When I heard about negative utilitarianism I thought of that clause in the Hippocratic Oath, "First, do no harm..." But this implies that there is a "...
I'd say the idea is that it doesn't matter who's who, as long as they are innocent. It will always be wrong to kill "one innocent person to save two o...
Yes, it is a good exercise! - haha. But now you're saying that not-lying is immoral, and this seems to prove my point. If I think lying is immoral and...
First I should again note that harm is more contrary to the will than withholding welfare. With that said, by the definition of "welfare," imparting w...
- There are overlaps and some cross-influence, but at least in American politics the options tend to be extremely limited. For example, in the next Pr...
I would say that all evil is intrinsically bad (and evil), but that not all evil is moral evil. Again, I don't have a strong position on whether natur...
Sure it is. You think he is a poor official because he does not assent to the scientific theory of evolution. Or to quote myself, it is the idea that,...
I don't know that I've really discussed it on this forum, but I began to broach the topic in my earlier post to you. You said: Roughly speaking, for c...
Okay, great. As an aside, Peter Simpson has a paper related to a similar issue, "Justice, Scheffler and Cicero." I think the basic idea here is fairly...
You're welcome, and I thank you in the same way. I was not expecting to receive this level of engagement in the thread! In keeping with your own appro...
- I think you are underestimating the difference in the Overton window. Beyond that, I think scientists tend to make for poor leaders, so I don't acce...
Interesting! This thread is the first I have ever heard of the term "negative utilitarianism," although I was aware of harm-based ethics that are not ...
I want to first say that I think your thoughts are wonderfully cogent, but let me pick at them a little bit. So according to your earlier statement wh...
I don't disagree with that statement, and I admit that the critique is a matter of language. Too-many-scare-quotes is a linguistic critique. I added a...
Yes, but I suppose I am not convinced that the aesthetic gradient and the moral gradient are distinct. When Plato applies the form of the beautiful to...
Thanks, Javra. Allow me to begin with your second post before moving to your first, for I think others may find the second post especially enticing: G...
Sounds good. I think the OP is still live, in that my conversations with other posters have not become necessary reading. The objections and agreement...
Thanks, Moliere. Okay. Well, what is the example you have in mind? Presumably you have an example that parallels the "wind"? Yes, and the finger-cross...
Okay, good. I see you used scare quotes around "doing." To illustrate just how idiosyncratic your language is, consider the sentence: <The tornado is ...
- I would recommend Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas. For more modern treatments, see my post <here>. Beyond that, Edward Feser is someone who tries to o...
Okay, well now you are being consistent, and that's a good thing. But you are redefining words independently of their common and philosophical usage, ...
Excellent, and it is the corollary that you seem to transgress at various points throughout the thread, "Amoral agents can only produce amoral acts." ...
Okay, great. As an aside, I want to point out that while we could redefine, we could also simply predicate. For example, if I say, "X is green," I cou...
Yes, good job catching this! I had noticed the same thing in my own head: that the conflation between the two senses of 'moral' had stemmed from your ...
Yes, I think it is a useful argument. There is a common claim which says that if and only if there is widespread disagreement, then what is at stake i...
Okay. If we continue you may need to begin to shoulder more of the burden of proof, for your posts are becoming increasingly opaque to me. I explained...
I don't agree with your opinion here. On the rare occasions when I write an OP I try to respond to more posts than I usually would, but I do not feel ...
One was a definition and one was not. They are not. Someone who does something right is someone who is capable of moral acts. Similarly, someone who d...
Let me distill your 1500 word post: "Hello Leontiskos, my name is Chet Hawkins. I'm very rude and dumb. Would you like to have a conversation with me?...
Okay, this makes good sense. Thanks for introducing this idea of "negative utilitarianism," as I believe it succeeds in answering the OP's challenge t...
Ah, I see. In the OP I distinguish human acts from what Aquinas calls actions "of a man," such as stroking one's beard absentmindedly, or having one's...
Ah, you've mixed this up, and part of the problem is that the analogy limps insofar as things other than cars also run on fuel. Using the same format,...
I think it is a very interesting thing to consider () but I don't think it overly influenced her piece, given that she sets monks aside as a different...
The sentence prior to the one you quoted elucidated this. For example, cars and fuel go hand in hand. All cars run on fuel, and therefore to talk abou...
Primarily from Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Our discussion prompted me to publish my recent thread, "The Breadth of the Moral Sphere." Here is a re...
Er, except Cicero, Socrates, Xenophon, and Aurelius were all married men. I'm not sure about Heraclitus. The Epicureans were somewhat averse to marria...
Thanks! Yes, this is a good point. Aquinas says that agents act for ends, and so the debate could take the form of asking whether every human act is f...
Well, one could of course argue that morality is defined in terms of agreement… ...But given that none of the classic examples you provide would seem ...
Okay great, this is useful. :up: I don’t follow your objection. Okay, that makes sense. I think this succeeds as a coherent alternative. I think tradi...
I would follow Aquinas in saying that morality and culpability go hand in hand, but whereas all discourse about culpability is also moral discourse, n...
Conservatives tend to think the world is getting worse and progressives tend to think that it is getting better. Fancy that. You painted a rosy-eyed p...
A well-known truth is not worse for wear. There are many in these parts who fall short for being enamored of novelty. Midgley seems to be leveraging o...
Agreed. Philosophers are often the butt of jokes, "those who have spent years trying to decide whether their dining room table exists." I think there ...
Thank you, although it turned out to be less succinct than I had hoped. :lol: I also appreciate your thoughtful reply. :up: Yes, good point. I hadn't ...
I think this is that question of goodness simpliciter vs. goodness for human beings. For example, you seem to be involved in the notion that "insistin...
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