Life is immoral?
I feel that any moral system or ethical research methodology will reveal that life is generally immoral.
For example from a utilitarian perspective I think harm will always outweigh pleasure.
From a virtue ethics perspective I think human character can easily be called into question especially using historical data so that humans will be shown to be not virtuous.
I don't think deontology can survive for various reasons but mainly because we do not have valid source of moral laws but also if there were objective moral rules I think they are often transgressed.
Things that also count against a moral world include the proliferation of weapons, inability to consent to being born that makes procreation an act of force, persistent limitations on freedom, persistent inequality, poverty and exploitation. and natural evils like predation and disease.
Can anyone think of a perspective that makes life/reality or the world a moral and desirable state of affairs?
For example from a utilitarian perspective I think harm will always outweigh pleasure.
From a virtue ethics perspective I think human character can easily be called into question especially using historical data so that humans will be shown to be not virtuous.
I don't think deontology can survive for various reasons but mainly because we do not have valid source of moral laws but also if there were objective moral rules I think they are often transgressed.
Things that also count against a moral world include the proliferation of weapons, inability to consent to being born that makes procreation an act of force, persistent limitations on freedom, persistent inequality, poverty and exploitation. and natural evils like predation and disease.
Can anyone think of a perspective that makes life/reality or the world a moral and desirable state of affairs?
Comments (151)
So for example someone might find pleasure from reading romantic fiction where the story has an idyllic outcome and they might also aspire to be in such a scenario but their reality may never be that.
I did this kind of thing as a child where I was kept positive by hope until reality became too much to be combated by hope
But I feel it is probably best to confront how life is actually is as accurately as possible in order to improve it. (That is not to say that we might be wrong in some of our negative appraisals.)
I'm not clear what this means. If everything was as it ought to be, there would be no gap between ought and is, and thus no use for moral talk. But you seem to want to say that nothing is as it ought to be, and further that nothing ought to be at all. Odd.
I think you can have a world or a life that is good or quite good but with room for improvement. Anyway isn't that ultimate goal of morality for people to be moral.
We want to eradicate murder but keep the commandment "Thou shalt not kill."
So you could have a near perfect society and still have moral rules about unacceptable behavior even if these rules were rarely broken.
I am looking for a justification for claiming life or reality is a good.I want to be wrong in my conclusion
that it is immoral/amoral
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Considering you said generally I'm assuming there's room for morality in human existence, meaning it cannot be fundamentally immoral, even if the immoral outweighs the moral.
We are social animals and we depend on each other to succeed. Division of labour etc... So we have an inbuilt interest in caring for each other. I believe humans are fundamentally good because good is the most logical position to adopt. There is some simple math behind good and evil (which is covered here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4395/defining-good-and-evil/p1) and good is mathematically better.
If only we could extend the care for one another attitude to the animals; as the dominant species on the planet we are running a prison camp where the prisoners (animals) are killed and eaton. Not cool. If anyone else finds out about what we are doing here on earth we could be in trouble.
I wonder why you want to judge the world, instead of living in it? So, in answer to your question, a non-judgemental perspective is what you're after, by the sound of it.
How do you explain humans history of of war, and slavery and genocide?
How can death be a positive.
All organisms die.
Animals in the wild die of things like being eaten, starvation, the weather, malnutrition and injury.
For example the most common cause of death for deer in North America is starvation
It is not mutually exclusive that you either live in the world or assess its value.
I think at the very least we should try and improve life as much as possible (or that is my personal preference.)
I am a supporter of truth and authenticity and what concerns me is whether life is being represented truthfully and authentically or not.
I think we are very immature as a race. Historically though things are heading in the right direction. We have not had another world war. Human rights have improved. Slavery is mostly gone. We are evolving towards perfection.
I did not say death was positive; it's just a requirement for evolution to function (as I believe God intended) and it may not be the end of the world. Death is the start of life in the Eternal Return belief.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
I view us as shepherd's of the planet. First we need to help ourselves (the human race) but then we need to help others (the animals). At the moment, we are the worst carnivores on the planet. We should all switch to a vegetarian diet. Once there is sufficient food for the human race, we can turn our minds to providing for the animals.
As for carnivorous animals; I think we should cull them all. Any overpopulation problems can be dealt with via chemical neutering of the offending species.
Wouldn't it be better to feed them ourselves rather than make them extinct. Scientists have successfully grown meat in a lab.
I don't think you can manufacture a Disneyland Nature that is what I said earlier about fantasy. Fantasy allows us to inhabit what is not really the case.
Also herbivores can cause death as well. Herbivores can be very aggressive. Not all aggression involves eating meat. Herbivores also compete with each other and will damage their environment.
I don't think you can have a morality that is based on Good versus evil with no shades of grey.
Slavery is far from gone. The official slave trade has been replaced by large numbers of exploited workers. A significant amount of people work for no pay. People are trapped in war zones coerced into work or will sell their labor for next to nothing unfortunately.
It's a long term project, but I believe with the help of technology, we can build an optimal world for both humans and animals. Optimal, not perfect (we have to be realistic). Synthetic meat you mentioned. Some sort of genetically engineered 'burger plant' is where we should be aiming. IE 'beef burgers' that grow naturally. On second thoughts it's better to neuter rather than kill existing carnivores.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
The aggression is due to the presence of carnivores (humans mainly). I feel if the human race treated animals better, animals would be less aggressive. We prey on them. It's just conditioning. But I think technology can help hear too. If grass was genetically engineered to include say THC, any remaining aggression should be countered.
You’re talking nonsense. Slavery has all but disappeared (being paid, owning things and being able to vote are not something “slaves” can do.)
To be “moral” means YOU decide what is best. You’ll stumble and fall often yet the “moral” part of you will drive you on no matter what. Rolling over and dying, complaining about the tragedy of human existence is hardly going to gain much sympathy for very long (at least with myself.)
Death means renewal and conflict means exploration of limits. Tread carefully and boldly into the unknown - that is my basic principle of life.
It's all choice, though. Not necessity. So I'd argue we're not moving towards perfection, but rather away from it.
How about metempsychosis (reincarnation), cause and effect (also reflected in the idea of heaven and hell), evolution, atman (the divine self), etc, are just a few points of view that come to mind and which seem to justify morality.
I think the most important metrics for human progress are quality and length of human life, both of which have been improved greatly by technological progress. We certainly cannot just go back to living the way we did 2000 years ago. Life was short and hard for most. The whole point of evolution is we are meant to achieve an optimal civilisation through the use of technology.
