Interesting. He only asks for 5% of annual income to be given to the right charities.

I feel that self-interest doesn't rule out moral obligation. My meta-ethucal position is largely Egoist and Utilitarian with a little Contractarianism thrown in, but I still believe that there are ways in which we ought to act, and that if we do not then we are acting imorrally. Also, I wouldn't say that benefitting from others' suffering is the same as causing it.

I disagree. Pain is a form of stimuli that alerts us of danger, in order to AVOID death. It's a system engrained into us in order to prevent death. Therefore, death is not the greatest form of pain, but a neutral state that our biology attempts to avoid. If it were true that death were the greatest form of pain, surely you would have an issue with euthanasia. If so, I'm not going to get into that debate but I completely understand your disagreement; if not there are holes in your philosophy.

I'd say the difference between that and my hypothetical is that Y has a natural and biological understanding of death, and therefore anarchy would still cause suffering to him through the lack of ensured safety.

Also, I believe that just because an agent doesn't have moral AGENCY (the ability to comprehend morals), that doesn't mean they don't have moral WORTH. I don't deny that babies have moral worth, but to me moral worth only ensures that suffering is not caused. (Again, rationally, not practically).

1 is a rough number I just picked. I see the irrationality of picking a random characteristic that doesn't apply to me and saying it is permissible to kill them as it wouldn't lead to my own death. I suppose more generally, life has to be valued in order for society to function and so therefore the under 1 analogy doesn't really work.

My point was that if it were legal to kill those who dont comprehend their own death (babies), but illegal to kill those that do, (young children and older), it wouldn't cause overt suffering to anyone, as it wouldn't lead to me fearing the possibility that my parents may one day decide to kill me.

yes, I was assuming that someone was over 1 year old. How do I quote? I did the whole quote /quote thing but how do I make it say the person's name underneath?

but if it were illegal for anyone over the age of 1 to die it wouldn't cause me to feel insecure

Good point. I I think I was just trying to say that my personal philosophy is a branch of NU, and if no net suffering is caused, the even is neither moral nor immoral.

I just want to clarify that I find the concept of murdering a baby naturally repulsive (obviously). The debate isn't whether it's ok to kill a baby, it is WHY is it immoral, so that I can alter my ethical groundwork.

The nature of death in a pleasure/pain based system is a difficult issue. I do not believe (painless) death is a negative experience for the individual experiencing it. Naturally, in a pleasure/pain based system one seeks external suffering caused by death. This is where I am currently struggling.

In regards to abortion: in my opinion, once a being is sentient and has a preference to live, that preference should not be contradicted unless absolutely necessary. These are my thoughts in regards to animal agriculture also. However, it seems rather arbitrary to say that the preference to live has moral value, when it causes neither pleasure nor pain to anyone involved

Currently, the way I solve this conundrum is through the basis that ethics derived from contractarianism, and such strategic compassion led to enate biological empathy, that we now extend to anything that has a preference to live.

The key thing with grounding your ultimately subjective morals is in being consistent. For example, I think it is wrong to kill and eat a severely mentally handicapped orphan if I don't have to, therefore I do not eat meat.

I think it is wrong to kill a baby, but the baby has sentience, which distinguishes it from early embryos, therefore I am not inconsistent to deem abortion amoral and infanticide immoral.

I explained that killing someone with no friends or family is wrong because it would lead to people, such as myself, feeling unsafe and insecure in society, ergo causing suffering. As baby's don't have comprehension or fear of their own death it wouldn't cause any suffering, so far as I can tell.

it's more of a rationalisation than a basis from which to act, although there is some overlap.

I believe that at a point in evolution, we began to agree to a contact of "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours". For example, helping an injured animal may lead to companionship or aiding in general survival. Helping a wounded child ensures that one's own child is helped, and the continuation of a bloodline (reproduction) is another crucial intrinsic biological desire, resulting from evolution. I believe that, as those who were naturally more compassionate survived longer (contractarianism leads to survival), we were naturally selected to have enate empathy, after many years. This is all grounded in egoism.

Linking this to the forum subject matter, it could be argued that the reason we do not murder new borns is because we were naturally selected to do so.

