So the “moral” thing for us all to do is kill ourselves to prevent future “harm” I guess ...



I’m familiar with your views. I know you lean toward the pessimistic and I cannot blame you too much for that because you’re willing to listen and talk.

You have my respect, but not my complete agreement. I’ve been leaning further and further away from the whole “humans are cancer” positions espoused by a disgruntled large minority, out of sorts, out of touch, and almost willfully blind to the better part of the current global economic growth and well being of humanity at this point in history.

Remember that special school in the UK where children had complete autonomy and freedom to go to lessons or not? When new kids arrived from the normal school environment they tried to rebel and no one did anything ... eventually they settled down once they realised there was nothing to rebel against because no one was telling them what to do - they had freedom.

I get thr impression the western world is suffering from this a little. The oppression has lessened a great deal yet many are still up in arms about the injustices of the world whilst it’s actually improving at a rate unseen in all human history. People will settle down eventually and then get to whatever it is they’re driven to.

"I’m familiar with your views. I know you lean toward the pessimistic and I cannot blame you too much for that because you’re willing to listen and talk."

Woo, I had no idea that is how people interpret what I am saying. I have a lot of faith in humanity and that is why I say education for a technological society with unknown values is not a good thing. Democracy was not always an unknown value but now it is. We understood moral judgment is based on reason, but since leaving moral training to the church, we think morals are about religion. :roll: During the age of enlightenment many opposed Christianity because it stood against democracy and the freedoms we assume today, and today we think Christianity gave us democracy. :worry: Only those with high morals can have liberty, but since we put an end to education preparing the young to make good moral decisions, we scream we don't someone else to teach our children morals. We have zero understanding of what is required for a democracy to thrive.

I am not saying humans are the problem. I am saying education for a technological society with unknown values is a big problem.

PS It is not freedom that gets children to care about each other and learning. Freedom will get you Lord of the Flies without strong leadership from those who understand liberty is not the freedom to do anything we please but the right to choose what is right and it requires knowledge to do that well, so we give up our freedom, for a higher standard of living than living a pack of wolves. Lord of the Flies and pack of wolves refers to Nazi Germany and it was our education for good moral judgment that made us different, not Christianity and obedience to authority.

I know. I wasn’t saying you were saying humans are the problem. :)

So the “moral” thing for us all to do is kill ourselves to prevent future “harm” I guess .. — I like sushi

You can just refrain from creating more humans.

Ah shoot, I had a burning need to add a PS to my last reply and I really hope you will respond to what I say of liberty and freedom and the education we once had that made us different from Germany. I want to point out today we have young men who idealize the Nazis and think their freedom means the right to discriminate against others and kill Jews to make American great again and that this is what Trump is talking about when he speaks of making American great again. Freedom without good moral judgment is not a good thing and it is not what got children to return to their studies.

Athena -

Look at the reply before yours. That is the kind of shit that worries me!

You can just refrain from creating more humans. — Andrew4Handel

Humans are good if properly educated because being good is in their own self interest. Just not everyone is educated is the problem.

Focus on short term pleasure (instead of long term pleasure) is evil for self and those around you. — Devans99

That's evil per what?

I don't think you can dispute that it is harmful. — Andrew4Handel

Harmful is a value judgment, too. It's a way of saying that someone desires state x but state y is obtaining instead.

That's evil per what? — Terrapin Station

Long term > Short term, so focusing on the short term instead of the long term is sub-optimal. You get less net pleasure that way. I define that as wrong or evil.

If instead you choose to maximise pleasure in the long term (even though this maybe painful in the short term), you optimise net pleasure. I define that as right or good.

It's a way of saying that someone desires state x but state y is obtaining instead. — Terrapin Station

I think being in a state of pain is harmful. It is not harmful because you desire to be in another state. I think that it is only very personal states like food or music preferences where harm is subjective.

I am not sure what the point of your morality is? But you definitely seem nihilistic about morality. I would agree with those who say a subjective morality is a nihilistic morality

I did not choose where to live. The internet enhances my life. I would use it no matter where I lived. The world's information at my finger tips. It's brilliant. As for the sicko's they would probably express themselves some other way if it was not for the internet. We can police the internet so I don't see a problem. — Devans99

Either the internet provides something unique and therefore uniquely creates avenues to do both good and evil, or the internet provides nothing unique and just like the sickos will find different avenues to express themselves, so you would find different ways to educate and entertain yourself. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

You cannot argue surely that nuclear weapons did not avert WW3? — Devans99

That is not what I am saying. If it is to succeed in its role of deterrence, it may never fail. Not now, not in a hundred years, not in five-hundred years. Ultimately, we could repeat WW2 a dozen times over and it still would pale in comparison to a nuclear war. Considering mankind is prone to both conflict and error, and the fact that in roughly fifty years we have gotten close to nuclear war on multiple occasions, that's a risk no one should be willing to take.

It is not harmful because you desire to be in another state. — Andrew4Handel

On your view it's harmful because?

Either the internet provides something unique and therefore uniquely creates avenues to do both good and evil, or the internet provides nothing unique and just like the sickos will find different avenues to express themselves, so you would find different ways to educate and entertain yourself. You can't have your cake and eat it too. — Tzeentch

The internet provides far more good content than evil content.

Considering mankind is prone to both conflict and error, and the fact that in roughly fifty years we have gotten close to nuclear war on multiple occasions, that's a risk no one should be willing to take. — Tzeentch

I agree we should try to get rid of the nukes. I was making the point that nukes were an improvement over the early part of the 20th century, not a long term solution.