As a race we seem to take two steps forward and one step back. I agree the environment is currently retrograde. I hope it does not take some sort of catastrophe before we address the environment seriously. Environmentally friendly technology is the way to go. Nuclear fusion and nice clean energy would help a great deal.
I'd imagine the future as a mix between high tech and low tech; think glistening sky scrapers set in a natural forest landscapes; technology and nature in symbiosis is key for the type of planet I want to live on.
Through biotech and genetic engineering we can improve nature just like we improve technology. Most of nature's plants do not produce eatable food. Genetic engineering can change that. For example, grass which is completely useless to humans, could be reengineered to be tasty and nutritious. Or for example we can use biotech to neuter the spiders; I hate them and a spider-free world would be a big step forward for me and other arachnophobes.
There is no point to evolution.
God decided it was too hard to design life from scratch so he decided to evolve it instead. That's what I'd do if I was in God's shoes.
Including humans? :chin:
No I think we should all become vegan. Bio technology probably needs to improve first before this becomes feasible or palatable. It's a long term goal to have a planet free of killing.
Quality and length of human life should not go above all else. Presently, there exists a negative correlation between our quality and length of life and the life of everything else on the planet. Not only that which exists, but we are also potentially compromising the quality and length of human life of our offspring. And with every year we live longer, we consume more. Why should we impose harsh suffering on everything else just so we can live a little longer and a little more comfortably? And a better question; when is it enough?
Secondly, I think you're grossly overstating the role of technology in improving the quality of life. There's very little to indicate people are happier now than they were a hundred years ago. There have been several key discoveries, most notably when it comes to childbirth and combating diseases, which have drastically decreased infant mortality, maternal death and death by common illnesses. These were very valuable, but they hardly represent technology or even science as a whole. Most of the rest is dead weight.
You have to ask yourself: almost three-hundred years since the industrial revolution, and what have we to show for it? A population which is marginally happier than it was before, if even that. Perhaps a dozen or so extra years to live on average? (Infant mortality tends to horribly skew these numbers. The ancient Greeks used to live into their 70's) And for what, I ask you. Cars? A fancier dwelling? Fancier entertainment?
Humanity can start moving into the direction of perfection by getting rid of all the useless crap it doesn't need. But instead it prefers to watch the world burn while it indulges just a little longer.
There's something terribly wrong with the way humanity handles technology, and this needs to be addressed before we can even start thinking about moving "towards perfection" if there is such a thing.
I agree, longevity is nothing without quality of life. Humans should maybe be engineered as in Brave New World. 60 healthy years was the cut off in that novel. People were conditioned from birth to deal with death so it was not a problem. How that worked I'm not sure I remember from the book. Maybe they had a half decent religion to belief in that would help.
Quoting Tzeentch
How about anaesthetics? It was a bundle of laughs before that I'm sure. In fact modern medicine in general makes our lives much better. The Internet is improving my life quality as I type this; I'm rather isolated so it great to have people to discuss this stuff with. For entertainment, modernity spoils us with a choice of books, TV, Film, play, music, computer games. For safety, the atom bomb has keep the lid on war for the last 75 years. I think you underestimate the role of technology in human progress.
Morality is how one feels about interpersonal behavior that one considers to be more significant than mere etiquette. And specifically, it's feelings about whether behavior is "good" or "bad" or in a more fine-tuned analysis, whether it's permissible, obligatory, recommended, etc.
So whether anything is moral or immoral, just how acceptable versus not acceptable it is, etc., is up to each individual to decide.
The same thing goes for something like a utilitarian calculus. That can only work on an individual "rating" things much in the manner that one would rate movies, albums, etc. You rate whether you feel positive or negative towards it (a la interpersonal behavior that one considers more significant than etiquette), and just how strongly you feel positive or negative about it, with different individuals weighting things different ways.
The problem with trying to achieve that is that we don't all have the same views about just what should be permissible, recommendable, etc. behavior.
I have some very unusual views about that stuff, for example. So what's perfect to you may not at all be perfect to me.
Given that that is going to be the case. The game becomes figuring out how to let each person do their own thing as much as possible--how to maximize freedom/choices for each individual. (Well, or at least that becomes the game if you want to best avoid the individuals who aren't being satisfied organizing to take control of the whole game via force.)
"Contemporary slavery, also known as modern slavery or neo-slavery, refers to institutional slavery that continues to exist in present day society. Estimates of the number of slaves today range from around 21 million[1] to 70 million, depending on method used to estimate and the definition of slavery being used"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_the_21st_century
If that discussion got to the point of anyone concluding that good is mathematically better, it really went off the rails--comically so.
I'd say that depending on the definition being used, the estimates would be more like 0 to 7.7 billion people.
I disagree with this. Morality can mean lots of things. How does this view of morality describe events like genocide?
Quoting Terrapin Station
I don't think an individuals opinion on an event like the Holocaust is relevant. A genocide or large war is clearly extremely harmful in a way that would make someones opinion on it or reaction to it inconsequential.
To me, disagreeing with it is simply disagreeing with facts, not realizing facts, etc. You can disagree with factual info about what the world is like if you want to.
Re it "meaning lots of things," people have many wrong ideas about what morality is, sure. Doesn't change the facts re what it actually is.
And "how does it describe . . ." I'm not talking about something descriptive. It's evaluative. How anything is evaluated is per individual.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
Again, you can think whatever you like. The fact is that evaluations of anything, including the Holocaust, are made by individuals. They're not made by anything else.
"When male fig wasps, Idarnes spp., hatch inside the fig they attempt to decapitate their brothers that hatch in the same fig, attacking them with large and powerful mandibles (Hamilton 1967). Similarly, male elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris) may kill rivals during fights over access to females (Hayley 1994) and male fallow deer (Dama dama) employ violent head-on "jump clashes" during the rut at the start of the breeding season (Jennings et al. 2005). In these three examples, aggressive behavior is being used by each rival in order to maximize its chances of success in a conflict over who gets to mate with the available females. "
https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/territoriality-and-aggression-13240908
Tis simple:
Long term > short term so
Good is what's right in the long term
Evil is what's right in the short term
Hence Good > Evil
I can't repeat the whole thread here.
But if someone evaluates genocide to be a good thing that would be patently absurd.
Somethings cause so much suffering and destruction that to claim they were good would make the notion of good meaningless. However if someone enjoys rough sex and getting whipped then that is in the realm of personal preference.
Also if you were dying of cancer it seems that only you can evaluate the situation and what it feels like. Which then makes someone else's evaluation irrelevant.
I think morality can be what you want it to be. For some people motivation is the most important aspect of morality ( like virtue ethicists). But for others consequences are the main concern like utilitarians. Utilitarians can refer to objective states of affairs to measure the impact of behavior on the world.