I think the safe escape is using, as I have previously mentioned, the argument that moral worth beings as sentience and the ability to suffer begins. This avoids most slippery slopes.

It is difficult to state why murder is unethical, using pleasure-based systems, so I usually accept that so long as a being has a preference to continue living, they have the right for that not to be taken away for an unjust reason. (This applies to animals, as I am vegan).

it could be argued that living in a society in which it is ok to kill babies would lead to desensitisation and distress, as it goes against our biologically maternal (or paternal) instincts. In my opinion, a moral instinct is just as biological in this manner, as we evolved to value one another in order to ensure survival: tactical compassion.

no I just find it easier to refer to it as NU. I wouldn't follow it for the sake of it. I subscribe to a version of it, so to speak. To me, ethics are merely the result of one's desire to maximise their own pleasure. By not harming another being, they are comforted by the idea that they will not be harmed. This is where legality is involved. My views are an off-branch of egoism and negative utilitarianism. Under what I have just described, I don't believe that painlessly killing new-borns could be deemed unjust, as it does not cause any suffering to anyone involved.

I think I agree. This is why I believe, under my view, that it is amoral, and simply not a moral issue.

if you think about it, moral value must begin when the ability to suffer begins, in regards to NU, right? So in regards to abortion, it is wrong to kill as soon as the foetus is sentient.

However, If one were to reject NU, and merely believe that it is wrong to cause suffering, this would surely justify murdering new-borns, wouldn't it? I'm reinforcing this concept as it do not like it as an outcome and I struggle to figure out how to avoid it. I often see a suffering-less death as equal to never having been born in many regards.

so murder is only permissible using NU when the baby is suffering, so as to minimise it in death? If this is the case, how do we decide when an agent becomes morally valuable? Is it when they gain consciousness/ sentience?

Btw I know I am embarrassingly ignorant, but I ask questions in order to gain a deeper understanding, so forgive me.

my point wasn't that it was morally virtuous to murder the infant, but amoral. It is neither virtuous nor deplorable, if you are taking the standpoint of NU. It's not that they SHOULD, it's that they have no moral reason not to.

maximising pleasure is a consequence of minimising suffering. How can it be immoral to not bring pleasure to an individual? This seems irrational. When ethics are concerned, we do not feel that it is unethical to decide not to cause pleasure, but we find it unethical to cause suffering. Therefore I feel it seems irrational to say that "potential pleasure" being restricted is a reason why it is immoral, as the same argument can be used for not conceiving in the first place, and nobody says it's immoral to use a condom.

In addition, it could be argued that the pleasure of the parents is increased, as they no longer have the child that they didn't want, and the child experienced neither pleasure nor pain, so therefore it is ethical.

I'm not encouraging it . I'm debating ethics, given that an unwanted child is born

My point was there there wouldn't need to be a reason. They could do it just for the fun of it, and it would cause no suffering, if the murder was painless.

I'm going to have to put a lot more thought into this. Thanks for the discussion, I see your points.

But I benefit from the social institution, whilst simultaneously suffering from it. It deters me from committing the act, but that deterrent also protects me. Without these rules, everyone would be dead. This is how it benefits oneself. I don't see why societal righteousness contradicts egoism, but if it does then I won't use that word. The argument put forth by cosmicskeptic is that anything one does, including ethics, is as a result of the desire to maximise pleasure. In the case of a their: the security granted by living in a society in which robbery is illegal provides greater pleasure than what one may steal. Maybe this isn't egoism but I find it convincing that ethics can be entirely selfish - apart from the case of a dictator. I don't know how a dictator could benefit from acting ethically (which is why I made the forum, I didn't want to argue about definition I just wanted to hear an argument in support).

As I have said previously, the origin of ethics is that of self-interest alone. One doesn't murder to ensure one is not murdered. Mutual benefit. I don't see how it could be any different now. I believe an egoist can decide not to murder purely because of self interest: the guilt they feel, imprisonment - and furthermore the desire for prison as a social form of security, as there not being prisons would lead to one's own suffering in feeling unsafe or insecure.

