How different would the world be if pure reason and morality were the basis of all thought and decisions?
Personally, I cannot force my reasoning mind to believe something, no matter what might happen. — Carolyn Young
pure reason and morality — Carolyn Young
Agreed. On another forum, I've pointed out that this is simply not the way beliefs are formed. I'll share the best rebuttal I received.Personally, I cannot force my reasoning mind to believe something, no matter what might happen. — Carolyn Young
because if you don't, you're screwed. — Carolyn Young
Piaget's hierarchy of moral thinking says that at the highest level, your decisions are based on what's right and wrong for humanity. How different would the world be if pure reason and morality were the basis of all thought and decisions? — Carolyn Young
Pascal's Wager is relevant because you have to decide to believe something because if you don't, you're screwed. — Carolyn Young
With all due respect to Piaget, who is obviously right about lots of things, I've always had trouble with the idea that doing good 'for humanity' is somehow a 'higher' good. To my mind, 'humanity' is an abstraction - and it's been noticeable in my experience how often people who talk about doing good for humanity in the abstract, are not actually that pleasant to the actual flesh and blood humans they encounter. There also seems to be a slightly simplistic inflationary principle here - loving one human is good, therefore loving 9 billion humans is 9 billion times better. Is it not possible that 'the love of humanity' is actually just a self-aggrandizing delusion ? — Danek21
As for question of humanity being an abstraction, I think it's irrelevant at this point because love of humanity doesn't commit the fallacy of composition and the word "humanity" doesn't dilute or ignore the fact that individuals who constitute it are our main concern. — TheMadFool
Thanks for the interesting and detailed reply, but at risk of being overly pedantic (which I guess is probably not such a problem on a philosophy forum !) I'd like to take issue with your assertion that the fact that humanity is an abstraction is irrelevant.
I do take your point that 'love of humanity' doesn't necessarily commit the fallacy of composition, but I think there is a deeper and more intractable problem with the abstract nature of the word 'humanity' - which is that I don't think it's a term that actually points to anything concrete or meaningful in the world, and instead serves as a kind of placeholder concept for people to displace emotions that would be socially unacceptable if acted out on real, existing human beings (emotions such as disgust, hatred, envy, despair, contempt etc). Hence the general tendency for people to talk about the state of humanity in such tragic terms as in your response above. My assertion is that while there are self-evidently negative aspects to real human nature, in reality the picture is nothing like as grim as it appears once we drop the philosopher's temptation to sit in judgement of real human beings, on the basis of an abstraction we've created ourselves, informed by the most lurid extremes of human behaviour. — Danek21
Also, you seem to have switched beliefs between the first and the second posts you made - first you were complaining about humanity and then you changed your tune. — TheMadFool
That's interesting - I clearly need to work on expressing myself, as it was certainly not my intention to complain about 'humanity' in the first post, (assuming you're referring to actual humans). — Danek21
people who talk about doing good for humanity in the abstract, are not actually that pleasant to the actual flesh and blood humans they encounter — Danek21
point I was ham-fistedly trying to make is essentially a very pro-human one, namely that actual extant human beings get an unfairly hard time of it from philosophers and intellectuals, who use the abstraction 'humanity' as a kind of straw man repository for negative emotional reactions. — Danek21
The wager isn't a logic flaw. If one could form a belief by flipping a switch, it would make sense for anyone who thinks there's at least a small chance of a god who rewards us after death for believing in him. Switching to believer costs you nothing, and it at least has that small chance of benefitting you. So the problem is that beliefs don't work that way.I think there's a bit of a logic flaw in Pascal's wager. You have to not only believe in God, you have to believe in a God that condemns you to eternal hell or promotes you to eternal heaven, based on whether you've been bad or good. In effect, God is conflated with Santa Claus. "He knows when you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake" is an expression of Pascal's wager! — fishfry
There is a huge switch. Switching to a belief may be a switch to a bad belief.If one could form a belief by flipping a switch, it would make sense for anyone who thinks there's at least a small chance of a god who rewards us after death for believing in him. Switching to believer costs you nothing, and it at least has that small chance of benefitting you. So the problem is that beliefs don't work that way. — Relativist
Ok, that's a good point that negates the bet. But we do not switch on beliefs.There is a huge switch. Switching to a belief may be a switch to a bad belief. — god must be atheist
The wager isn't a logic flaw. If one could form a belief by flipping a switch, it would make sense for anyone who thinks there's at least a small chance of a god who rewards us after death for believing in him. Switching to believer costs you nothing, and it at least has that small chance of benefitting you. So the problem is that beliefs don't work that way. — Relativist
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