How many Christian sects are there and which Christian sects subscribe to which beliefs. — TheMadFool

In general, it is the Protestants who value faith above deeds, and the Catholics who place a greater value on deeds than do Protestants.

See here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_fide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_works

Not relevant. This thread is about whether an act that creates equal quantities of undeserved pain and non-deserved pleasure is good or right. — Bartricks

You want to meaningfully talk about pleasure and good/right without reference to people??

Ergo, intensionalism is a more reasonable theory of morality than consequentialism. — TheMadFool

The downside of intensionalism is that intention is private and cannot be reliably known by external observers.

A person can always say "I meant no harm" after they had done something that had bad consequences. Then what?


I think that intensionalism has the best prospect of being true as a moral theory, but it is also useless because of its extremely limited application (it's, at best, applicable when a person reflects on their own actions in private, and to a limited extent in interpersonal relationships in which there is trust).

What is obvious is that a capitalism that destroys its own worker and consumer base is not capable of sustaining itself. — Kenosha Kid

As long as there are so many people on the planet, there is no danger to capitalism.

People have always lived and died for ideas anyway.

Contrary to what you assert, it is not relevant. The soundness of an argument is unaffected by the motives of the arguer. — Bartricks

I'm not talking about soundness, but content.

Surely you can imagine that you will provide a different line of reasoning if you are asked why you personally don't have children, as opposed to if you're asked to explain why people at large or some particular person or group of persons should not have children.

Christian morality revolves around deeds, don't they — TheMadFool

Depending on the Christian sect.

sinuous — TheMadFool

You know what else is sinuous? Tapeworms. Eh.

On a general note: What is the purpose of antinatalist arguments?

To convince people at large not to have children?
To justify why one doesn't have children?
?

Because the purpose of an antinatalist argument factors in its content.

Well, everybody has to put on their big-boy pants and figure it out. — synthesis

In a Mad Max scenario?

And I don't believe the planet has much to worry about. It will rid itself of us when the time is right.

Oh, you mean it like that. As if Earth should look forward to becoming more like Triton ...

the best path seems to be to allow for each participant to chart his own course (within the context of respecting others' rights to do the same). — synthesis

This is simply unrealistic.
Those who have more power, more resources can afford not to respect the rights of others and get away with it.

If someone wrongs you and you don't have the money to sue them, you're screwed.

Ideology — Kenosha Kid

I'm afraid that this is a matter of ideology.
How are people going to change their consumer habits if they don't first change their minds?

Actually, yes, I suppose there were general electric car battery subsidies that inevitably funded lithium ion battery research. — Kenosha Kid

I'm talking about, for example, the state paying part of the price if you choose to buy an electric car or install a solar system on the roof of your house.

Here's the deal, freedom is ALWAYS the answer, be it in personal matters, matter of the state, or the economy. Allow people to make decisions and take responsibility for themselves. — synthesis

The problem is that sometimes, when people make their own decision and act freely, this results in difficult situations that they themselves cannot mend, and those negative situations negatively affect other people.

An example of such a difficult situation is consumerism, which, if left unchecked, is on the trajectory to destroy the planet.

Lithium batteries in cars aren't produced by state intervention, — Kenosha Kid

No, they encouraged by state intervention, such as through subsidies for "green technology".

but by corporations responding to demand for cars that don't burn fossil fuels.

The state, if it would be a moral agent acting morally, would intervene with 1. this demand, and 2. the response of corporations to it.

Of course, the potential price of acting morally for any agent are poverty and extinction.

Countries with the strongest socialist policies tend to be more reactive to problems. The obvious example is environmental concerns. /.../ This strikes me as a success for the reactivity of the state to emerging crises. — Kenosha Kid

Take, for example, Scandinavian countries and their use of electric cars. Seems nice and environmentally friendly, yes?

Except that the damage is done elsewhere on the planet. Parts of Chile, Bolivia, and Argentina are destroyed in the process of producing lithium for batteries for electric cars.

And where is all that electricity for electric cars supposed to come from?

And so on.

As a prestigious figure, instead of being reprimanded or thrown into a Victorian-era prison, he took his numerous child photos. — FrankGSterleJr

What happened to other people (presumably,mostly men) who took such child photos in those times in England?

Although they might also be best placed to survive the collapse of capitalism — Kenosha Kid

Of course. Natural selection.

Why did Keats' poem attain such a status in popular culture?
This might answer the puzzle a bit.


Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,

/.../

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."


https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44477/ode-on-a-grecian-urn

Since those that most espouse the necessity of capitalism (typically conservatives) are those most averse to any hint of state intervention and social welfare, is capitalism about to fuck itself over by driving down the very thing it depends on? — Kenosha Kid

That would be natural selection at its finest.

justice is not a concern in the ethics of reproduction. — Kenosha Kid

For whom? Says who?

