I wonder if there would have been a debate if Michael had been racist or anti Semitic. I really don’t think so. People here are somehow fine when someone is banned for “low quality” but there is a debate when they openly say they’re misogynistic.

But this one I just found funny:

Banning them might just make them double down, which won't be the forum's problem, because they are gone from here, but it may become a greater problem for their partners, family or society. — Janus

If we’re concerned about the effects of the forum on individual lives maybe we should start banning any pessimistic users or threads eh. Wouldn’t want it to affect people, their partners, family or society.

That idea could be based on an entirely ignorant idea of reality. — Tzeentch

So could the opposite, so I don’t see your point. Very weird critique. Literally any action could be based on an ignorant idea of reality. So we shouldn’t act or what?

You sound like you think any imposition is bad because “we could be wrong”. Is that right? Would you impose a law to not drink and drive if there wasn’t one and you could?

So because you desire things, you gain a right to impose? — Tzeentch

Sometimes. Again, it’s not as simple as “me want X so me take X”.

Debatable. I don't drive and somehow I am still alive. — Tzeentch

You must not need to drive to work.

If you don't want to deal with people who drink and drive, stay at home then! — Tzeentch

There is a difference. The people who drink and drive gain nothing from drinking and driving. They can simply drink after they’ve arrived or take a cab. I can’t help but drive to work (in reality I don’t drive, I’m just going with your example).

In other words, forcing people to not drink while driving harms them much much less than the harm they cause by being allowed to drink and drive.

In what way? — Tzeentch

All the hospital beds are filled with idiots that think masks are the devil, getting treated for tens of thousands of dollars instead of taking a semi free vaccine.

I thought the answer I gave was more relevant than the question, but I am still interested in your take on it. — Tzeentch

That what is right is determined by who’s strong? Dumb.

If it works that way, why shouldn't I get to impose what I believe is right on everyone I "feel a connection" to? — Tzeentch

Many reasons. One would be that your imposition harms me more than it prevents harm from you such as here:

I'd like you to stop driving altogether, for traffic accidents form a tangible risk to my health, and so does the pollution coming from your car! — Tzeentch

But if I don't drive I can't get to work, and I can't make money, and I can't live. So sorry, afraid I'll have to drive. If you don't want the risk stay at home, you don't need to impose on me to avoid said risk.

Others could be: It doesn't actually benefit the group (just another way of stating the first one). Or that it is unnecessary to impose as there are other ways of removing the risk Ex: If you don't like the risk of traffic, don't go outside. You don't need to impose on everyone when there is an alternative solution. Or if you don't like chips, don't ask people to stop producing them, you can simply not buy them. Etc.

The simple answer is, what is "right" is decided simply by whoever has the power to impose (in your example, you wouldn't be imposing anything - the state would). — Tzeentch

I don't understand why you ask me a question if you're going to decide the answer yourself... If you want to ask a question, wait for an answer, then ask further questions, I'm happy to do that (it's known as discussion). If you want to ask me a question, answer it for me, then attack the answer you made up, I'm not interested.

I don't believe in connections to complete strangers, and as I said, most people who profess as much use it as a pretense to meddle in other people's lives — Tzeentch

The covid situation hasn't changed your mind? It's a struggle to get any hospital beds now. As someone with an autoimmune disease, it is tangible to my health. Complete strangers are in fact affecting me.

You said it yourself; one cannot know if they are fit to impose their opinions on others, one may be unknowingly ignorant. — Tzeentch

One may also be right. And sometimes you're justified to believe that.

a pretense to meddle in other people's lives; it's a desire for power and control over others. — Tzeentch

Power and control over others isn't necessarily evil, nor is a desire of it. Example: Is forcing a child to go to a school evil? Is wanting your child to listen to you when you know they're about to do something stupid evil? Is forcing a criminal into jail evil?

I know you didn't say it was, but I got that message from your tone.

None of this would mean slavery would be made illegal. It would just start to become an ineffective farming strategy.
— khaled

Which could make it illegal. — baker

Is it illegal to farm without advanced farming equipment? No. Something being inefficient doesn't make it illegal.

