exceedingly egocentric, as neither of us can accurately imagine a world without emotions.
On the other hand it seems to me to place emotions on a very high pedastal.

I can understnad your not wanting to converse and respect that decision,
I would like one fianl caveat, simply for posterity.

We view human emotions quite differently, most likely a result of life experience. I have no idea of yours, but in my own emotions are as oft a detriment to humanity as a boon.

Rage is an emotion which spills over in mass shooting spreading rage, fear, and grief to all the victims and their associate through wave effect, six degrees of seperaton.

Domination of others for the sensation of power is a human emotion too, leads to all kinds of horror and is the center peice of all rapes, domination and control.

Love is a human emotion which is one of the leading causes of murders in the world, love gone wrong, unrequited love and so on.

So when you say like would not be worth living without emotions, to me, you can only be thinking about the good ones, not terror, not fear, not rage or anger . . .
I see emotions as a mixed bag, an evolved survival trait. Thus we have empaty, compassion but also rage and murdrous love.

@Leontion Yes it does make a little more sense but there is a major difference in worldview between us.

"A wise person learns to choose actions that increase pleasure. The goal is pleasure."
Not for me it isn't.
That is hedonisim -- noun1. the pursuit of pleasure; sensual self-indulgence.

I think you mean well being and/or mutual well being.

To me the goal is set person to person, there is no absolute goal beyond survival and reproduction.

I do not think we can dismiss murderous love so simply.
"Murderous love IMO is an oxymoron-- that isn't love but possessiveness"
If two are in love, and one leaves the other for new love and is murdered for it, you can call it possessiviness, and maybe so, it could also be revenge or sheer rage produced by the victim by their betrayal of the murderer who reacted to betrayal with rage.
In every instance, possessiveness or rage, it is still emotionally driven.

Humans have very diverse reasoning, and emotions skew reason.

"so I would know instantly if it crept in" I am not so sure, as experiencing anothers emotive state as a color or taste or what have you is not the definition for synesthesia, which does not apply to emotions at all in my understanding, but sense responses, you hear blue and taste pink, that kind of thing; A blind man who sees scarlet when he hears a trumpet.
You are equating emotions to senses now, so I am not at all sure what your calling synesthesia matches my understanding of the condition.

Nor am I certain you would instantly know, because that is not the way emotons always work, we oft have complex layered emotions at the same time, and often people do not recognize their own frustration as rage, as the person next to them does.

Emotions need to be controlled, if they are not controlled we rapidly have social issues. If they were not a mixed bag we would have no need to keep a lease on our emotions would we?

@Leontion You define well being as a feeling too?

Well being--Definition of well-being
: the state of being happy,(an emotion)
healthy(no emotions here)
, or prosperous (no emotions here either)

I see well being as a composite, not an expression of how you feel about things.

I think you have a bias twoard feeling over thinking, when I see us as a balance of both. This is causing you to redefine terms to suit your emotive bias, and endlessly confusing to me.
Pleasure
"1: DESIRE, INCLINATION
wait upon his pleasure
— William Shakespeare
2: a state of gratification
3a: sensual gratification
b: frivolous amusement
4: a source of delight or joy"
Whereas YOU define it as "The word pleasure applies to all forms of desirable experience-- there are only two basic categories, despite all the nuances. Pleasure is not just sensory-- it can arise from thoughts, memories, etc. If you don't agree with that basic layout,
I DON"T
"then none of the rest of what I'm saying will make any sense."

AND it does not, seems like a huge bias to me.

Have a nice day

@Leontion
Asking is often not a reliable way to learn how another person feels. There may be many reasons why they might not disclose their true feelings, one of which might be that they don't even know, themselves. Also, we make decisions all the time that will affect people we will never meet or have a chance to ask about their feelings.

Just as our reasoning is ultimately motivated by our feelings, our feelings change according to our knowledge and reasoning. So rather than a hierarchical relationship there, I see an interdependent one.

One of the central lessons from science, we know, is that a lot of truth is counterintuitive. So as we feed our knowledge base, and build a more reasoned worldview, what pleases us is constantly evolving as a result of those changes. So I would be hard pressed to name a chicken or an egg in this relationship.

How can we say that pleasure is more important than reason when reason is capable of changing what pleases us? How are they not an interdependent pair?

@Leontion - I'm not sure why pleasure has to be a factor in the argument. Well-being may afford or even supply one with some degree of pleasure, depending on the circumstances, but I honestly don't see the purpose of the connection you're trying to make.

I think "well-being" is a straightforward concept. By it, I mean what most mental health professionals mean: Health. Happiness. Peace of mind. Feeling as if you have your needs met. Feeling safe & secure. Fulfilled, even if temporary. The optimal condition of one's feeling of satisfaction.

Though they might be pleasurable at times or even most of the time, none of those necessarily have to be synonymous with pleasure.

@Leontion - Ok, I get your meaning, now that you've updated your argument. I don't see anything unreasonable with it. I don't think you took my meaning as intended, though. I haven't suggested, as far as I can tell, that feelings aren't a prime motivator. I was just bothered with this idea of "pleasure" as a means to the end product. That seems like an overrated rabbit hole. Our feelings are way more complex than that, which you acknowledged by suggesting pain as a factor. I will go you one better: fear.

I'll bet you fear is one of the most significant factors in determining whether or not someone decides to believe in magical sky captains, even when they know there is no evidence for such things.

I also wanted to make the case that feelings marry beautifully with rationality and reason in terms of doing what is necessary to keep the organism alive and functioning, and that reason can step in even when feelings fail us. That goodness I am not ruled entirely by my emotions, or what a mess I'd make of things.

@Leontion I want to ask as you remarked about survival still being contingent on feeling how is happiness any different? in and of itself how does happiness have some value? why is happiness what good and bad add up too. I feel like I'm missing the point.

@Leontion I think I follow, perhaps, maybe, there's a chance, it could rain. you are saying feelings, good or bad, are the result of pleasure and/or pain.

@Leontion a Curious Thing..... looking up and down this thread I don't see much discussion about language. it seems that language would be used to identify and designate some experiences, feelings, and in doing so characterize the pleasure or the pain to some degree. would the rationalities in language count as something that affects what is good or bad or perhaps how something is good or bad?

@Leontion "ball" once the child has learned the word for the object, a different set of feelings could be created compared to experiencing the actual object. I'm not saying feelings aren't involved or even the primary element in the experience, I'm just considering that the language around an experience can shape it. and in some way is therefore responsible for the nature of the feeling and thus the way it establishes morality. the feeling without language cannot form any kind of Morality In the social contract. perhaps this is a stretch.

@Leontion I might say, again I might say, a feeling without the language to fit into the context of other feelings has no basis to create some value.

@Leontion turquoise would be like the Happy Blues. I'm feeling kind of off yellow. I'm going to have to marinate on this some more....

@Leontion
"...they would likely not include wanting those who harmed them to be happy, unlike some religious people"

Does your personal philosophy align with this particular Epicurean point?

@Leontion
What do you suppose the religious motivation is for being more inclusive of those who have harmed them?