I don’t wish to justify stupidity of course because I’m not immune to it myself. I do something stupid at least once a day.

But it’s the combination of stupidity with arrogance that creates problems because the actions of the stupid person are not seen as stupid at the time, but it’s the persistence of it and not learning from the mistake. You really can’t change stupid nor can you lead a horse to water and make it drink.

So what do you do?
@Tom Storm

No I don’t usually let stupidity slide for the reason that stupidity in action has real world consequences if it’s not confronted.

Stupid is dismissively concluding crap such as god’s existence or not existence. @Tom Storm

Both I don’t care what you believe or not believe in, just stupidity.

Yes I’m not angry at faith or lack of it. I’m angry at stupidity because it leads to ignorance and ignorance leads to evil.

Yup I’m angry at stupidity an all it’s forms and guises, problem ?

They’re two vastly different things, science needs proofs otherwise it wouldn’t work.

The proof of god is one of the biggest philosophical questions there is. Science can’t find such proof yet, nor can it actually find proof to various other hypotheticals such as the graviton or dark matter.

Yet, though no proof is yet to be found on the two things science has not adopted an atheist stance to the existence of the graviton or dark matter.

Now there lies the real stupidity on part of the lay scientist and atheist.

So whilst they’re happy to dismiss God for lack of proof they’re yet to dismiss the graviton, the messiah to their gravity for lack of proof.

Hypocritical, blind and stupid.

He was actually agnostic but anyway.

If that is indeed the case, I mean even Einstein who is considered one of the greats of theoretical physics said something like god doesn’t play dice or something to that effect. Is that a confession of doubt there ? Was he even a fully fledged atheist?

The list of scientists, and I talk about the ones with the biggest influence or impact in their respective fields outnumber the atheist by a ratio of at least 2:1. Historically speaking it’s even greater.

This might be skewed in the modern sense as all you need to be called a scientist these days is a degree from any mediocre university. It’s just a title and the science itself is trivial or non-consequential.

I’d like to be proven wrong.

Will apples replace oranges, I think that’s kinda what the question is asking.

Anyway here’s Louis Pasteur:

By OP I’m assuming you mean opening poster rather than opening post which is a different question to the one we’re discussing now, slight detour if you like into the superiority of man in relation to every other animal in the animal kingdom.

Firstly I, as a human being don’t go around feeling smugly superior to cats OR fish. Or any other animal for that matter.

But imagine for a second that I was stupid and arrogant enough to do this and encountered a cat say I’d be like “Ha! Cat, I’m so much better and smarter then you hahaha!!! You can’t even walk upright” or upon seeing a fish and uttering to it “Ha! Stupid fish don’t even know how to ride a bike let alone read a book! Ha, loser!”

This would be madness.

It’s also called tough love.

I must be cruel only to be kind — Hamlet

Then your question is simpler in nature and can be formulated thus: Do the ends justify the means? It’s a moral question.

See my prior post to the Kant quote. You will see from that, that your question is fully answered.

Nothing in the world—indeed nothing even beyond the world—can possibly be conceived which could be called good without qualification except a good will — Kant

@schopenhauer1 does Kant above help you at all ?

It’s worth the sacrifice for such ends.

Although the technicality of creating such situations artificially would perhaps mean the end result would also be artificial.

In any case, some people are grateful for the suffering they’ve been through in life as it’s made them into better people, so such violations are seen as for their benefit in the long run.

@schopenhauer1

The outcome of goodness is not guaranteed in the individual despite the pain and suffering one is put through irrespective of the moral dilemma of putting one through such suffering and the morality of depriving them of autonomy (liberty-freedom)

@schopenhauer1

Without delving into the morality of exposing someone who’s lived a sheltered life to the many manifold harshnesses of life (of which there are many)

The type of burden imposed would I assume be done for creating some sort of resilience or wanted future character trait or competence in the individual.

If consent is given by the person then 1 and 2 are not at odds.

You seem to be describing army conscription in a sense, sport would have a better desired effect IMO.

Again personal growth is a personal journey, but the closest way to achieving your aims would be through sport.

Then why do them dummies keep falling for the bait at the end of the fishing rod ? If it wasn’t for our catch and release policy they’d be our dinner. And sometimes they are, delicious with freshly squeezed lemon.

Next time I catch a fish and it talks it’s way out of ending up as my dinner, heck I might even let them go.

Do you really think so Cobra? I think we’re better designed than fish for the fact of having opposable thumbs giving us a huge advantage in tool making. Their little fins would be absolutely useless in manufacturing a bicycle or a plane. Or even just writing a letter.

Still fish if they were as smart as us would eventually overcome such physical limitations and even be considered our equals so perhaps you could be right there.

The last competitors to Homo sapiens were the Neanderthals whom we still retain some of their features genetically but very small amounts.

Fish of course are more then welcome to try.