I'm not convinced about this anger angle. It could be anger, or it could be disgust, revulsion, righteous indignation, strategizing, or just plain disagreement. — baker

I would think those all fall within the domain of what we're talking about. The main topic isn't so much anger explicitly but simply intense emotion, and whether it has a place.

I doubt disgust/revulsion (same thing), strategizing, or plain disagreement could get someone to shoot someone else however. Have you ever shot someone for not showering?

I can't imagine someone who freely volunteers in a war without being angry at the enemy.

It's also not clear what anger can actually accomplish. Sure, if those at the top get angry at those below, this can accomplish things. But not the other way around. Getting angry with your boss and letting him know it will probably get you fired. — baker

If enough people get angry with their bosses you get the French revolution. I'm sure that had at least a small impact on those at the top.

There is a popular idea, usually only implied, that in order to stand up for oneself, one needs to get angry. Do you believe this, if yes, why? — baker

No. I believe in order to go to a war you need to be angry. And that in order to try to change another's mind you need to be at least mildly annoyed. There is a difference between standing up for yourself and actively trying to change others' behavior. The latter requires some hostility.

Another way of looking at that is that every time there seems to be multiple things that make up the world, they turn out to be made up of one thing.

But materialism definitely false, agreed. Not everything is made up of matter. For instance: Electromagnetic waves.

Physicalism ftw!

You and I are not connected beyond this conversation. — Tzeentch

Right, which is why there is not much anger or annoyance here. Because it isn't very important to either of us what the other thinks.

Food for thought perhaps; the persons who seem to genuinely feel interconnectedness also seem to have very little desire to inject their opinions into other people's private lives. — Tzeentch

I think that's backwards. The people who are genuinely connected are connected because they agree much more often than not, or agree on the most important things. They don't need to inject opinions because they already agree.

Allusions to interconnectedness (especially on this forum) sooner or later always seem to turn into impositions of one's opinions on how others should live their lives. — Tzeentch

That is.... exactly what they are used for. Sometimes that is needed. For instance, I would definitely impose on a driver not to drink and drive, especially if I'm in the car. And I think I would be right to do so.

Traffic laws, property laws, obligatory schooling, etc. There are many instances where one is right to impose.

Other views can help by scrutinizing one's ideas, or open up new avenues of thought, but my own judgement should take precedence. Correspondingly, I don't expect nor want people to adopt my views. If the schizophrenic believes they will be happy amidst their "perception of reality", let them. — Tzeentch

Fair enough. Someone who is not trying to convince or change others does not need anger or annoyance nor do they really need to justify their beliefs further than "Because I think so". I see where you're coming from.

I doubt you will hold this view if the Schizophrenic believes you to be the leader of the operation to assassinate them however.

Don't these things only matter if one is concerned with convincing others? — Tzeentch

Yes. Which I'm sure you occasionally try to do, like on AN threads.

I don't see those as a problem. (At least not one that concerns my practice of philosophy)

If individuals wish to remain ignorant, let them. What concern is that of mine? — Tzeentch

Their ignorance can be a danger to you. It is a problem if left alone long enough. Example: COVID. When I see ignorance, I don't correct it not because I don't think it's a problem, but because I either don't think I'm qualified (not sure they're actually ignorant) or because I can't be bothered (Bartricks).

That's really the only problem I have with your view. We're interconnected, we need to agree on some way of determining when someone's right or wrong further than pure individual judgements. Because ignorance is dangerous. But we can't be too strict or else we'll stagnate.

It's a balancing act. Angry activism has its place, and so does calm argument. Neither is redundant.

A schizophrenic or otherwise delusional person is not healthy to begin with and first needs a psychiatrist, not philosophy. — Tzeentch

That they are schizophrenic is your opinion (and most everyone else's). Not the schizophrenic's. And yet it would not be commendable for him to push on absolutely convinced of what he sees. Even if to him, that is what is concordant with reality.