So, what do you think? Does the fact that acts of human procreation can reasonably be expected to create lots of undeserved suffering and non-deserved pleasure imply that they are overall morally bad? — Bartricks

In some schools of Buddhism, they would probably something like that, yes.

Philia — Affectionate Love. Philia is love without romantic attraction and occurs between friends or family members. ...
Pragma — Enduring Love, love between long-term partners
Storge — Familiar Love, friendship
Eros — Romantic Love, erotic love
Ludus — Playful Love, young love, 'puppy love'
Mania — Obsessive Love, jealousy.
Philautia — Self Love (as in self-esteem, emotional maturity - not narcicism.)
agapē — Selfless Love, unconditional love, charity, compassion for all. — Wayfarer

Which of these are not craving?

That which does not kill us eh! — Book273

Makes us dumber ...

I would call such a child one in need of foster parents who would receive him or her as a blessing instead of a curse. — Todd Martin

Many children are unwanted by their parents, yet their parents keep them anyway. Such children can end up with various psychological problems.

How fair is it to say those children have a "bad nature"?

Yeah I suppose you’re right. It’s for their own good at the end of the day better to be punished by a parent early than the law later — Benj96

And you have some reason to believe that early punishment works well on children whose parents didn't want them, but had them anyway, and have always sent them subtle or overt messages that it would be better if they didn't exist?

Thirdly; By not allowing natural selection to occur, through falsely propping up those who would otherwise fall, we weaken the species, thereby allowing an increase in future deaths to yet another virus. — Book273

What makes you think that the hardships and deaths that are and will be due to the lockdowns and economic donwnturn _aren't_ "natural selection"?

Who is the official arbiter on what gets to be called "natural selection" and what doesn't?

Basically, Do you believe some people require a larger effort in self reflection, meditation and self-directed positive cognitive training to maintain the same good traits/values as someone who just does it in the first place without thinking? — Benj96

Of course.

Take another practical example with two non-smokers: Tom has never smoked and has no difficulty not smoking. Harry, on the other hand, used to smoke for thirty years, but quit and he now hasn't smoked for five years.

Who should be commended?

How do you factor in the beginning point for each? Ethically, it makes a difference whether Tom is simply an intuitive non-smoker, or whether he actually chose not to smoke at some point.

a child with a bad nature — Todd Martin

What would you call a child whose parents didn't want him, but had him anyway, and have always sent him subtle or overt messages that it would be better if he didn't exist?

Not a popular thesis. No matter, I am right, my detractors wrong. I can argue this very well, and it is the genuine foundation for moral realism and the reality of the self. — Constance

Actually, it's one of the most popular theses in the self-help genre. So ordinary, actually.

Google "self quotes" and look at the image results.

And an endless number of posts like this: https://www.thehappycandle.ie/my-declaration-of-self-esteem-i-am-me-by-virginia-satir/

A question that might be helpful at this juncture is: would you rather have a purpose that you decided for yourself than have a purpose assigned to you by someone else, a god perhaps? — TheMadFool

Or a social worker, a judge, or a parole officer. Or a mob boss. To name a few.

If the former then you're completely free to choose whatever you want to do with your life and that would be your purpose.

That's not true, though. It is, for example, not solely within the power of the individual to become a billionaire, a president of a country, or the one who cured cancer.

Jordan Peterson's take on religion won't go down well with the religious section of the population. It's as if he would let faithful believe in a lie just to keep them in line. What a condescending attitude! As if the only thing keeping believers from becoming q band of criminals is religion. — TheMadFool

Why do you think the ends don't justify the means? — TheMadFool

So you, too, don't believe that the end justifies the means?


For a more advanced example of the end justifying the means in religion, look at Mahayana Buddhism and their concept of upaya, "skillful means".

The idea that the ends justify the means is that anything and everything is permissible in order to achieve a goal, given that the goal in question is moral. If one buys into this idea then you'll have no qualms about acting immorally if the outcome, the end result, is moral. So, for instance, you'll be willing to kill to if the resulting death had good consequences whatever they may be. — TheMadFool

The idea "the end justifies the means" and its opposite "the end doesn't justify the means" are too simplistic, that's why they are problematic.

Whose end? Whose means? What end? What means?

The idea that the end justifies the means is, for one, really just a thinly veiled justification for one-upmanship, whether done by one person or many. It's a way of saying "I want things to be the way I want them, cost what may, and others are merely puppets in the process and should see themselves as such".

Secondly, whether an end justifies the means depends on the value system of the person making the claim. For example, does completing a marathon justify ending up with permanent damage to one's joints or dying from a heart attack? For a person obsessed with completing a marathon, it probably does. For everyone else, not so much.

The idea that the end doesn't justify the means is simplistic insofar it doesn't take into account the above two considerations.

