Frank Kogan

But your Rorty reminds me of the conversations I had this weekend with my friend Shawn about morality, philosophy, aesthetics, teenpop, religion, bad relationships, movies, and "the unique historical moment in which we, as a culture, no longer feel that there is necessarily any guiding force justifying our moral actions, yet now need to understand why we tell the stories that we still do tell ourselves -- recognizing them as stories and, at some level, as arbitrary stories based on semi-arbitrary impulses, needs, desires -- while simultaneously believing these stories enough to act upon them."

And his answer? We like the story and live by it anyway, so why not tell it while we try to figure it out some more?

I'm grossly paraphrasing, and maybe misrepresenting, but it was really exciting to see our intellectual paths intertwine again after he kinda went off the political philosophy deep end and I went off...uh, a different deep end.

One problem with philosophy is that it's asking us to take a step back and see Issues where the Issue itself is not really an issue unless we call it one. If we think of "dualism" or "morality" or "free will" as a Primary Issue and "the shit that happens as a result of what we're calling dualism etc." the Secondary Issue, what we've REALLY done is created a false "primary" issue because we assume there must be a discernible reason for this shit to happen. But we don't NEED a reason most of the time; we just do it because it's what we do, and philosophy is the only place where this becomes a "problem."

Ditto Leo Strauss and morality -- Strauss is suggesting the amoral role of the philosopher to act morally not because he's moral (according to some God Story), but because it is a prerequisite to "acting philosophically" (or something). But what Strauss is describing is impossible, and what he really seems to be arguing (according to Shawn) is "there is something about us [philosophers] that draws us to philosophy, to asking these questions, now let's forget about THAT 'something' compelling us and answer these questions, because this is what we, the philosophers, do. Everyone else can use God cuz they don't get it anyway and why make 'em try when it'll just get 'em all agitated?"

So now your problem (if you're Shawn and very attracted to Strauss's brain -- "I understand how he thinks!") is that this simply doesn't make any sense, no matter how much you can relate to it. It just doesn't work. One cannot act "amorally," one is moral according to how he/she acts -- we act because we're moral, we're moral because we act (sounds like a Lil' Mama lyric). We're interested in the first place because we notice that we act and that this acting is moral (duh), but "being interested" is also the ACT of being interested, hence is a moral action. It's inescapable -- but more importantly it's a moot point. OK, fine, there's some morality, now what the hell do we DO with it?

"We tell the story because we LIKE it." Well, yes. And we also have to. Because we just do, and there's nothing philosophy can do to describe or define this LIKE, all that STUFF. (Someone should write a book called STUFF.) We describe it ourselves. In part we describe it simply by doing it.

I hope this is even somewhat coherent, I've been thinking about it a lot but haven't been able to articulate my thoughts. Will reread your post and maybe actually respond to stuff you and Rorty wrote if I haven't already.