My main position here is probably a utilitarian calculation where suffering outweighs pleasure objectively.
These kind of positions and religious positions do add another dimension of value but it dependents on whether there is any evidence for them.
I find reincarnation problematic ethically because it seems that if you do not know who or what you were in a previous life then you don't know where you are coming from or heading. I have a real fear I might be being punished in my current circumstances because of the chance i was a nasty person n a former life.
I think biblical morality and Gods conduct is problematic. There are contradictions among other things. But I think the fallen world/angry gods myths have been a powerful narrative to try and justify suffering.
Nature is just a starting point from which we start the main thrust of intelligence guided evolution of the planet. In the long term, wasps could be chemically neutered along with other dangerous / unsociable animals. Animal food supplies could be genetically altered so that they include drugs to reduce aggressive behaviour. We could eventually genetically engineer excess aggression out of animals.
Returning to the OP question, Is life immoral? I guess I'd answer it like this: Unenvolved life can be immoral but fully evolved life is completely moral.
That is the direction the human race is heading (slowly); we are far from fully evolved yet. We need to include the animals on this journey.
That's a subjective judgment. Someone could easily make the opposite judgment. It would be incoherent to say that they're incorrect for making a different judgment.
Long term "is better than" short term would be a subjective judgment, too.
Long term "is longer than" short term isn't subjective, but that can't amount to long term is better than short term.
In other words, you and many other people would have a very strong reaction against their disposition. Yeah, no shit. That your reaction is strong or common doesn't make it something other than an individual judgment.
And they'd be mathematically wrong to do so. Long term > Short term so it's always mathematically wrong to do evil (evil=act in a short term manner).
There is nothing subjective about it at all. Good>Evil. It's just math.
Everyone is a “slave” then. Armed police are “neo-killers” I suppose? Seriously, this is utter nonsense and a viciously dangerous use of language.
Next you’ll be suggesting that factory managers are “neo-slave drivers” I suspect.
Note: I’m coming at you hard because I consider “slaves” as people who are owned by others. And simply saying it is “like” they are owned isn’t good enough. Slave Labour is unpaid forced labour not cohersed badly paid labour.
You can argue that people are slaves for various reasons. I do not believe that transatlantic slavery is the only form of slavery.
I think there is an extent to which parents own their children. I experienced this as a child and had no rights, I had to go to church up to 5 times a week and my parents believed in total obedience and complete parental authority.
I think most people are forced to work because not working isn't viable so that people are not making a genuine choice. None of this is to say that Historical slavery is not worse. Although it is quite possible to have a terrible quality of life in his era.
You appear to be giving the individuals preference as the only reason something is wrong. But this is not like someones preference for beef over pork.
I don't think people find mass suffering wrong simply because of the emotional response they have to it.
Slavery has not been going up. Exploited workers are not “slaves.” Yes, people places are still in slavery no doubt; I’ve seen it’s head peek out every now and again.
This is a little like people giving figures for Sexual Assault which sounds awful, but quite often the numbers reflected in these circumstances involve verbal abuse, and “violence” now is often equated with verbal abuse too. This is a problem when people start churning out the stats to paint this or that picture.
To talk of “slave labor” in prisons is bizarre to say the least. Those poor, poor criminals! That is not to say I don’t understand the issues with the judiciary system, but it is not like all those people chose crime as a means of survival. They pay a debt to society.
Poverty, on a global scale, has also DRAMATICALLY declined this century. Yes, many love on the poverty line, but the direction we’re currently going in financially on a global scale is generally positive.
Another point about stats. Let us imagine two separate populations 1000 people are murdered in a population of 1,000,000 per year and 1 is murdered in a population of 100 per year over a 5 years period. Where would you live? In the first that means 0.1 chance of being murdered in the second it means a 1.0% chance of being murdered. Of course there is more to reality than this simplistic model the point is to show how numbers and percentages differ our perceptions.
For me, moral is a matter of cause and effect and it is weighed in favor of life.
In Greek philosophy the question of good and bad comes up many times. They asked...
Is something good or bad because the gods say it is so, or do they say something is good or bad because it is good or bad?
That brings us to the thought ... If life favored immorality, destruction, all would be destroyed like a monster of destruction that devours everything until there is nothing left but to devour itself.
It is concluded what is good is good because it promotes life and what is bad destroys, and even the gods are subject to this reality. They do not create it. This leads us to rule by reason for if our reasoning is good, things will go well, and if our reasoning is bad things go wrong. So it does matter what we think and what we do.
I don't think anyone knowledgeable of history would think things are worse than they were 300 hundred years ago. Not even freemen had the freedoms we have gained since the concepts of democracy and science have spread. However, I would say the US democracy is in decline, but I think education can turn this back around.
It just doesn’t hold up for me. People can chose not to work for a low wage. For some the choice seems impossible ... yet I met a 22 year old girl from Cambodia several years ago who had no family. She’d travelled around the world twice. Obviously she was extremely smart and street smart too so she managed to get byby networking well, being friendly and confident. Personally I’ve see people living in so called “free society” in the west who seemed to ne living a zombie like souless existence; material world and all that.
I’ve seen previously poverty stricken countries expand and develop a great deal over the past decade. There are problems though and always will be. I do think we’re still lagging behind the tech we’ve developed and globally people aree only just beginning to reap the rewards.
My fear is what people will do if they have leisure time. Something like the lottery winner who suddenly realises they liked their mundane day-to-day job. People need people. Economics will work toward efficiency and morality will work towards inevitably fitting morality into economics - the old saying “a happy worker is a hardworker” is true enough to sustain us I think. People suffering in REAL slavery today are going to be roused sooner rather than later. People can fight for something they can see and now the internet is expanding and reaching out further and further soon everyone will be able to see everything and start to say “No!”
Give it a century, if that ;)
Anyway, ethics is a public discussion. There is no absolute truth, yet there is enough moral cohesion to act like there is an ethical truth. Like I said for simplicity I refer to “morality” as subjective and “ethics” as intersubjective; both necessarily feed of each other.
Of course. And people in the US may only use the US as the rule of thumb. Globally, over the past two decades, world poverty has been more than halved. In the west this is not something people really feel.
No doubt in many western countries poverty may have actually increased a little, waxed and waned over that period (percentage-wise, not flat figures; which can be easily used to distort any picture given the exponential growth of populations.)
— Devans99
I agree 100%. We are immoral when we are ignorant and unaware of the bigger picture. We have democracy because of the reasoning of Cicero, a Roman statesman who studied in Athens. He explained that we are compelled to decide in favor in the good, therefore, failure to make the right choice is a matter of ignorance.