On the other hand if one is opposed to the claim that the ends justify the means one would be unwilling to commit an immoral act even if it the consequences of such an act were themselves moral.

Can you give an example of where an immoral act has moral consequences?

Was the victory of the Allies in WWII "moral"? Was it "immoral" to kill the Nazis?


I can think of many examples where doing something immoral lead to some beneficial consequences for some people for some time (such as cheating on an exam), but I would not describe those consequences as either moral or immoral, but at most as beneficial, for a particular person for some time.

Why bother to argue in detail about what people say when you have the easy tool of character assassination? — ssu

Like I already pointed out on another thread here:

Not all ad hominems are fallacious:


/.../
Walton has argued that ad hominem reasoning is not always fallacious, and that in some instances, questions of personal conduct, character, motives, etc., are legitimate and relevant to the issue,[30] as when it directly involves hypocrisy, or actions contradicting the subject's words.

The philosopher Charles Taylor has argued that ad hominem reasoning (discussing facts about the speaker or author relative to the value of his statements) is essential to understanding certain moral issues due to the connection between individual persons and morality (or moral claims), and contrasts this sort of reasoning with the apodictic reasoning (involving facts beyond dispute or clearly established) of philosophical naturalism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem#Criticism_as_a_fallacy

When it comes to people who promote particular theories of morality, ethics, it would be remiss not to look at their personal lives and whether they live up to what they preach.


If a mathematician was drunk when he developed a certain mathematical proof has no bearing on the validty of the proof, and it would be wrong to reject the proof based on the mathematician's intoxication.
But matters of morality, ethics are not like that.

What the hell happened to Jordan Peterson?
Pity, rather than admiration. — Banno

Oy, vey iz him! Not to put too fine a point on schadenfreude, but I want to say "I told you so!"

I wonder how JP's unraveling will affect his fans. How will these people cope with this?

Jordan Peterson's take on religion won't go down well with the religious section of the population. — TheMadFool

I think that at least those religious people from cultures where their religion has been the majority religion for a long time are ambivalent toward him. On the one hand, they of course must be outraged at him for suggesting that truth is not that important in religion. On the other hand, they know that he's right and that he's just saying out loud what they themselves have known or suspected for a long time.

For example, I grew up in a Catholic country. The Catholics here go to great lenghts to publicly display a reverence for their religion, but in private, it's clear that they don't actually take it seriously. This duplicity is a public secret: everybody knows it but it's forbidden to talk about it and nobody will openly admit to it.

New religions and minority religions are different. In those, it seems that adherents do take them seriously and do in fact believe the religious tenets.

It's as if he would let faithful believe in a lie just to keep them in line. What a condescending attitude! As if the only thing keeping believers from becoming q band of criminals is religion.

But that condescending attitude is nothing new, religious people are used to it. You will have noticed that religious people from different religions have a kind of victim/martyr mentality in regard to outsiders anyway -- "Others are out to destroy us, humiliate us". And religious people tend to be condescending to outsiders to begin with. So it's all just business as usual.

What isn't business as usual seems to be that some religious people, esp. Christians at first took JP as someone who might be working for their cause, but who are disappointed that he refused to take a clear position on the matter for so long.

I also know some Buddhists who were sort of fans of his. One of them is an avowed vegan; I wonder what he'll say about JP's unraveling.

Jordan Peterson's view on religion is pragmatic in a way because his entire argument was that religions have a positive impact on people and not that they're true. — TheMadFool

Of course, I think so too. (And not because JP said it, I figured that out on my own, living among Catholics.)

Does it make sense to endorse or promote for public consumption an outright lie because it gives people comfort or keeps them on the straight and narrow or the like? Isn't this paternalism?

In my experience, many religious people know that religion is not about truth and they don't look for comfort in it. Such people don't take it seriously. But what they do take seriously with great effort is keeping up the appearance of taking it seriously. This is the taboo, the public secret.

Yes, it's paternalism -- but so what? If one believes that it's dog eat dog world and that life is a struggle for survival and that winning is all that matters, then most truths are trivial.

I myself have refused many luxuries and comforts to investigate this on my own. — Giorgi

What have been some of your discoveries in these investigations?

I am interested in alternative lifestyles and how they can offer resistance to consumerism — Giorgi

I assume you exclude the poor from this, ie. people who due to lack of money have to invent lifestyles that are alternative to consumerism and offer resistance to it?

Oh, right.

There does seem to be some correlation between jaw width and aggressiveness:

Recent research has identified men’s facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) as a reliable predictor of aggressive tendencies and behavior. Other research, however, has failed to replicate the fWHR-aggression relationship and has questioned whether previous findings are robust. In the current paper, we synthesize existing work by conducting a meta-analysis to estimate whether and how fWHR predicts aggression. Our results indicate a small, but significant, positive relationship between men’s fWHR and aggression.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0122637