Sometimes, but only to the degree one can find those perceptions to be concordant with reality. — Tzeentch

If I believe A and you believe B, that is because I see A as concordant with reality and you see B as concordant with reality. If one of us is wrong, and we only change our minds when we believe that the opposite view is concordant with reality, neither of us will change our view.

It seems like you're employing the justified true belief definition of knowledge here. Or at least the "true" bit. We should only believe things that are true (concordant with reality) and discard those that aren't. But if we had a method for unfailingly knowing what is concordant with reality and what isn't, we wouldn't need epistemology at all.

If we don't have such a method, then we must decide for ourselves what is concordant and what isn't, so saying that we should only change our minds in concordance with reality adds nothing. Everyone will think they're doing it and it's those damn *insert group of different belief here* that are the problem!

Never yield your points just because a lot of people think differently. — Tzeentch

Doesn’t seem very healthy either. A schizophrenic may be absolutely convinced of all sorts of plots and demons. But it would be way better for them to yield because people think differently.

Philosophy is between you and reality. — Tzeentch

If we could so easily extract truth out of reality, we would’ve solved philosophy in an afternoon.

The problem is that we don’t access reality. We access perceptions of reality. Our own and others’. Others’ perceptions are often important if not sometimes more important than our own.

Anyways this has deviated from the topic of anger/annoyance into some vague epistemology.

Slavery is instrumental to a type of argiculture or industry that is aimed at producing a lot of the same thing or completing large projects. Such as massive plantations of cotton or sugar cane, or building pyramids. Where, for geographical, climate, or other environmental reasons such monocultures are impossible or are made impossible (such as by long droughts, floods, or pests), the agriculture and the industry need to downsize and diversify in order to survive at all, but by then, are not conducive to slavery anymore, at least not mass slavery. — baker

None of this would mean slavery would be made illegal. It would just start to become an ineffective farming strategy. But would still be used in things like prostitution very widely I would guess. That would be the outcome if people never got angry at slavery and went to war over it.

Coincidentally, and perhaps more to your point, his “solution” is to claim this is essentially a false dichotomy. — Pinprick

Would you look at that!

Not explainable by physical
processes — Pinprick

Incapable of acting causally — Pinprick

Well this seems like quite a problem. This definition will at best lead to epiphenomenology. Again, as I said, when you make up two fundamentally different substances, that means they can’t interact. One that’s done, you need both categories. If you say everything is physical by this definition, you miss out one things that are subjective qualitative and intentional. If you say everything is mental you miss out on unintentional processes.

If you want a monism it has to include all the properties (assuming these truly cover everything together) but then you’re just advocating “thingism” , even if you refer to it as “idealism” or “physicalism”

Views and ideas should be dismissed the moment they are found to contradict with reality — Tzeentch

People are often mistaken. Changing your mind the second you think it contradicts reality, will lead to changing it too often I think. There is merit in some stubbornness. Too many greats were great precisely because they believed what was irrational for their time to believe, and slowly convinced the rest. Van Gogh believed his paintings were great even when everyone believed otherwise, etc.

It's easy to look back and think "How were we so stupid, that was so irrational", but really, it usually takes an irrationally stubborn person to break the mold. There will be a future time where we look back at this era and think "How were we so stupid, that was so irrational".

Legal slavery would've continued to modern times if people never got angry at it.

It's not constructive, it's a side effect. If you want to never be angry you have to be very detached from (not care much about) all your views, which if you are, probably means you're very impressionable which comes with its own problems.

After all, if an opinion is expressed that conflicts with one's own and one thinks it to be completely without merit, wouldn't the logical response be to laugh? — Tzeentch

It's a trade-off. You can think you're right about everything like and so be immune to criticism or anger, but at the cost of looking like a moron due to being sure of something very wrong. Bartricks is a good example. Or you can think that every view has merit leading to constant doubt and anger when it comes to deeply held beliefs, but also meaning you will constantly improve your point of view and reach greater understanding.

I'm closer to the latter but sometimes I wonder if it's worth the stress.

