I sometimes think humans are addicted to crisis. — Tom Storm

harm is not objectively defined — Lionino

So apparently some negative utilitarians think there is a "second," namely, to "maximize the total amount of happiness." The question could then be rephrased: why choose the first form of negative utilitarianism over the second form? — Leontiskos

Causality itself implies things are caused, so I would assume causality has a cause, it is the case directly, probably by some divine force. — Barkon

Things don't pop up for no reason ... — Barkon

You laugh at mine [value system] but what is yours grounded in? — BitconnectCarlos

Why is it true?

Because Marx said it?

... where's our justice?

What does yours tell you? — BitconnectCarlos

[W]e don't exonerate murder, rape, and man stealing because one is from an oppressed group.

[W]hat monstrous thing is concealed in the shadows beyond this raging bonfire? — tim wood

Zionism seeks a homeland — BitconnectCarlos

So I would want to ask, first, why "positive utilitarianism" is not partially correct (i.e. why consideration of the harm-complement is non-moral). — Leontiskos

Second, I would want to inquire into the relevant definition of harm.

- deprivation (of e.g. sustanence, shelter, sleep, touch, esteem, care, health, hygiene, trust, safety, etc)

- dysfunction (i.e. injury, ill-health, disability)

- helplessness (i.e. trapped, confined, or fear-terror of being vulnerable)

- stupidity (i.e. maladaptive habits (e.g. mimetic violence, lose-lose preferences, etc))

- betrayal (i.e. trust-hazards)

- bereavement (i.e. losing loved ones & close friends), etc ...

... in effect, any involuntary decrease, irreparable loss or final elimination of human agency — 180 Proof

In general I am apt to prefer classical justice ... — Leontiskos

This is the legacy of the Israeli oppression of Palestinians. — Punshhh

I am unaware of any hostages held by the Israelis. — tim wood

Destroy all oppression — Moses

Funny how they never demand a Palestine free of Hamas’s occupation & oppression. — Moses

1) What do you say should be done now about the hostages? — tim wood

2) You added to the video you reference above, "Free Palestine!" What exactly do you mean by that?

I don't know enough ... — tim wood

... representation that Gazans are simply innocent victims and responsibility-free.

Palestinian [oppressed] kills Jew = Resistance. Jew [oppressor] kills Palestinian = war crime.
— BitconnectCarlos

That's how it works when one party is oppressed and the other is oppressed. That has nothing to do with identity. — Benkei

Is harm thought to be synonymous with justice? — Leontiskos

For example, if someone enters your house with a gun and you sneak up behind them and knock them unconscious in order to incapacitate them, would the negative utilitarian say that you have harmed them? If this does not count as harm ...

I don’t follow your objection. — Leontiskos

The desire for what is good does not mean that the good will be found in our practices. What the good is remains highly problematic.

Reading Aristotle as if his work is not dialectical makes it hard to see that he is guided by unanswered questions rather than dogmatic answers. — Fooloso4

Revolutionary Jews From Spinoza to Marx: The Fight for A Secular World of Universal and Equal Rights by Jonathan Israel — Maw

I am surprised no one has started a thread on this — Manuel

He just died. Surprised there was no mention here.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/19/books/daniel-dennett-dead.html

RIP — fishfry

No more 'resting in peace' than there would be for cars cut up for scrap. — Wayfarer

Our interpetations are constrained by the nature of the world including ourselves, so it's not right to say that we create the world. — Janus

The bodymind interprets what is given to it precognitively. It doesn't create what is given ... — Janus

One of the surprising discoveries of modern psychology is how easy it is to be ignorant of your own ignorance.

Like many other natural wonders, the human mind is something of a bag of tricks, cobbled together over the eons by the foresightless process of evolution by natural selection.

Philosophy is to science what pigeons are to statues.

There’s simply no polite way to tell people they’ve dedicated their lives to an illusion.

The task of the mind is to produce future, as the poet Paul Valéry once put it. A mind is fundamentally an anticipator, an expectation-generator. It mines the present for clues, which it refines with the help of the materials it has saved from the past, turning them into anticipations of the future. And then it acts, rationally, on the basis of those hard-won anticipations.

The mind is the effect, not the cause. — Daniel Dennett, d. 2024