Of course, it can be argued that our emotions may overrule our reason, but this is relatively rare compared to making bad decisions out of ignorance. Unfortunately, in this time of fast foods, many people are very short-term thinkers and rural people tend to have very little knowledge of the world yet think they know all they need to know to make good judgments. This is a serious educational problem.
I don't see why immorality would favor self destruction. You could argue that the continuation of life allows for the continuation of suffering and immorality. Hope is like a soporific drug.
I do wonder about the presence of good. It is true that life could be terrible all the time for everyone but it isn't. So it is hard to believe in a completely malicious God.
However you could say that a moral judgement comes after life starts to exists so the judgement is created by the data. Life just happens to tend in a certain direction.
Again, that is a subjective judgment.
"The emotional response they have to it" is a fact about individuals. It obtains so long as the individual in question has that emotional response. It doesn't obtain just in case they do not.
So yeah, the reason that something is right or wrong morally is because of the way an individual feels about it. In that sense, it's like someone's preference for food or anything else.
Medicine has been around since recorded history and probably before that. Modern medicine makes it possible to treat more severe diseases and conditions. So apart from those (un)fortunate few who had their serious ailments treated by modern medicine, it doesn't make healthy people's lives much different. With that said, people are still dying in droves to all sorts of things modern medicine can't treat, so at large modern medicine is exchanging one death for another.
Anyways, since you seem to be in favour of killing people off after they have lived sixty healthy years, why not instead let nature run its course and control the population that way? We don't have to start arbitrarily killing our parents when they reach sixty healthy years, and we can remove the incredible drain the pharmaceutical industry is on the world's resources (#4 950 billion). Arguably 950 billion dollars worth of resources wasted on keeping people alive, which would be killed off later.
Quoting Devans99
Without the internet you may have been an entirely different person. Consider that without modern technology you'd have no way to entertain yourself but to engage with other people. People would be more social in general. You'd be completely fine.
Quoting Devans99
Music and literature are hardly a product of the modern world. Additionally, experts have long since debated whether more choice makes us happier, and a lot of them conclude it doesn't. If you want to read about this, read "The Paradox of Choice - Why More Is Less" by Barry Schwartz.
Quoting Devans99
Now this is veritably untrue, since there hasn't been a year in the 20th century without war. Countries have threatened with the use of nuclear weapons throughout the second half of the 20th century and they still do to this day. Not only that, we've gotten extremely close to using them on numerous occasions, which would have ended life as we know it. So neither did it put a stop to war, nor does it provide any guarantee for the future. Major powers are renewing their nuclear arsenals as we speak.If your final argument is that technology is a blessing because it has given humanity the power to wipe itself out, then I'd say humanity is the last entity we'd want to trust with that power.
Its mathematical. Short < Long, hence the phase 'he acted short-sightedly'. Focus on short term pleasure (instead of long term pleasure) is evil for self and those around you. You really should read the other thread.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4395/defining-good-and-evil
You can dispute whether life is immoral but I don't think you can dispute that it is harmful.
I think it is a short step from harmful to immoral.
I think if someone cannot tell the difference between serious harm and altruism then their perceptual system or conceptualizing scheme is broken
I merely mentioned that the book Brave New World contained that solution. But there is a genuine problem beneath the consideration. As you get older life quality reduces and what exactly do we do about it? We also need to make room for the next generation. We can't live for ever. What the book eludes to is genetically engineered humans that painlessly shut down after 60.0 years of perfect functioning.
Quoting Tzeentch
No I would not. I live in the back end of beyond. The internet is of great value. Without the internet I would need to hire a full time tutor to educate me; I cannot afford that and the internet is so superior to what a tutor could teach me.
Quoting Tzeentch
The increased free time of the modern world does allow for more music and literature than in the past. More should mean higher quality in the end... maybe we need to spend longer on each piece.
Quoting Tzeentch
I know there have been many minor wars, but know more major wars like WW1 or WW2. The 21st century is less warlike than the 20th, which is less warlike than the 19th. Etc... We are very fortunate to live in the 21st century; hardly any of us have seen military service.
So the logic goes that life is immoral because it is harmful to life.
Do I need to point out the problem with that kind of logic?
What I realize is the tightening of opportunity and the horror that our children maybe not be competitive and may themselves become jobless and homeless, even if they are greatly in debt for school loans and have college degrees. Our children no longer have the luxury of being children but are expected to perform as college students totally dedicated to their educations. No more careless and free days for children, not even recesses or PE but total dedication to preparing for a high tech job. Any other purpose of education is axed from the school budgets cheating artistic and talented children from the educations they need to actualize their potential and killing the culture that all civilizations need. Never in the history of humanity has life been so unfit for humans. But on the other hand, never has life been so good.
We are at crossroads. Do we want to manifest the human dream of the enlightenment or do we want to be the efficient Borg? The ultimate Nazi power minus the racial prejudice. The old world order was family order. The New World Order is Prussian military bureaucracy applied to citizens. I loved the original Star Trek shows and all the warnings of the danger of being a computer-controlled society, but those shows were not family shows. The role models were not mothers and fathers. And at this point in time, our bottom line is the dollar, not humanity. We want the world to spend more in arms because it is good for our economy. It is unfortunate if a child looses a parent or grandparent or his/her own life because s/he can not afford the foods and medication to manage diabetes but that is really none of our business. Arming Saudi Arabia is our business. :lol:
"However you could say that a moral judgement comes after life starts to exists so the judgement is created by the data. Life just happens to tend in a certain direction."
No life does not just tend in a certain direction. It can only move in the direction of good or become nonexistent. That is the point of the story of the destructive monster. If the tendency were in the favor of destruction, all would be destroyed, long before you and I got here to argue the matter.
As far as moral judgment coming after the manifestation of matter and then the manifestation of man, that is agreeable. Chadian said, "life is asleep in rocks and minerals, waking in plants and animals, to know self in man." We are possibly god's consciousness unable to be aware of self through any other manifestation other than man, and as far as we know this is exclusively true on the planet earth.
Of course the internet has value. The question is whether you'd miss it had you never known it existed. You probably would've made different choices and if you had some desire to engage socially with people you wouldn't have chosen a home in the middle of nowhere. If you desired to engage in studies, you would've bought a book. But I digress and I am speculating now. For most people, they would find other ways to educate and entertain themselves. The internet doesn't have a monopoly on those things for the vast majority of people. Besides, we haven't even touched the fact that the internet is, amongst other things, a breeding ground for mankind's vilest of deviants.
