It's about how we assess what "too much" imposition is. — schopenhauer1
Sometimes, a slave for example, might not know how bad they have it objectively — schopenhauer1
Do you think that suicide is easy for people? — schopenhauer1
And do you think the difficulty of doing something like that is a reason why life is then a good thing for that person? — schopenhauer1
@Isaac (khaled and Isaac same person, slightly different writing style? haha.. collusion?) anyways..I don’t think “how bad they have it objectively” makes sense. How bad one has it is always a subjective assessment. — khaled
khaled and Isaac same person, slightly different writing style? haha — schopenhauer1
Is the boss wrong in what he is doing? Is he being exploitative of someone's comparative willingness to work? Is this just? Is this too much of an imposition? I would say yes to all of this, EVEN THOUGH the willing-worker doesn't see it as a problem. — schopenhauer1
The interviewer walks away and is satisfied that this is a perfectly accurate self-assessment.. but is it?
There are the immediate phenomenological aspects to life that is the "lived experience" and then there are abstractions of this lived experience, in some remove from daily goings-on. It could be demonstrably shown that humans overestimate their positive experiences when put in the non-usual mode of evaluating their WHOLE life with one sentence. — schopenhauer1
So a person on the fence who is thoughtful might never give the true answer, because then they are the weird "Negative Nancy" or "Debbie Downer" (or put in X pejorative here). — schopenhauer1
People have cognitive biases to distort what their experiences are when recalling them. They become cherry-picked, confused, etc. So sure we can say that in their evaluation they sounded like they were content with the situation, but then not be living the situation they are describing (see Scenario 2). — schopenhauer1
Is the boss wrong in what he is doing? Is he being exploitative of someone's comparative willingness to work? Is this just? Is this too much of an imposition? — schopenhauer1
You haven't said on what grounds. The simple explanation seems to be contrary to your hyper-individualist stance. You say we can't judge happiness on behalf others (and take action assuming our answer), but here you're saying we can judge unhappiness on behalf of others and take action accordingly. Why can we assume we're better judges of suffering but not better judges of happiness? — Isaac
I don’t think “how bad they have it objectively” makes sense. How bad one has it is always a subjective assessment. — khaled
But why should the 'in-the-moment' assessments take precident, there's nothing which objectively makes these assessments more 'real'. They're subject no less to expectation biases, perhaps the thought out judgement at the end of the day is a better assessment for taking the whole day in context. All you have is two slightly contradictory assessments. You've no grounds to treat one as more 'real' than another. — Isaac
Positive outlooks are more socially acceptable than negative ones. I can see how this could impact overall judgements of a person's quality of life, but there's a long way from "people overstate their quality of life when asked" to "most people would rather not have been born". — Isaac
Also true, but this one is subject to the problem above. Happiness is just a state of mind, it's not an objective property of causal events. If we're happier with out post hoc filtered recollection than we were with the original events, then we're happier. Full stop. — Isaac
There's no 'real' happiness, it's all constructed. There's literally no neurological equivalent of being 'happy', it's entirely something we construct from recollection, there is no other form. — Isaac
I would say no to all questions here and I think a lot of other people would as well. I don’t think we have any reason to care about some seemingly abstract and hypothetical harms done to others if they aren’t even expressing a grievance and they aren’t even willing to do anything to stand up for themselves. The employee in your hypothetical seemingly could tell the boss to give him less work but he chooses not to. In addition, he isn’t even forced to work for this terrible boss and with his go-getter attitude he could easily find a better job. So, why care about this person’s well being? If his well being is bad, then isn’t it completely his fault for not doing anything about it?(if there’s lots of things that he can do to alleviate his harm with not too much effort). I think that we have the greatest expectation to be able to help ourselves and pursue our own interests. If someone isn’t even willing to put thought and effort into their own welfare then it’s hard for me to understand why others should take their welfare considerations seriously either. — TheHedoMinimalist
The implication being that, if someone is imposing on another, it can still be wrong despite the person being exploited perhaps not minding. I wanted to use a different example than the usual one I use about slavery, but it is similar. A slave who may not know they are being imposed upon unjustly, may not seem to care. This doesn't mean the slaveowner is thus absolved of doing the imposing or should keep persisting. This goes back to what khaled (you) said earlier about the absolute subjective nature of ethics, as I interpreted him/you:
I don’t think “how bad they have it objectively” makes sense. How bad one has it is always a subjective assessment. — schopenhauer1
Subjective at what point in time? Is a summative statement the one that should be used or the in-the-moment?
This leads then to the factors that seem to indicate we shouldn't quite take the summative statement (Scenario 1 and 2)... — schopenhauer1
I think cultural groups are basically self-reinforcing with their social pressures. — schopenhauer1
No, you can't say that is happier, because that is a post-hoc "answer". — schopenhauer1
Is the boss wrong in what he is doing? Is he being exploitative of someone's comparative willingness to work? Is this just? Is this too much of an imposition? — schopenhauer1
When you add it all up, you're actually at a net negative. — schopenhauer1
1) Cultural bias.. Even if someone was to REALLY think about life in depth, without reflexively giving an answer, that person might look to what social norms generally accepts as an appropriate answer. So a person on the fence who is thoughtful might never give the true answer, because then they are the weird "Negative Nancy" or "Debbie Downer" (or put in X pejorative here).