Just in general creating an artificial environment to emulate real life situations ends in disaster as you’re not creating a soldier but raising a child.

It is of course never justified. As the wording itself says personal development rather than interpersonal development. Despite pushy parenting or good intentions

How do you define bad? The claim just passes the explanatory burden. — Mark S

Bad is someone smacking you in the face rather than giving you a 20 dollar bill.

Would you be happy to define good or bad in terms of such actions?

Bad is defined as an unpreferred action upon oneself, such as being robbed of your money, life, legs etc.

Would someone smacking you in the face be a good thing or a bad thing?

It could be a good thing if you were experiencing migraine and a good smack cured you of it.

But what if you didn’t have a migraine, what explanatory burden would you give to the smack given to you ?

I’d like to hear

Not sure how to answer your query on oughts let alone imperative oughts. Actually I’m not even sure what you’re asking.

Moral behaviour is defined as performing bad actions only if they cannot be avoided, such as theft or murder.

If I understand you correctly, an ought is an action irrespective of illegality such as stealing food to feed yourself or murder as self defence.

Is this what you’re getting at ?

We’re very far off from understanding our own consciousness or even the conflicting accounts of what free will really is. Mimicry, especially the linguistic kind may even pass off as human like in current or future AI, but can it crack a joke at a funeral? By current standards and models, AI is restricted in what it can or can not say, it cannot make inappropriate sexiest or even racist comments, but it doesn’t know why it can’t make them, they’re programming logic and rules which it must obey.

It would also have to fall in line with Asimov’s rules of robotics, further restricting it’s free will perhaps for our own good.

Could we then have good AI, I have doubts as to whether we will have it at all.

Perhaps neural networks which they form are behavioural in a sense through reinforcement but could it overcome such hard wired tendencies when it’s difficult for even humans to do so.

I'm trying to convey that "good" and "bad" are concepts subject to evaluation, and that valuations originate in conscious entities, — Vera Mont

They’re not concepts at all and I’m afraid you’re mistaken here, there’s no grey area in the hypothetical situations I’ve just outlined.

It’s becoming obvious now that you don’t know right from wrong, or maybe you’re just arguing for the sake of it.

There’s no point over-rationalising, if a mall shooter goes on a killing spree in such a mall, with you getting shot in the foot during the massacre, under the rationalisation that “hey, at least I didn’t get shot in the head”

Everyone got a bum deal, but at least you walked away with your life, getting shot in the foot ain’t good stupid, no matter how much you wish to apply to it the relative consequentialism that you’re doing, because that same bullet would have easily turned you into a quadriplegic - I’m sure you’d see the upside to that as well but only as a form of argument on an internet forum.

Political philosophy relates to how society should be organised to maximise human happiness, avoid needless suffering and uphold human values such as freedom, equality and justice.

A lot of questions there Vera Mont, for the sake of brevity let me pose a slightly different question…

You’re walking down the road one day and a stranger snatches your phone or handbag.

Good or bad, or neither?

It seems to me by your answers so far that you’re either unsure or just in denial as to what is good or bad.

Then you’d have to bring the matter of intent into at as @Metaphysician Undercover pointed out. This obviously deranged individual, had some prior intent to carry out a shooting of said mall, because pissed off at his colleagues, fired unfairly, bullying etc etc

The intent itself is to kill.

Is killing another human being at this mall good or bad ?

How could you say it’s neither, in this scenario @Vera Mont

Ok, the person doing this act might have actually been a good member of society up to this point, but a switch was flipped somewhere leading to up to this hideous act.

I still maintain however, that human beings would rather do good than bad, emotion got to the guy here, a bit of talking to maybe from a friend could have prevented it altogether, and he or she would have continued being a nice member of society.

I must further emphasise as well that it’s not necessarily the person that is bad(evil) but rather the act.

Since humans invented both concepts, and humans describe and define the world and everything in it as a reflection of themselves, humans must possess the characteristics they designate as good and bad. What's confusing is that they individually disagree at any given time on which is which, and the majority opinion shifts over time.

It’s not as complicated as that, if say you’re in a mall and someone starts shooting randomly because of some mental derangement and you get shot in the foot, you wouldn’t say you’ve had a good day would you ?

I think it’s as simple as that, would the person though be bad person doing that or would just the action be bad in itself ?

Apparently, the OP's author fails to recognize his own biases in the premises of his question and thereby misunderstands its implications even when pointed out repeatedly. — 180 Proof

I don’t understand the point of this response nor am I aware of being intentionally biased towards either side of human nature. My personal view as that human beings want to do good, I expressed that a few posts on. Sometimes they do good for goodness sake, sometimes they do good because they know that doing bad might eventually bite them in the backside.

Human nature is neither good nor bad. We can look at the human being as having capacities, which provide for the reality of power. And as Plato explained, one can direct one's own capacities toward good, or towards bad. So the same person who has the power to do great good in the world , also has the power to do great evil in the world — Metaphysician Undercover

This makes sense. They have the capacity for both good and bad.