Quoting Devans99
You said it yourself. Quantity doesn't equal quality, especially for music and literature, both of which I hold in high regard. I think you'll agree with me that with all that time and money spent on these subjects they have very little works of substance to show for it.
Quoting Devans99
Yes, I understand your sentiment, however your argument is based around the hope that the weapons which are keeping us safe right now will never be used in war. If they do get used, it will probably mean our end. Forever is a very long time. How many decades of close calls can we endure before finally one tips us over the edge? Like the sword of Damocles it is a ticking time bomb, and given mankind's propensity to war I very much doubt it would keep ticking for all eternity.
I don't see a problem with those statements.
Life is harmful to those that possess it or constitute it. Life is immoral because it transgresses any moral standards we create. So for example if we value consent and freedom the means of creating life undermines consent and freedom.
Someone can be harmful to herself or beneficial to herself.
I did not choose where to live. The internet enhances my life. I would use it no matter where I lived. The world's information at my finger tips. It's brilliant. As for the sicko's they would probably express themselves some other way if it was not for the internet. We can police the internet so I don't see a problem.
Quoting Tzeentch
You cannot argue surely that nuclear weapons did not avert WW3? It's an improvement on prior centuries and as the human race evolves and becomes more mature, we can let go of these weapons.
So the “moral” thing for us all to do is kill ourselves to prevent future “harm” I guess ...
I’m familiar with your views. I know you lean toward the pessimistic and I cannot blame you too much for that because you’re willing to listen and talk.
You have my respect, but not my complete agreement. I’ve been leaning further and further away from the whole “humans are cancer” positions espoused by a disgruntled large minority, out of sorts, out of touch, and almost willfully blind to the better part of the current global economic growth and well being of humanity at this point in history.
Remember that special school in the UK where children had complete autonomy and freedom to go to lessons or not? When new kids arrived from the normal school environment they tried to rebel and no one did anything ... eventually they settled down once they realised there was nothing to rebel against because no one was telling them what to do - they had freedom.
I get thr impression the western world is suffering from this a little. The oppression has lessened a great deal yet many are still up in arms about the injustices of the world whilst it’s actually improving at a rate unseen in all human history. People will settle down eventually and then get to whatever it is they’re driven to.
"I’m familiar with your views. I know you lean toward the pessimistic and I cannot blame you too much for that because you’re willing to listen and talk."
Woo, I had no idea that is how people interpret what I am saying. I have a lot of faith in humanity and that is why I say education for a technological society with unknown values is not a good thing. Democracy was not always an unknown value but now it is. We understood moral judgment is based on reason, but since leaving moral training to the church, we think morals are about religion. :roll: During the age of enlightenment many opposed Christianity because it stood against democracy and the freedoms we assume today, and today we think Christianity gave us democracy. :worry: Only those with high morals can have liberty, but since we put an end to education preparing the young to make good moral decisions, we scream we don't someone else to teach our children morals. We have zero understanding of what is required for a democracy to thrive.
I am not saying humans are the problem. I am saying education for a technological society with unknown values is a big problem.
PS It is not freedom that gets children to care about each other and learning. Freedom will get you Lord of the Flies without strong leadership from those who understand liberty is not the freedom to do anything we please but the right to choose what is right and it requires knowledge to do that well, so we give up our freedom, for a higher standard of living than living a pack of wolves. Lord of the Flies and pack of wolves refers to Nazi Germany and it was our education for good moral judgment that made us different, not Christianity and obedience to authority.
You can just refrain from creating more humans.
Ah shoot, I had a burning need to add a PS to my last reply and I really hope you will respond to what I say of liberty and freedom and the education we once had that made us different from Germany. I want to point out today we have young men who idealize the Nazis and think their freedom means the right to discriminate against others and kill Jews to make American great again and that this is what Trump is talking about when he speaks of making American great again. Freedom without good moral judgment is not a good thing and it is not what got children to return to their studies.
Look at the reply before yours. That is the kind of shit that worries me!
Humans are good if properly educated because being good is in their own self interest. Just not everyone is educated is the problem.
That's evil per what?
Harmful is a value judgment, too. It's a way of saying that someone desires state x but state y is obtaining instead.
Long term > Short term, so focusing on the short term instead of the long term is sub-optimal. You get less net pleasure that way. I define that as wrong or evil.
If instead you choose to maximise pleasure in the long term (even though this maybe painful in the short term), you optimise net pleasure. I define that as right or good.
I think being in a state of pain is harmful. It is not harmful because you desire to be in another state. I think that it is only very personal states like food or music preferences where harm is subjective.
I am not sure what the point of your morality is? But you definitely seem nihilistic about morality. I would agree with those who say a subjective morality is a nihilistic morality
Either the internet provides something unique and therefore uniquely creates avenues to do both good and evil, or the internet provides nothing unique and just like the sickos will find different avenues to express themselves, so you would find different ways to educate and entertain yourself. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
Quoting Devans99
That is not what I am saying. If it is to succeed in its role of deterrence, it may never fail. Not now, not in a hundred years, not in five-hundred years. Ultimately, we could repeat WW2 a dozen times over and it still would pale in comparison to a nuclear war. Considering mankind is prone to both conflict and error, and the fact that in roughly fifty years we have gotten close to nuclear war on multiple occasions, that's a risk no one should be willing to take.
On your view it's harmful because?
The internet provides far more good content than evil content.
Quoting Tzeentch
I agree we should try to get rid of the nukes. I was making the point that nukes were an improvement over the early part of the 20th century, not a long term solution.
Because it causes injury and suffering.
And how do we define injury and suffering so that we avoid desired versus not-desired states?
You can see an injury and people can suffer. People don't desire to suffer usually but that is irrelevant to the state itself.
Nevertheless in this thread I am talking about whether life compromises all theories of morality not whether these theories are true. But I don't think one persons preference for or against life decides the inherent nature of life.
Simply ignoring what I asked you isn't actually a defense against the objection.
I don't see how desire plays any part in whether someones is factually suffering or injured. I really don't believe pain only occurs because of desire. I hope you don't believe that.
What i asked you was how you're defining injury or suffering so that they don't have anything to do with desired versus not-desired states. An answer would be the definitions in question.
It's natural for us to get an education, and once we are educated properly we become moral beings as it is in our self interest to do so. It's the uneducated who are immoral.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4395/defining-good-and-evil/p1
Why would you need to talk about desired states when describing suffering? Suffering and injury do not need definition to exist. I am not sure what definition you are referring to.
Here is two dictionary definitions of pain anyway:
1:Highly unpleasant physical sensation caused by illness or injury.
