Pessimists - What Keeps You Going?

[gveranon]

Quote Originally Posted by R.P.Dwyer

Still awaiting our resident pessimists reply to this: Maverick Philosopher: The View from Mount Zapffe: The Absurdity of Life and Intellectual Honesty

Not sure why you're trying to conduct a philosophical traffic stop in a thread that is about the personal matter of how individual members cope.

Malone gave the obvious resonse in the original thread:

Quote Originally Posted by Malone

As regards Zapffe, there's a disconnect between his absurdism and his ethics. If you truly believe the world to be absurd and all ethics to be contingent and local then there's no more imperative to prevent pain than there is to cause it. No one has established a timeless, universal morality and no one ever will.

Odd that you have ignored Malone's response while repeatedly demanding a response.

Maverick Philosopher's own position is theism, and if you're familiar with his blog you will probably remember that he has argued against the notion (held by some) that belief in God is rationally compulsory; instead he argues that belief in God is merely rationally defensible. I think the same is probably true of many philosophical world-views, including pessimism. One can rationally be a pessimist (there are obviously some grounds for it) without making overweening claims that the position must be held by any rational or honest person. Personally, I wish pessimism didn't seem as true to me as it does, but I wouldn't claim that it must necessarily seem true to every rational or honest person.

Has anyone in this thread based anything they have said on the particular contention of Zapffe's that Maverick Philosopher showed was self-contradictory? No. So step back, officer, and let the thread continue. Sheesh.