Actually, immaterialism as a whole seems doesn’t seem like it could be derived from things that actually exist. — Pinprick

Then it can't be derived as you defined it. How would you derive it?

If I tell you about the property of "unglabungla" but am not able to explain the difference between something that is unglabungla and something that is not unglabungla, then unblabungla is meaningless correct? Since then "unblabungla thing" adds nothing to "thing".

I would consider the concept of souls to be an exception — Pinprick

Really? Most people would be able to explain whatever they mean by soul. They could point to something without a soul, and something with a soul. In other words, they still derive it out of things that exist.

I feel like saying that there’s some thing, or some property of some thing, that doesn’t interact with physical material, and isn’t effected by the laws of physics would never be accepted by a physicalist. — Pinprick

It wouldn't be denied. The physicalist would point out that there is no way to confirm the existence of this thing that has no effect on anything (because it has no effect on anything), so proposing its existence is as significant as proposing the existence of the omnipotent teapot that chooses to do nothing and to hide its presence completely in the heart of the sun.

Yes there could be such a teapot, but first off: who cares even if it exists, it affects nothing, and secondly: you have no evidence to claim its existence.

Physicalists wouldn't state that it doesn't exist. They would state that you can't know whether or not it does.

That seems to be the line between physicalism and idealism. — Pinprick

I haven't heard an idealist positively claim the existence of something that doesn't affect us in any way either. Because what evidence could he have for its existence? Can you point out an example of an idealist making that claim?

singling out the mental as special and central to the conception of the whole world, while preserving a distinction between mental and non-mental. — SophistiCat

Even physicalism does that. If the observer wasn't doing a large part in our interpretation of reality, object recognition AI wouldn't be so hard to build. So your construal cannot be accurate.

Yes, but how is that fundamental difference cached out? I don't think there is a single criterion, like causal interaction, on which dualists stake their worldview. And for the same reason, if one views monism simply as a denial of dualism(s), which I think is correct, then there isn't a clear-cut definition of what it is - just a general approach to seeing the world. — SophistiCat

Then why do you ask what monism claims if you think it doesn't have a single definition? I take the criterion to be the one substance dualists use. I've been simply saying "dualist" so far but I did say substance dualist at first, and that's what I meant. In that since I'm talking about a "substance monism".

We have a working definition of “physical” don’t we? — Pinprick

State it then. What does "physical" mean to a physicalist?

I don’t see why this is an issue. Why would the fundamental “thing” possess new properties? — Pinprick

It was a response to you. You said we can imagine things that are not real. I showed that even those things are based on things that are real. You can't imagine new properties.

So let's say we define "physical" such that it includes X, Y and Z properties while "mental" includes A, B and C properties. Then both "everything is physical" and "everything is mental" is clearly false by that definition.

Even if we say physical things don't exist and only minds do, the properties X, Y and Z were derived from things that exist, and minds don't have X, Y or Z. Therefore that view fails to account for the real things we got the properties X, Y and Z from.

And the opposite: Mental things don't exist, only physical things do is also false. The properties A, B and C must have been derived from something that exists, and since physical things don't have A, B or C, then this view fails to account for the real tings we got the properties A, B and C from.

But if we define physical so as to include X, Y, Z, A, B and C, there is nothing left for mental. Same with if we define mental to include all the properties. That's seems to me to be what physicalists and idealists are doing respectively.

The challenge could be put this way: "If there's no ghost of the universe, how come there's a ghost of us, human beings?" — Olivier5

Why would there not be?

Electrons and protons have charges but a balanced atom doesn't. Oftentimes properties are lost when you go from the constituents to the system as a whole.

I have a brain, Society doesn’t. Etc.

But who believes that these categories cannot interact? — SophistiCat

The people that proposed them, necessarily. Or else what does "fundamentally" add to "fundamentally different"? My definition is that it means they cannot interact. Do you have a different definition?