2:mental suffering or distress
The idea isn't whether anything "needs a definition to exist." Presumably we're calling something, some x rather than some different y, "suffering," and we're calling some w rather than some v "injury," right? So that we can say, "That's suffering." "That's not." "That's an injury." "That's not."
What I'm asking you is what definitions you're using that allows you to place phenomena in those bins, so that you call any given phenomena in question those terms, versus saying that phenomena don't belong in those bins, (a) where the definitions do not depend on whether persons desire the states or not, and eventually we're going to get to (b) where the terms have anything like their conventional connotations.
I'm not saying that you definitely can not succeed. Maybe you can. But let's look at the actual definitions you're using. If you're not sure, then think about it for a bit. What are the criteria you use for calling something suffering versus saying it's not suffering, and calling something an injury versus saying that it's not an injury. You can look at (or just use if you want) dictionary definitions in figuring this out. Keep in mind that one thing I'm going to do after you give definitions is look at whether they capture the normative connotations that the terms usually have.
Suffering is undesirable but it is not undesirable because of personal preference. No one with a working nervous system could hold their hand in fire for a long period.
But that said no personal preference can really be chosen in a subjective way. If someone is allergic to strawberries that is an objective fact or if they dislike the taste of meat..
Opinions on the other hand are a different and a more trivial thing. That is why morality as an opinion is weak. You can alter your opinions but you can't alter your pain sensations by will.
You to express an unbelievably naive and simplistic view of the world thus resilting in amoral nihilism.
Bye
"Personal preference" refers to something being a preference that a person has. The fact that every person happens to have the same preference (just in case they do) doesn't make it something other than a preference that a person has.
Think of it as being akin to, say, noses. Noses are structures that are present on persons' faces. The fact that everyone has one (just in case they do) doesn't make it something other than a structure on a person's face (well, and a structure that lots of other animals have, too). It wouldn't make sense to say that noses are not personal just because everyone has one..
I don't know what a "subjective way" is supposed to refer to. The issue is ONLY whether something is a mental phenomenon that an individual has.
You seem to keep wanting to read other things into what I'm saying.
I think you can meaningfully measure suffering and I think that is substantially difference than recording opinion or preference.
I am not sure what you believe exactly whether you think morality is a purely mental subjective like pain. Like I have probably said I don't think private pains and other sensations are the equivalent of thoughts and opinions.
You can be wrong in belief and idea but you can't be wrong about having a pain experience or red experience.
I don't know what I could do to make it clearer that in my view, morality is purely an individual mental phenomenon. It's not something that one can be correct or incorrect about.
It's just about maximising pleasure for the individual and group whilst minimising pain. It mathematical. We are just computers after all that seek to optimise between two variables: pleasure and pain (I include emotional as well as physical).
Everything we do is due to the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. There are no other motives.
It's only about that for a given individual if they think about it that way. I don't think about it that way, for example.
Quoting Devans99
You must buy the idea of unconscious mental phenomena. I do not.
Whatever motivates you must give you pleasure. If it gave you pain, it would not motivate you. If it gave you nothing it would not motivate you.
Are you saying that that is empirically the case, or are you basically just announcing how you're going to use particular terms?
- The pursuit of physical/emotional pleasure
- The avoidance of physical/emotional pain
All our behaviour can be characterised by the above unless you have a counter example?
The gods argued with each other too. Arguing about what is desirable and what is not desirable is how gods and humans increase their understanding until they come to a consensus on the best reasoning. Really what could be better than this? As birds were born to fly, we are born to reason. Democracy is an imitation of the gods. We are as the gods because we have the capacity of reason. Arguing is how the gods resolved their differences and when Christians learned of this they largely replaced their the model of a kingdom with the model of Greek gods. Unfortunately, we stopped educating for this understanding and now we are in trouble. We are locked in power struggles that are devoid of reasoning and we are destroying our democracy and our planet.
We might want to add to the story of the gods, Sumer's story of creation, about the river that displeased a goddess by overflowing its banks, and how the goddess created a man and woman out of mud to help the river stay in its banks. Many aborigine people around the world had creation stories that made them caretakers of the earth. Surely we would make better decisions if we thought we were the caretakers of our one and only planet. :grin: Add to this the Greek understanding of the gods and reasoning or the NE native American story of the man who taught them to live with reason, and we might return to a reality we can enjoy.
"You must buy the idea of unconscious mental phenomena. I do not."
Most of our thinking is unconscious. At least 80% of it is automatic thinking. Automatic thinking makes it possible for us to drive cars or dance gracefully. Before we learn these skills we must focus intensely on the effort and we are very clumsy. But it is much more than this. We live by the habits we develop and this leaves our minds free to think of more important things. And advertisers love the fact that they can influence our thinking without us being aware of this.
Recently we have gained a lot of knowledge of how our brains work and if this interest you look it up. You will find exciting information on youtube by googling "fast and slow thinking".
That's basically asking if I think that you'd not be able to forward an interpretation of any arbitrary phenomenon in that framework, which is unfalsifiable for you. The answer is no. I do not think that.
In general, for any arbitrary theory someone has that they believe covers all phenomena and that's unfalsifiable for them, there's no suggested phenomenon that they'd not be able to interpret under the framework of their theory.
Obviously I don't agree with that. So repeating the idea, or acting as if I must not be familiar with conventional views (that followed what I'm quoting above) isn't going to have any effect in terms of persuasion.
I'm not denying autonomic functions, doing things by muscle memory, etc. I'd say that there's no good reason to say that any of that is akin to mental phenomena.
Your limited understanding of human motives is really sad. :cry: Some of us hold ideas to be more important and we will make great sacrifices to for our family, our country, an ideal like democracy or fascism, or communism and for future generations we will never know.
I hate the selfish gene talk. I think it is has caused us much suffering. And I know it is a lie because I did not live for self-fulfillment. Before my children left home, my archetype goddess was Demeter, the mother goddess. I sacrificed my desires to fulfill my family duty as society once said we should do. When we understood what family order has to do with democracy. That is our duty to family is also our duty to our country. I can not comprehend feeling our lives are meaningful if we do not have a sense of duty? If we do not live for others, then how do have a sense of self-worth?
We can interpret phenomenon in terms of the short-term/long-term pain/pleasure they give use. So the theory is falsifiable, all we'd need is an example of someone motivated by other than pleasure/pain.
I think you will find that such sacrifices are made to give you some form of emotional pleasure.
For example, a mother may sacrifice much for her child, but those sacrifice's make the mother emotionally happier.
If you do not agree with what said, then you are not familiar with the science. I will be interested in what you have to say after you are better informed.