2) Cognitive bias... People have cognitive biases to distort what their experiences are when recalling them. They become cherry-picked, confused, etc. So sure we can say that in their evaluation they sounded like they were content with the situation, but then not be living the situation they are describing (see Scenario 2). — schopenhauer1
(khaled and Isaac same person, slightly different writing style? haha.. collusion?) — schopenhauer1
Well, precisely. This is again to throw doubt on simply saying "it's all subjective". — schopenhauer1
Your point here, again, is reinforcing my point -this brief summation may simply not be "the" answer, because it was constructed based on various factors which may bias it. — schopenhauer1
You already know my position on this but: No to all but the second (yes he’s being exploitative, which isn’t a problem when the person getting exploited doesn’t see an issue with it) — khaled
It seems clear to me that the sum of pleasure and pain isn’t all we consider. Raising children is more often than not extremely painful in comparison to how much pleasure it brings. Yet everyone does it and doesn’t seem to mind the negative balance (note, I said raising not having. This applies even more so to adoptive parents) — khaled
Same as above. Why should any of this be more important than whether or not the person minds the imposition. — khaled
Please tell me how happy I am objectively, using the standard -100 to 100 numerical scale, given the above information, and demonstrate your workings. — khaled
Is it permissible to do something on someone else's behalf because one has a notion that "most people" would "want this"? — schopenhauer1
Well, the point of this wasn't to show someone's reaction on behalf of others, per se, though that can be a possible avenue to explore. What it is illustrating is that the ethical onus fell on the owner, not the worker's reaction to being exploited. The implication being that, if someone is imposing on another, it can still be wrong despite the person being exploited perhaps not minding. I wanted to use a different example than the usual one I use about slavery, but it is similar. A slave who may not know they are being imposed upon unjustly, may not seem to care. This doesn't mean the slaveowner is thus absolved of doing the imposing or should keep persisting. — schopenhauer1
It seems wrong to take advantage of someone (they don't have the awareness to realise they are being taken advantage of). If we tested that with a reductio, say the worker being taken advantage of had special needs. — Down The Rabbit Hole
But, what if the boss has special needs also and he’s also unaware that he is exploiting the worker? — TheHedoMinimalist
More cognitive distortions. Once you have a kid, you generally can't take it back or be in a state where you didn't have a kid. — schopenhauer1
The main point being here that there can be something wrong done, even if no one perceives the wrong. — schopenhauer1
That's the thing, they minded it at the moment. — schopenhauer1
Well right, analog versus digital. When the question is asked, it's digital, but much of life is lived in the moment in analog (give me this binary answer right now!). Even the mood of the time being asked might affect things. Also, the question, "Did you want to be born" might be gotten at in different ways that isn't as straightforward, as this has all sorts of implications of suicide, depression, etc. that no one would want to project. — schopenhauer1
However, investigate the holistic case of what is going on throughout the feelings, moods, and experiences throughout a day, a week, a month, a year, etc. — schopenhauer1
The imposer doesn't realize they are imposing, neither does the imposed (the controversial part). Again, there was a time when people used to think X was not wrong.. X is now considered wrong. What makes this any different? — schopenhauer1
We think because if there is a multiplicity of choices for X — schopenhauer1
You will say that "as long as "most people" don't see not having the option for no option as bad, it's all good" — schopenhauer1
Rather, it's analog and binary. The evaluations are still subjective.. So even the analog is subjective. So when you have something super painful, or even just mild irritations throughout the day, you would subjectively evaluate that. What I am saying is the results may be different — schopenhauer1
You write this like I owe you something. I write my thoughts not to convince you believe it or not. — schopenhauer1
You write this like I owe you something. I write my thoughts not to convince you believe it or not. — schopenhauer1
No I write this to challenge your views. Clearly however, you don't want that. Which makes me question why you start threads in the first place. Do you want a thread where all the replies are "I agree"? What's the point of that? — khaled
If it's not to convince, and if it's not to look for opposing views, then why write an OP at all? — khaled
This is not your blog. You do owe khaled something, and others who've contributed to your thread. You owe them at least an honest attempt at following through the arguments they make, otherwise we're just the 'comments section' below your Wordpress. Those aren't the terms under which people make the effort to respond. — Isaac
Give an example of such an X. Slavery? The slaves didn’t think it was right. Gender inequality? Women didn’t think it was right. Racial discrimination? Black people didn’t think it was right. Etc.
No there was no point at which we unanimously agreed that X is right and discovered later that it was wrong or vice versa. — khaled
At first X was some action that we think is either wrong or not wrong. Now it’s a person? I’m confused. — khaled
On the one hand you have the momentary evaluations of events. On the other you have the evaluation of whether or not life was worth it overall. What would it mean for these two evaluations to be “the same result”? As you say, one is analog and one is binary. How can they be the same? It makes no sense. — khaled
So no I am not doing that. — schopenhauer1
What I am trying to do is make a space for disagreement to not be as hostile as it becomes. — schopenhauer1
I just don't need even more aggravation in my life and you can be very aggravating. — schopenhauer1
But more importantly, they are ideas I think I are worth thinking about. — schopenhauer1
But you often write something like, "Well, this doesn't convince me." — schopenhauer1
In other words, you can write in a more conducive to dialogue way, but it's slash and burn like your friend Isaac. — schopenhauer1
And ANs don't think it's right as being shown in real time. — schopenhauer1
I mean one evaluation might indicate life was not so great, the other a positive affirmation. — schopenhauer1
An argument we can dissect, it's an entertaining parlour game, but an opinion...? What use is that? — Isaac
indicates lack of ethical/moral integrity and irresponsibility. You should be able to act according to what you believe is right or wrong, good or bad, and accept the consequences of your actions. — Alkis Piskas
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