On your view it's harmful because? — Terrapin Station

Because it causes injury and suffering.

Because it causes injury and suffering. — Andrew4Handel

And how do we define injury and suffering so that we avoid desired versus not-desired states?

And how do we define injury and suffering so that we avoid desired versus not-desired states? — Terrapin Station

You can see an injury and people can suffer. People don't desire to suffer usually but that is irrelevant to the state itself.

Nevertheless in this thread I am talking about whether life compromises all theories of morality not whether these theories are true. But I don't think one persons preference for or against life decides the inherent nature of life.

What makes the cessation of life harmful? We are going to die anyway. What is the thing of value we want to perpetuate? Hopefully there is a better after life I think.

You can see an injury and people can suffer. People don't desire to suffer usually but that is irrelevant to the state itself. — Andrew4Handel

Simply ignoring what I asked you isn't actually a defense against the objection.

Either I answered your question or I failed to understand it.

I don't see how desire plays any part in whether someones is factually suffering or injured. I really don't believe pain only occurs because of desire. I hope you don't believe that.

I don't see how desire plays any part in whether someones is factually suffering or injured. I really don't believe pain only occurs because of desire. I hope you don't believe that. — Andrew4Handel

What i asked you was how you're defining injury or suffering so that they don't have anything to do with desired versus not-desired states. An answer would be the definitions in question.

Well, i think is weird questioning what makes ending life bad if we are going to die, (i don't know how to cite one of your last comments) if we took that stance, then morality doesn't matter at all either, genocides doesn't matter, What difference makes people suffering a little more before dying? we all suffer anyway, what difference makes millions dead? the universe will end some day, the earth will explode, what does it matter if children die for millions? of course i don't think it doesn't matter, i say it because i don't think you believe that either, we can rationally make all this nihilistic claims, but that doesn't mean that we feel really that way, is like what happened in Crime and Punishment of Dostoyevski, rationally killing the old lady wasn't bad at all, she would've contribute more dead than alive, but that didn't mean anything at the end, the guy was still a murderer. But adressing the main question, i think probably life isn't moral, but that's why morality exist, because we seem to lack it naturally, we may never been able to know everything, but that doesn't mean we can't try,to direct our lifes on that end, because if we do we will know a lot of things who can make us wiser, we may never been able to be as strong as Schwarzenegger (once was), but if we direct our actions to that end, we probably could get really strong, we harm the earth obviously, but that's not exactly because we are ultra evil and bad, is because we accomplish something really unprecedented, we beat natural selection basically, the problem is not that we kill animals to eat, the problem is that we are too many people, and also that we have the power to destroy entire ecosystems without that much effort, we find power, and we accomplish what all cultures always wanted, we beat nature, the problem is that we gotta learn to live with that power who made us invincible, we gotta extend morality to the rest of nature because we are in an almost impossible position.

i think probably life isn't moral, but that's why morality exist, because we seem to lack it naturally, — Nicolás Navia

It's natural for us to get an education, and once we are educated properly we become moral beings as it is in our self interest to do so. It's the uneducated who are immoral.

so you are saying is only convenient to "us" being moral? or i misunderstood you?

Immoral behaviour is about being short-sided and prioritising short-term pleasure over long-term pleasure (which makes no sense as long>short). So its mathematically inferior to moral behaviour (which is prioritising long-term pleasure rather than short-term pleasure). Explained here:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/4395/defining-good-and-evil/p1

oh, yeah, i agree completely with that, that's why moral behaviour need to be reinforced culturally, because we can't expect that everyone in all our society can explain the reasons of acting morally to someone.

Why would you need to talk about desired states when describing suffering? Suffering and injury do not need definition to exist. I am not sure what definition you are referring to.

Here is two dictionary definitions of pain anyway:

1:Highly unpleasant physical sensation caused by illness or injury.
2:mental suffering or distress

The idea isn't whether anything "needs a definition to exist." Presumably we're calling something, some x rather than some different y, "suffering," and we're calling some w rather than some v "injury," right? So that we can say, "That's suffering." "That's not." "That's an injury." "That's not."

What I'm asking you is what definitions you're using that allows you to place phenomena in those bins, so that you call any given phenomena in question those terms, versus saying that phenomena don't belong in those bins, (a) where the definitions do not depend on whether persons desire the states or not, and eventually we're going to get to (b) where the terms have anything like their conventional connotations.

I'm not saying that you definitely can not succeed. Maybe you can. But let's look at the actual definitions you're using. If you're not sure, then think about it for a bit. What are the criteria you use for calling something suffering versus saying it's not suffering, and calling something an injury versus saying that it's not an injury. You can look at (or just use if you want) dictionary definitions in figuring this out. Keep in mind that one thing I'm going to do after you give definitions is look at whether they capture the normative connotations that the terms usually have.

Suffering is undesirable but it is not undesirable because of personal preference. No one with a working nervous system could hold their hand in fire for a long period.

But that said no personal preference can really be chosen in a subjective way. If someone is allergic to strawberries that is an objective fact or if they dislike the taste of meat..

Opinions on the other hand are a different and a more trivial thing. That is why morality as an opinion is weak. You can alter your opinions but you can't alter your pain sensations by will.

Wrong on too many counts now my friend.

You to express an unbelievably naive and simplistic view of the world thus resilting in amoral nihilism.

Bye