If I were to give you a counterexample, such as "Joe added crimson red to his painting because Joe dislikes crimson red," then you'd interpret it so that Joe was at least unconsciously motivated by some other pleasure, making your theory unfalsifiable, because you'd do something similar for any counterexample (otherwise, you'd have easy counterexamples yourself without having to solicit them). I have no doubt that you could do this. I've seen it countless times. One could do this with any arbitrary theory.
Yeah, just crank up the patronization. That's a good look.
. . . As if one can't disagree with conventional wisdom in the sciences.
"For example, a mother may sacrifice much for her child, but those sacrifice's make the mother emotionally happier."
Oh yes, hormones affect how we feel and what we do, and the same is so for all animals. However, our mental capacity adds another layer to this. Animals do not stay in a relationship because of notions of love and duty and our notions of love and duty can make us appear irrational. Nature has programmed us not for our individual survival but the survival of our species. All animals are programmed for the survival their species.
I did not present the idea that we are driven by pleasure/pain as a theory, just a self evident truth or axiom.
It is a good axiom in my opinion.
Whatever you want to call it, just swap out the words.
What you said makes no sense to me, because it had nothing to do with science, but maybe we can move towards science by examining why humans are patriotic? Could it be because we are programmed by nature for the survival of our group and its way of life and ideals? Thousands of people have died in wars defending democracy. Why? It sure as blazes was not limited to self-interest. People don't throw themselves on grenades out of self-interest, they do not run up a hill defended by an enemy shooting guns and sending bombs because of self-interest. They do it for love of family and country. Now they may get into this situation because of self-interest, wanting an adventure or wanting the excitement they imagine war to be, but they used to be drafted into wars and went if they wanted to or not. Even if you can still find self-interest in their choice, it would not be there if they did not care about others. And if people do not care significantly about others, they tend to die in concentration camps or other extremely bad situations because they loose their will to live. Over and over again survival stories are about how thinking others made it possible for them to endure and survive.
PS science is vital to our liberty and our progress and our ability to save our earth. It would be sad if you do not value science.
Are you getting me confused with Devans99? I didn't forward anything about "self-interest"
:yikes: you didn't say
"Obviously I don't agree with that."?
Yes, it is akin to mental phenomena. Science has provided a clear explanation of that.
What do you means here
" . . As if one can't disagree with conventional wisdom in the sciences."?
I must admit when the point being argued is not part of the agrument, things can be confusing. You appear to lack knowledge of the resent science and most of this knowledge hasn't been around long enough to be conventional wisdom. With the knowledge we have recentaly gained I think hope for humanity has greatly improved. However, we have a lot of work to do to make it common knowledge.
"I did not present the idea that we are driven by pleasure/pain as a theory, just a self evident truth or axiom."
Hum, how often do you exercise and do you restrict your food to what is healthy? Obviously, both exercise and healthy eating are essential to feeling good. So why are people obese and sickly and crippled by the excessive weight on their knees? We feel better when we exercise and restrict our diet to healthy food, but most of us are reluctant to it. Why? Nature rewards us for making good choices but many of us are not making good choices. However, some people are making good choices, why?
It's down to willpower I think: The general rule is that you have to make a short-term sacrifices for a long-term gain in order to do a good/right action. That takes willpower, eg with exercise or diet you have to make short-term sacrifices.
Obviously something similar applies to evil/wrong actions - attractive in the short-term but detrimental in the long-term. Willpower is again required to resist them.
And as you mentioned before; education is so important too.
It is about science. Science improves our understanding, and the issue with you came up when you said you do not agree with what I said about all the unconscious thinking we do.
Science also helps us understand what hormones have to do with our feelings and decisions. It may be my bad but I thought that was important to the discussion. All animals, are programmed for the survival of the species, not just self nterest. This is especially so for social animals that live in groups for their mutual survival.
How are we to understand anything if we do not include science in our understanding? What is the bases for our arguments without science?
?? You started a long thing about why we're "patriotic," and commenting on whether we're patriotic out of self interest. Unless you're saying that's supposed to have something to do with the notion of unconscious mental content, it had nothing to do with me.
Okay if I understand Terrapin Station correctly he wants me to address the issue of self-interest versus group interest with you. Do we have agreement that social animals live in herds or troops for their mutual survival and that members of these groups will act to defend each other, protect and feed the young? :smile: Females often have much more to do with protecting and feeding the young than males and among some species they must protect the young from the males. :lol: Possibly some of our disagreements are the result of being male and female and by nature having different hormones and therefore different truths?
I do workshops on living with diabetes and getting people to make good decisions is very complicated! They must feel good about themselves and their future before they will take the steps they must take. Some cases of diabetes are worse than others. Some people can do all the right things, but not get the desired results and this can destroy willpower. The better people's relationships are, the better they tend to do. However, there are some single people who excel on sheer willpower and self-interest. Obviously, these people do not depend on others for their happiness or anything else.
Oh my, we are all so different, it might be a little insane to argue truth as though there is only one truth and not many.
" Unless you're saying that's supposed to have something to do with the notion of unconscious mental content".
I do not totally understand how forums work? Are we to limit our comments to individuals, and do we address the subject?
Should all our arguments only oppose what someone says or should we sometimes support what someone is saying with our own argument?
However, we should do things, I must say, the way people conduct themselves in this forum is superior to any forum I have been in! You all are giving me the best forum experience I have ever had.
And for sure our group behavior is filled with unconscious thoughts. That is why many of us need counseling. :lol: So we become aware of the thought beneath our conscious thought that is causing us a problem. Of course, you are just picking on me because you know I am the at the bottom of the pecking order and everyone picks on me. :roll: I am kidding. You are doing a marvelous job of communicating and if I can do something better to improve my communication please let me know.
I checked back post and I think I was attempting to focus on science by taking a different direction than the consciousness issue, rather than react badly to what appeared a rejection of science. Our group behavior being more on topic but still about science. Like the book "Science of Good and Evil".
Definitely do not have to limit your comments to individuals, but when you specifically address and/or quote someone, when you've been going back and forth with them a bit about whatever, it's odd to have the comment not obviously be about what you had been talking back and forth with them about.
Quoting Athena
Definitely not trying to "pick on" you (or anyone else) . . . it's just that especially in a philosophy context, I can be pretty focused and persistent. ;-)
Anyway, so, on my view, we don't actually have any good evidence for the notion that we have "thoughts beneath our conscious thought" that we're simply not aware of. I know that's a common belief--that there is unconscious thought, that things like psychoanalysis ferret that out, etc., but nevertheless, I don't believe there is any good reason, any good evidence, that supports this idea.
What is something that you'd consider good evidence of it, or a good reason to believe it?