The mind-body problem is precisely a problem, it is posed as a challenge for dualism, not something that dualism embraces. — SophistiCat

It is a challenge because it seems clear that incorporeal, immaterial stuff (minds) would have no way to interact with material stuff. It's not a solvable problem, just how long have people been trying to solve it. It's a problem that refutes the position.

And some forms of dualism DO embrace it, because that's what you have to do if you want to say minds and matter are fundamentally different. Example: Epiphenomenalism.

Dualism, in its most general outlines, carves out a special and exceptional place for the mental in its ontology and metaphysics. This is sometimes referred to as mentalism. So the best case for monism that I can see is a straightforward rejection of mentalism and nothing more. — SophistiCat

First you have "thing" which refers to everything (monism)
Then you split it into "mental" and "physical" with some objects being mental and others being physical.
You furthermore posit that this exhausts all objects that exist. So now, not every object is physical, and not every object is mental.

The problem with dualism is that these categories are defined as fundamentally different. Not just different. A hammer and a table are different, but they can affect each other very easily. That's because they're made of the same stuff (matter in this case). When you say things are fundamentally different you're implying they cannot interact (or so is my definition, if you have another one please share). How could a non-physical thing push a physical thing? It makes no sense because they're fundamentally different kinds of stuff.

Rejecting mentalism at this point will amount to rejecting the existence of some things. That's not what monism is. Monism is going back to "thing", though people don't call it that (usually they use "mind" or "matter" and fight over it)

“Hey guys, remember how we thought everything was ‘Hakuna Matata?’ Well, it turns out it’s just Matata.” — Pinprick

The example I used was to illustrate how you can't explain what Hakuna Matata is. So you can't say "it was just Matata". We don't know what Hakuna Matata is.

We are capable of imagining things that aren’t real — Pinprick

But those things are always combinations of existing properties. Unicorns are horses with horns. We know what horns are and we know what horses are. We can't imagine entirely new properties. Like a new color. Or a new taste.

In my mind, a kind of stuff can be said to be fundamentally different from another IFF it is impossible to produce one from the other and/or vice versa (not even in theory) by re-arraging its components for instance. — Olivier5

Ok let's run with that.

E.g. since it is theoretically possible to change lead into gold, or clay into pot, or energy into matter, these two kinds of stuff are not fundamentally different. — Olivier5

Ok, so let's call the fundamental stuff all of those are made of "X".

Someone now proposes a different fundamental stuff stuff Y. Thus Y by necessity cannot be made into energy, or matter. So what proof do we have of the existence of Y? We can't see it or feel it or interact with it.

Y gets cut by Occam's razor. On the epiphenomenalism thread weren't you the one that opposed the view because you thought that something that doesn't affect anything else, would not be detectible and wouldn't exist?

Sometimes we make distinctions, sometimes we lump things together. — SophistiCat

Except it matters how we make these distinctions. To me, positing that there are two fundamentally different kinds of stuff would also mean they cannot interact. Like in the mind body problem.

Monism isn't against making distinctions, it's against making distinctions that make it so that the categories cannot interact.

If you think different kinds of stuff can apply forces on each other, then do you think the mind-body problem is not real?

What does the word "fundamentally" add to "fundamentally different"?

Anyways it's 3 am and I'm going to bed, don't expect a reply :yawn:

So the debate is about what properties (I.e. mental=A, B, C; physical=X, Y, Z) every “thing” has. — Pinprick

Let's say you find out, after long exhaustive search, that the fundamental thing making up the world is Matata. How would you go about explaining what Matata is?

My point is that you literally cannot articulate what the property that everything shares is, if everything truly shares it. If you want to explain what Matata is, you need to bring something that is not Matata to compare it to. But if there is something that is not Matata, then not everything is Matata.

Do you think that space and time are made of the same one stuff as apples and rocks? — Olivier5

Yes.

I take your point that stuff interacts with stuff, which may constrain the degree to which there can be essentially different stuff in the universe. — Olivier5

Yes.

It's just that to me, one unique stuff cannot possibly self-differentiate. — Olivier5

I don't see why it couldn't.

