In the first half of this proposition you are explaining how we show something is 'wrong', but what you actually demonstrate is something which seems ...
Yeah, except that was always the case. Has been since the beginning if the thread. Yet when you think you have a counter to any point I raise you're h...
This not-replying-to-me-but-really-replying-to-me just looks childish. Grow up. It's not about political actions. We could restrict it to an individua...
So how do you justify imprisoning a murderer? That would be unethical by your standards. As would taxing anyone, as would providing unitary aid of any...
It is no less individual people being harmed by the lack of harm-reduction activities of the theoretical child than it is the theoretical child themse...
So no laws then, no taxation, no parenting, no charitable work for whole communities, no overseas development aid, no welfare, no health provision... ...
To be fair, this has already been addressed. The argument presented was about not committing to courses of action which lead to a net increase in harm...
This is why I don't particularly like consequentialism. I believe that if we were ever capable of such certain predictions we would have evolved mecha...
Guilty. In my defense, I've lead rather a blessed academic life, replete with ivory tower. I'm not that used to having to discuss issues in a 'public ...
Sorry if my response came out a bit condescending. I just wanted to say something positive. Hope you weren't offended. Yeah. I agree. I'm not really a...
Wow. You would be about the first person I've ever debated with on here that's even considered the possibility of changing their position in response ...
Yep. And with having kids (of above average ethics) not having them is the more harmful option. Same as with law. Not having children increases the li...
Yes, I gather that. Which is inconsistent with your response to surgery, laws and parenting where in those cases you use the net harm reduction to jus...
Net harm reduction is the measure you use elsewhere. Net harm reduction. The net harm reduced by having a child is something which is at least arguabl...
It's not the admission that they only need to be above average, it's the failure to grasp the fact that approximately half of all people will have chi...
Of course you haven't, if three caveats in you throw your hands up and say "oh it's all too complicated for me". Neither does mine. Yep. And when I do...
Then your grasp of mathematics is as flawed as your grasp of ethics. It is only necessary that your child is above average for it to be the case that ...
This is a fundamental issue which stands apart from the other points about complexity. Your ethic is about reducing harm, you even argue that most oth...
This makes no sense at all. If I've just explained how circumstances and caveats are essential to understanding morality, it's nonsense to maintain th...
That doesn't justify the approach. Prima facie, if all the balls in a jar are blue except one which is red, that fact alone doesn't have any bearing a...
On what grounds are you cherry-picking this conclusion of the medical examiner's and not the conclusion that he died from You claim to follow the scie...
Causing non-trivial harm directly is sufficiently different from causing trivial harm (or causing non-trivial harm indirectly whilst pursuing other re...
I'm not opposed to adding caveats. On the contrary, I think it's absolutely essential to any ethical approach. The point is only that adding caveats c...
No intent to mitigate non-trivial harm, no reasonable expectation of counterbalancing benefits, no reasonable expectation of consent. So not an exampl...
It's ridiculous. No-one normally sets the bar that low. If that's all you're saying then we're back to ridiculous premises leading to ridiculous conse...
Not my insistence, nor anyone here, as far as I can tell. I think everyone's agreed that we can imagine a future child and mitigate harms that might b...
Not really, no. The context was the moral superiority of those cherry-picking. If we cherry-pick one of our luxuries for exclusion, that's an improvem...
Exactly. A thread which acted as nothing but an advertising platform for NOS's brand of sycophancy should never have been allowed on the front page in...
I see. So why does the question "why?" get raised with regards to such cherry-picking, as you stated in the quote I cited? Surely the answer is abunda...
Simple. If you have two harmful luxuries and you 'cherry pick' one of them to eliminate, that's halved the amount of harm you're causing, which is a g...
I think that's abundantly apparent. How so? There have been several arguments put forward, that was an opposition to one of them. What does make a dif...
The only two experts currently available to the BBC on the matter of his cause of death both concluded he was killed. In such circumstances the BBC ar...
Despite the title, the OP makes it clear that it is the form of argument, not the subjectivity of the premises which is being taken issue with. You ca...
As I said quite clearly, it is not the fact that an argument is being presented that I take issue with but its form. Are you seriously suggesting that...
Irrelevant. Both conclude he was killed, which is the statement you took issue with. Nowhere did the BBC state that the autopsies contained no contrar...
All your arguments are of the form " but you wouldn't do x, which is similar to conceiving children in ways a, b and c...so you're obliged by reason t...
We could start an interminable series of threads sneeringly implying that anyone thinking the opposite "just doesn't get it" for 27 pages before final...
Because most normal people under 80 don't really want their way of life bought at the expense of the deaths of huge numbers of people over 80. Why are...
Then for how many years do you imagine your interlocutors have worked to obtain their knowledge? What is the exact difference in years worked between ...
Interesting. So how are you measuring 'useful'? I kind of presumed that any assessment that a way of looking at things might be useful would at the ve...
Comments