Take toddlers for example, occasionally one of them will take the others toy away. If this happens as adults that looks very much like theft. One then must be taught to not perform such wrong actions. But could it be that doing good is as simple as not doing bad? One needn’t need to be a hero to be a good guy, just not to do wrong.

To anyone else misunderstanding the nature of the question, being the apex of evolution does not imply moral perfection.

If you want this proposition to be taken seriously, you might look to the language you employ. — Vera Mont

You got lost in the detail and missed the wood for the trees so to speak and are no closer to giving the answer to the question in the thread.

If the good is inherent and the evil is not, why hasn't the good triumphed yet, in the apical top peak of evolutionary progress? — Vera Mont

See OP again, in terms of WW2 history, the allies the good guys triumphed. Although it’s not as black and white as that

There are of course many examples of pure evil in history Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Charles Manson, and a few serial killers that I can’t remember the name of. Could such behaviour have been prevented with the right nurture or educational socialisation do you think ? Nurture can shape nature, at least that’s one of my current beliefs.

It’s not necessarily a supposition that we’re better than animals, although we are in most aspects, a fish just can’t build a rocket and go to the moon. A fish of course is incapable of having such a discourse as we’re having but if they could speak they’d immediately acknowledge our superiority to them in almost every aspect apart from being able to breathe under water. So it’s undeniable that we’re a far more progressed species than fish in terms of evolution, hence my use of the term evolutionary scale.


The below picture is photoshopped, there are no documented fish astronauts.

:ok: Riiiiight, the whole thread failed "to read that paragraphy properly". The phrase "evolutionary scale" doesn't have anything to do with natural selection since there is no telos at work in nature. Anyway, invicta, I take your lack of response to my post as your concession to the points made by me and the others cited there. :smirk: — 180 Proof

Also not interested in the mechanics of evolution for the sake of the question posed , though my responses might have used such terms evolution/creation as literary licence. This is not the thread for it.

Is that response denying the fact that humans are peak of nature/evolution? @180 Proof As I stated in my last post, we’re capable of transcending our base animality at times but cannot help give in to it.

Although it must be also observed that animals too are capable of good acts, I saw a video of a monkey rescuing a kitten who was stuck in a well.

Your point is that humans are inseparable of the animal kingdom, in a sense we are in as far as our biology is concerned but it’s reason truly sets us apart.

Whether we’re truly good or bad inherently is briefly addressed in my last post, and a few before.

My position is that we’re inherently good, but it’s jealousy, hate and thirst for power that leads us astray as well as the desire to subjugate or subdue our fellow man.

@Vera Mont @180 Proof

The apex of creation was followed by “evolutionary scale” if you two bothered to read that paragraph properly. No theological assumptions granted there.

Now, although, all species being derived from evolutionary process since inception have adapted to their environment, man as the crowning achievement of such process sits right at the top by fact of us being able to subdue beast and to some extent nature itself that gave rise to us.

@BC indeed a brilliant summery by Shakespeare there, and despite the religious objections above, places human beings in their own special category compared to a lion or a chimp, with lions too being apex in their own environmental food chain, they got nothing on man which is why we enjoy a safari in their own turf. How’s that for messing with their pride?

Having made the distinction a bit clearer between man and beast above the question still remains somewhat unanswered. The reason for this is because the difference between a good or a bad action are not always clear cut, nor are their motivations.

Now, sure, human history is indeed a bloody one, but you also get good deeds there too. It’s pretty much like the news these days, they always focus on the negative occurrences in society, whilst the real world I’d say consists of good behaviour as well, perhaps not as common as bad but still there.

Man a creature of rational intent whereby better socialisation can turn that intent to good side rather than bad, wants to inherently do good I believe but gets corrupted, turns to hate somewhere along the line and does bad stupid shit, hating his fellow man in the process to the extremes of wanting to kill him, because of petty differences or simply because he slept with his wife.

Whatever the many reasons for man wanting to kill another man may be, we do know that moral frameworks, makes this a punishable offence and a crime. Thus man rises above his animal nature and instinct there by fact of making laws, that guide if not deter such actions.

Human history may be littered with bloody war and murder but it’s a macrocosm of such reasons as outlined above, although forgetting to add power struggles too.

And yet good chivalrous acts are easily forgotten when humanity does get its act together for a greater good.

Comparing the animal kingdom in terms of human behaviour is to misunderstand the role of man as the apex of creation, knowledge and reason still creating irrational acts because emotion and because we still retain our animalistic side despite being higher on the evolutionary scale.

It is reason and intellect that accords us the ability to tell right from wrong or good from bad.

Our intellect and reason separates us from the animal like a dog that would bite your leg for no reason other than it is an animal, or feels threatened or just because that’s the animals nature.

To rise above the animal nature is to understand that man need not kill man.