Some external force would have to be applied to that unique stuff in order to differentiate it into particulars — Olivier5

What applied that force?

If it's a different kind of stuff, then how could it apply said force? That's the dualist problem.

How could all this diversity stem from just one stuff? — Olivier5

How many shapes can you make out of lines?

In reality it's always two to tango; one needs two different things to make a ying-yang. There's not enough tension and dynamism in monism to explain the world as we know it. — Olivier5

But that doesn't contradict monism. You can have a circle and a square (and infinitely more shapes) all made out of lines. Different combinations of the same thing.

But when you claim there is multiple fundamental kinds of stuff, this fundamental kind of stuff cannot interact with that fundamental kind of stuff. If they could, in what sense are they fundamental kinds of stuff?

What is monism's substantial claim in your view? Is it about the existence of some fundamental "stuff" from which everything is formed? — SophistiCat

Yes. That it's ONE fundamental stuff not many.

So monism is ultimately meaningless because uniformizing? — Olivier5

Not meaningless. But the debate between the different monisms is. Idealists and physicalists are using different words to talk about the same thing. "Mental thing" adds nothing to "thing" when "mental" is a property of everything. Same with "physical".

There is nothing wrong, or contradictory, or even difficult about the idea that something can be two things at the same time - diversity and unity. It's a matter of perspective and the situation at hand. — T Clark

It becomes a problem when the categories you define (as a substance dualist, or someone who thinks there is more than two categories) are defined as contradictory, or incapable of interacting. Something cannot be mental and physical at the same time to a substance dualist. That's really what separates him from a monist.

Yes, I am generally opposed to codifying things. — Bartricks

It my intuitions are to be trusted about these cases, then, it seems that if you (in an epistemically responsible way) acquire stolen goods but then do something to them that destroys their original value, you do not owe the original owner anything.

And if you do something that reduces their original value, you only owe the remaining value, not whole of the original value.

If, however, you do not diminish its value or do anything at all with or to it, then you are obliged to return it.

By contrast, if you add value to it by incorporating it into something else or transform it in a value adding way, then you owe the original owner the value of the original, but no more than that. — Bartricks

If, however, you do not diminish its value or do anything at all with or to it, then you are obliged to return it.

By contrast, if you add value to it by incorporating it into something else or transform it in a value adding way, then you owe the original owner the value of the original, but no more than that. — Bartricks

And furthermore you use said codification to come to further conclusions

It seems to me that if correct, this has important implications where intergenerational justice is concerned. If my grandfather stole your land and built a house on it and now it is worth a great deal of money, then at most I owe you the value of the original, unimproved land, not some portion of the value that it has been increased by. — Bartricks

in cases that are barely analogous.

The best we can do is attempt to minimize our propensity to rationalize, and actually attempt to use reason and logic. It requires humbleness, strength of character, an inquisitive mind, and a willingness to admit when one is wrong, even when it hurts or shames. This takes training, effort, and a will to do. Most people will never do this. — Philosophim

It's not just "most people will never do this". It's: Everyone thinks they are of the few who have. No matter how sharply you define what rationality is, it is still at the mercy of rationalizing. "Don't place too much confidence in your opinion if it's about something you know little about" is a reasonable request. Everyone will agree with it, and everyone will think they're following it and the people who they disagree with are the problem!

It doesn't seem to me like it's possible to tell when one is actually "rationalizing less" from a first person perspective. Or from the perspective of someone who one largely agrees with.

That is how it works. If you want to find out the right and wrongs of these matters, my method is the one to be adopted - that is, one thinks about relevantly analogous cases about which parties are not heavily politically or financially invested. — Bartricks

And that is what @James Riley did. He thought about your analogous example, and came to conclusions different from yours. What appears to be the case to him isn’t what appears to be the case to you. How do we resolve this?

As for me, I agree with your conclusions but not the principles you derive. You got this:

If, however, you do not diminish its value or do anything at all with or to it, then you are obliged to return it.

