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I bet you've heard the phrase "living well is the best revenge." I think it's also the best argument. There are so many ideas, or larger schemas, that are alluring in abstract. See: every teenager's politics. But far fewer paradigms are actually effective in practice. (Granted, which ones work does vary somewhat based on the local circumstances / environment.)
Living out one's ideals is a costly signal of sincerity, and achieving success and happiness by doing so is the least refutable argument. This is a big reason why religion is so persistent despite sounding batshit crazy from the outside — and I say this as a religious person. The philosophy makes sense once you fit yourself inside of it, but the incentive to attempt that in the first place, despite the context of a secular overculture, is that religious people are more likely to thrive.
Anyway, my question is, why don't more culture warriors pursue this path, of exemplifying why their chosen philosophy is good? Am I wrong that it's the most convincing way to advocate for one's ideals? Or maybe everyone is indeed trying to do this, and most just don't seem very effective from my particular vantage point / vis-a-vis my conception of the good life? Perhaps it's a selection effect where people who deeply care about what everyone else is doing are less likely to be happy, point blank, so anyone discernible as a culture warrior is already precluded from "living well is the best argument" unless they learn to give less of a shit in general.
Edit: Apologies for not responding individually, this ended up getting more responses than I expected. But I appreciate you all and am pondering your points!
I disagree. Because at the end of the day, your integrity is one of the few things you can actually control. You are proposing that you would give that up, for what? Some stupid grad school? Seriously, who the fuck cares? You aren't going to be actually worse off because of it, you aren't going to have opportunities denied because of it, it just plain and simple doesn't matter in the end.
Bro, if you're miserable and struggling in life I don't know why you think cheating in school would have changed that. You realize that most people who don't cheat in school prosper just fine, right? Maybe you got dealt a bad hand in other ways, maybe you just haven't correctly capitalized on the opportunities you have had, IDK. But it's almost certainly not the case that if you had cheated in school things would magically have worked out better for you.
Also, you're asking the wrong question. Even if you had somehow prospered by cheating (unlikely), and even if you had gotten all the things you think it would've gotten you, that would be a horrible outcome. Because then you would have compromised your integrity, which is far more valuable than any material gains ever could be. So the real question is, and what would those material things have brought you? Nothing worth having, if it comes at the cost of your integrity.
There's plenty of potential reasons?
The most obvious being that he might have been on the bubble in his degree and cheating could have given him the marginal boost he needed..
"Things" in some totalizing sense, maybe not. Central life moments? Maybe yes.
I mean, for someone who criticizes the OP for making bad or unbacked claims about how things would work out...you seem to be making one yourself.
I find this far more unintuitive and convenient than OP's assumptions.
People violate ethics all the time and prosper. There's no evidence that pristine integrity is actually of some overriding practical value (or morality would just be pragmatism)
In fact, if anything, life is about knowing which ethical lapses to accept (often those that burden strangers rather than the in-group)
Nobody ever said it was. But it is valuable, and it's more valuable than anything practical can offer. Your character is the one thing that nothing can ever take away from you. Material possessions come and go, social status comes and goes, even health comes and goes. But your moral character is always exactly what you make of it, nothing more or less. That makes it far more valuable than those other things.
I don't disdain "things", because they are indeed pleasant. But I don't trade my character for them either, because that would be a very poor trade.
This is core Stoic philosophy. It has an ancient pedigree and I suspect it is wisdom.
Yeah, basically. I would say it's also rooted in Christian morality too, but Stoicism has been a big influence on me the last couple of years. I think that their ethics make a lot of sense and am trying to live up to them.
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Would you make that same choice in a brutal job market and with an uncertain future? It's easy to talk lofty words with food on the table.
I don't even disagree with you but I really don't see how integrity is worth the heavy price of stagnated career growth or closing some doors permanently when no one else gives two flying fucks.
@SubstantialFrivolity has blocked me for suggesting that his worldview is rigidly deontological because it is essentially non-materialist. He has denied my conjecture but did not elaborate. I maintain that under the assumption that the material reality is merely testing grounds for «character», his model is optimal and rational.
…under materialist(ic) assumptions I provisionally share, not so much.
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I mean, yeah I would. I value my honor above having a job, even if it means I am going hungry.
But part of my point here is that @SaruchBinoza is most likely wrong in his assessment that he has paid such a heavy price for not cheating. Most people who don't cheat do just fine. Therefore, if you're struggling odds are that it's something else that caused your struggle. Saying "if I had cheated I wouldn't be suffering now" is comforting I'm sure, but I don't for a moment think it's true.
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