(In general I'm a pretty hardcore skeptic with a rather parsimonious physicalist ontology, by the way, and I'm even like that towards the sciences, where my view is that the sciences posit all sorts of fantastical, sometimes incoherent nonsense--which might be okay simply as a predictive model or as an instrumental approach, but when it's "taken seriously," when there's an ontological commitment to it, when stuff like that is reified, I balk at that.)
I agree with that. A group is made of indivuduals and in a well functioning group whats good for the individual is good for the group and vice versa.
Quoting Athena
I think we are different in many small ways but the same in the major ways, so you can make a general argument for whats good/right Vs evil/wrong for individuals.
When it comes to the matter of personal taste I acknowledge what is right for one person is not right for the next. But even then things even seem to work out for the group: Why does one person prefer pink and another blue? What is the optimal colour for the group? It is the most popular colour, but that is not right/good for every individual. But it is right that the most popular colour is chosen and each individual in the group can agree with that sentiment, if you see what I mean.
Here is my evidence that if we believe we are good thinkers and conscious of our thoughts, we are screwed!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjVQJdIrDJ0
I think Daniel Kahneman's research will revolutionize what we think of ourselves and what is required for us to have good judgment. But it does not begin and stop with him. We have always known unhappy people will perceive the world and other humans as awful, while happy people will see everything differently. Our perspective colors our view of life, and our perspective is built on childhood experiences and from there we spend our lifetimes proving ourselves right, even when this means being a totally miserable person, and social failure. Our egos cannot tolerate thinking what we think is wrong, and we would rather die than admit to ourselves we are the cause of our suffering, not that bad experience, not our mother, not our spouse and not because other people are awful. Please check out Daniel Kahnemann. Our thinking is more complex than we think.
I am sorry you don't trust science. I know we can share a false belief, but the method of science is the surest way to not hold wrong beliefs. Science is very important to our liberty and social justice. Maybe we can talk more about this at another time.
The "real" may be more harmful than not to humans. Think of Disneyland. It is a make believe amusement park full of fake characters and rides. The "good" parts are the make-believe, the imagination, the parts that are not real. The indifferent (and often harmful parts) are the gears moving the rides, the millions of tasks of putting together this "fantasy land" of entertainment. What is real is what causes more work along with the limits of empirical evidence. You cannot fake a blood pressure or a lab result for a blood sample. That is real. That is something to be dealt with. You cannot fake the fact that you will need to feed yourself, stay warm, and avoid illness. That is the real. The fantasy, the imagination, rides on top of this. Even love, romance, etc. are all secondary to the needs of the real, which I stated earlier seem to be indifferent or harmful, and causes more work, toil, and frustration. The real is what cannot be avoided, what must be dealt with.
Is there any way to specify on the Kahneman video just where--just in the ballpark of where it begins--he presents something you count as evidence of unsconscious mental content? I'm just asking because if I sit through an hour video and there isn't anything I count as a presentation of evidence for unconscious mental content, I'm going to be very annoyed.
I am spot-checking a few places and what I'm hearing is him presenting a theoretical framework, nothing like evidence of unconscious thought.
I think you speak of liberty. We defend our liberty by obeying the laws even when do not like them, but it is also our responsibility to argue for a change in the law if we believe the law is wrong. Liberty is not the freedom to do anything we please, but the right to decide for ourselves what is right, as long we do not violate the rights of others.
"But even then things even seem to work out for the group:" Yes, if it isn't working for the group it is not working for individuals either. But that seems like a lot to get our heads wrapped around. The three year old child is not thinking of the group! I am not sure when a child does begin thinking of others. However, in observing children it is evident the child who does not learn to think of others does not have friends. In a troop of chimps the uncooperative chimp will be pushed out to the outer circle where it is most apt to be eaten by a predator. Social animals must balance looking out for their own self-interest with what is best for getting along with others.
It's frustrating when you're the lone loon who disagrees with something, though.
"The fantasy, the imagination, rides on top of this. Even love, romance, etc. are all secondary to the needs of the real, which I stated earlier seem to be indifferent or harmful."
I see a lot of truth in what you said. And I think you missed a few needs, such as a need to be appreciated and to have our feelings validated. When our emotional needs are not met, that can have bad health consequences and trying to compensate for what is lacking with fantasies of love can be harmeful to ones and psyche and health.
The moral is, be real.
"It's frustrating when you're the lone loon who disagrees with something, though."
Tell me about it. I am always regretting my inability to keep my mouth shut and go along with the crowd! I have been a loner my whole life, but right now my life is pretty full of friends so I must be doing something right. But on the internet, I am not doing so well. I read books no one has read and that means having a different perspective, and plenty of times I wish never saw those books and had the same understanding as everyone else.
No, I'm sorry, it isn't. Your 'proofs' are nothing but a list of dubious (i.e. unjustified) assertions, leading to an unjustifiable conclusion. :roll:
Rather than saying I'm wrong, please say why I'm wrong (be specific).
Good > evil? Don't be silly. :roll: The ">" sign only applies to quantities that can be numerically compared. Good and evil cannot be so enumerated.
But the only currency humans understand is physical/emotional pleasure/pain, so we can define:
good = pleasure > pain
evil = pain > pleasure
Good has more pleasure than evil. So we can say good>evil
That's clearly false off the bat.
Quoting Devans99
And that's completely arbitrary.
What drives you then if it is not physical/emotional pleasure/pain?
But I have the same basic drivers as a bonobo; we both seek physical/emotional pleasure and shun physical/emotional pain.
Wait, first, why are you writing the phrase, " the only currency humans understand " if what you're sayig is "humans are only motivated by"?
Your routine must reward you in some way else you would not do it. That reward counts as pleasure.
What is that claim based on?
What are the drivers for you routine?
That may be the case for you. I wasn't speaking for you.
As I said, there are things I do as routine just because they're routine. There's no other reason for them to me at those times. That they're a routine is it.
The latter may be true, but the former does not follow from it.
Re not speaking for you, it may very well be that you are only motivated by pleasure or pain. You'd need to be careful not to project yourself onto the world, though. That is, to not assume that everyone must be just like you are.
All sorts of different things in different situations. It's not just one or two things. And yes sometimes it's pleasure or pain, and sometimes other things.
Re pleasure and pain it's almost never a calculus of that, and I don't think I ever make moral judgments on a calculus of that (at least I can't think of a situation where I would at the moment)
Difference is my wheelhouse--one of my pet projects so to speak. I think it's important that we acknowledge, tolerate, accept, embrace differences.
Which is a way to say that I'm not surprised when people are different from each other.