By contrast, if you add value to it by incorporating it into something else or transform it in a value adding way, then you owe the original owner the value of the original, but no more than that. — Bartricks

From looking at a slice of pizza. I don’t think that’s very analogous to land. It’s very difficult to increase the value of a slice of pizza but not nearly as difficult to increase the value of a plot of land for one.

You do this weird thing where you derive principles out of individual appearances, and then never revise the principles when further appearances contradict. For instance: you derive the existence of an OOO God by reasoning from a set of appearances, and never revise the position when it contradicts much clearer appearances such as “rape is an injustice”

Put simply, you conclude too much from too little. Like someone who eats a strawberry and an apple then concludes “all red things are sweet and healthy”. Then when someone eats a poisonous red berry and dies you conclude “since all red things are sweet and healthy, this person is not dead, merely pretending to be”, refusing to revise the conclusion you initially drew no matter how much evidence to the contrary appears afterwards.

You probably don’t think this is the case. Which brings us back to how we resolve contradictory appearances (either contradicting with your own, or others’ appearances). I keep asking you how to resolve these and you cannot respond. Because you don’t have a basis, you just discard or accept certain premises in order to forge the conclusion you want. Nothing more.

What does a “claim on the thief” mean? As in the thief is obliged to return something of equal value?

Delete.

We disagree as to happiness-making and virtue-making being moral. — schopenhauer1

“Happiness making” and prevention of harm is indistinguishable in my experience. It’s a conclusion I came to recently, though I haven’t explored its consequences fully. Anything that can be phrased as happiness making can also be phrased as harm prevention and anything that can be framed as happiness “removing” can be framed as harming. If so the distinction makes no sense. I’m sure you said a similar thing before but I can’t find the quote since I’m on mobile.

For instance, say A sent B a new computer as a gift. Note that B is not suffering on account of having a bad PC. You hear of this transaction and decide to destroy the PC. Have you harmed B? Have you done anything wrong to B?

All you did was prevent happiness making, but since that doesn’t factor into morality, surely you haven’t done anything wrong to the happiness recipient right?

Or simply: How do you distinguish the two. Can you come up with a definition for when an act is making happiness as opposed to preventing harm?

I think one can judge how much of a prick or asshole or miserly someone is for not bringing happiness maybe.. but that's a character judgement.. value but not obligation. — schopenhauer1

If you can save someone’s life by making a very inconsequential sacrifice are you obligated to?

I know, I'm asking @TheMadFool because he seems to think it has some sort of static moral value.

There are plenty of things that are neither good nor bad that we can do and others we can't do.
— khaled

I'm beginning to doubt this claim. — TheMadFool

I took this to mean that everything we can do, is either good or bad. So running has a moral value, either good or bad. You just don't know which. Is that what you mean?

But you think it's either good or bad correct?

I'm beginning to doubt this claim. — TheMadFool

Is running good or bad?

true happiness — baker

What's the word "true" adding here?

If you mean "lasting happiness", yes, just pick something that ages very slowly and you're mostly good to go. Though that is difficult to do.

Sans pain, evil is meaningless. — TheMadFool

Sure. But pain =/= evil. That's the distinction I was pointing out.

Good point but explain to us how levitation can be moral/immoral? God, remember, is only concerned with moral responsibility. Perhaps there's nothing good/bad about being able to levitate or walk through walls. — TheMadFool

What does "God is only concerned by moral responsibility" mean?

There are plenty of things that are neither good nor bad that we can do and others we can't do. Lifting my arm is not good or bad. Neither is walking through walls. So why don't we have both abilities? Or why do we not lack both abilities? Why one and not the other?

If you're implying that we can't fly because there is nothing good/bad about flying, that makes no sense. There is nothing good/bad about raising my arm either but I can do that.

What are you getting at and how does this address anything I've said?

We aren't "truly free" given we can't levitate at will either by this logic. But we have free will. Ergo, not having certain abilities does not limit free will. Ergo, God could could have made it so that we cannot commit evil acts without infringing on our free will. Just like he made it so we can't fly without technology without infringing on our free will. — khaled