Be a positive-scientistic physicalist and a utilitarian, Ayerian-neo-sentimentalist, absurdist like me.
You know you want to. 😁
What? How does the utilitarian, Ayerian-neo-sentimentalist absurdist thing work?
Well, I am not sure I am certain how it would work exactly, BUT here's a red hot try...
The felicific calculus is a bust, and so I am left with just 'optimise/maximise pleasure' and 'minimise suffering' (where the latter is a means to the end of the former Epicurean, hedonistic outcome). But how do I know what is a right-actiony and 'good' way to reduce suffering and maximise pleasure? Like Ayer I tend to think that propositions probably won't help me describe and quantify it - nor even give me any qualitative insights - and that's probably one of many reasons why the felicific calculus is a chubby no go.
So, I have Hume's observations about the sentiments of 'yay' versus 'boo' to fill the functional role of telling me what suffering is. That, coupled with Hume's other important view that we don't reason so much as emote. Of course, these don't seem to be terribly reliable ways of determining anything so allegedly important as morals and right action. (But at least I am not trying to pull Kantian transcendental good will out of my metaphysical patootie.)
So, one can see where the absurdism comes in, but that also doesn't seem to be a very good and intellectually satisfying way of rounding off a method of not being an awful person to be around. Therefore, I suggest the scientism is pretty important as a deployable deployable.
How?
Sam Harris is sort of effectively trying to make Kant into a naturalist, and although that's brave - it's chock full of the naturalistic fallacy and puts too much dependence upon evolved psychology. On the other hand, it does have the benefit of being nicely scientistic, and so that's a hint.
(In fact I have no idea what Sam Harris is trying to do, but in may experience Buddhists are very confused, and so I am just going to deploy more absurdism about it. Don't ask the fish about water.)
Loverly scientistic Hypothesis/posit: Suffering is whatever the sciences of evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, behavioural psychology, behavioural economics, social psychology, psychiatry, and social science manage to agree that it is.
It's also anything that makes the average me averaged with the average everyone else subjectively want to be diagnosed as a depressive and suicidal.
'Boo' to it, say Hume and Ayer and I all together in our little pea green boat.
Absurdism gets another look in because it's quite possible that strong metaphysical determinism is also true and was maybe true the whole time. (This might still hold if time is an illusion). Potentially bummerifically, then, however, it would also seem to follow that making meaning in accordance with Camus' views is both metaphysically determined to be necessary and metaphysically determined to be ridiculous. All at the same time.
Still. For moral-sounding imperatives it's better than 'My imaginary friend says you should' and the categorically arbitrary imperative.
The most important thing to keep in mind, however, is that if you're not a scientistic absurdist then the Flying Spaghetti Unicorn is going to have to smack your bottom in the dungeon of eternal fluffering.
You know that you definitely should believe this because I had a very realistic fever dream that Joseph Smith, Satan, the angel Gabriel, Buddha, Zoroaster, Ra, Rasputin, and Puff the Magic Dragon told me that the Flying Spaghetti Unicorn would make anyone denying their existence suffer in a jello hell that is totally a bazookillion times worse than anything that any theist's imaginary friend can throw you into.
Therefore, it obviously kind-of-sort-of necessarily logically follows - per Pascal's potty wager - that you had better believe in the Flying Spaghetti Unicorn too. Because the jello hell - although ensconced in a possible world that has a big fat k-distance value - makes hell look like a summer camp.
Therefore, I win.
I told you absurdism would save you.
Here's a nice AI absurdist rescue vehicle to make you feel better after reading that...