I get the /quote stuff but I don't get how to show who said it.

I don't understand

How??

Why?

Initially, in order to survive. Now it is so ingrained into our being that it is in order to avoid suffering. That's what I think anyway.
Btw how do I make it so it says "why" and then "TheMadFool underneath?" I've been quite active on this forum for a bit now and I don't know how haha.

yes, by definition good is almost synonymous with happiness. This is why it's hard to describe altruism, as an egoist myself, because it seems counter-intuitive to logic. I do things that benefit others solely because of my personal gain. Not only does it make me feel good to do so but it perpetuates a society in which I would like to live in. Altruism doesn't exist but we treat it as though it does. Objective ethics don't exist but we treat it as though they do. Sorry I'm finding it very hard to articulate the finer details of this.

I worded it poorly. An altruist believes that they engages in an ethical act because it is somewhat inately "good". If they were not to benefit at all from said act, an altruist believes that they would still do it. The positive emotion is just a bonus, rather than a secondary motivator. However, an egoist refuses this. I personally don't think it is possible to conceive of a truly selfless act so maybe the hypothetical is flawed.

To make things clear: although an altruist may accept that they will always be edit from ethics, they don't think that they are engaging in it BECAUSE of the personal benefit - they are engaging in it because it is right and "selfless".

But if you dig deeper and consider why it is "right" or "good" to avoid unethical acts, you find that it is ultimately subjective and there is no objective reason to be moral (without a god, but even then there are issues with objectivity). Cosmicskeptic's "good delusion" is an attempt to get as close as possible to an objective basis for ethics: it IS that you only act in order to attempt to receive pleasure. There is an objective way to maximise one's pleasure. Therefore, ethics are that objective method to ultimately reach the subjective desire that everyone has. This is how he avoids the Is/Ought divide. Is is not that you OUGHT to have a preference for you pleasure, but it IS the case and it is impossible for it not to be the case.

I never said altruism was anything like that. Read what I said: altruists don't believe it is the ONLY reason. They believe it is secondary - not necessarily the primary motivator for good actions. Egoists believe it is the only reason.

This is the key unfalsifiable distinguisher between altruism and egoism. You cannot truly know one's desires. An egoist claims that they do good because it is hard-wired into the fibre of their being and gives them the greatest form of pleasure their is (this reaction has resulted from contractarianism). An altruist isn't convinced that this is the ONLY reason, but merely a result of deontological good.

Yes, society would be destroyed without our human construct of empathy and morality. This is why we engage in them: to prevent the dystopia in which one would not like to live in.

I wasn't Intending on having a debate about egoism Vs altruism. I just wanted to understand an Egoists view a bit more haha. The argument in regards to empathy is that we evolved to regard others with consideration in order to mutually benefit and survive. This turned into a subconscious preference to not only avoid one's own suffering, but others too. We have evolved to the point where it brings us suffering to see others suffer, which is why we prevent it: to benefit ourselves.

Egoists claim that ethics is the only way to maximise pleasure. Eg not murdering ensures that you are not murdered. Kind of a contractarian view.

I don't disagree that dictators can't be ethical. What I'm saying is I don't know how you can justify the belief using egoism. Dictators maximise their pleasure, at the expense of others. Egoism claims that ethics are derived from our own desire for pleasure alone. I can see how this can be applied to most scenarios, just not this one.

is that emoji because you're thinking or are you saying it's contradictory?

if that were the case why is it that we avoid death? Surely a rationalist would just give in to a painless death or jump off a bridge.

Well the goal of evolution is to survive and reproduce, no? If we actively avoid procreating, we will become extinct, not because we were unfit for survival, but because we believed it right to do so.

That final situation is that strongest against the asymmetry, as it deals with the suffering of the living. Ultimately, this is why it is inevitable for the human race to continue. It is a biological instinct to produce offspring, so much so that the deprivation of parenthood can actually cause suffering.

The argument of the asymmetry is that any harm, no matter how miniscule, justifies the sentiment that it would be "better never to have been". This is because the absence of that pain is good, and the absence of all the pleasure you may have experienced is not bad, as it is not a deprivation to a potential being, only an existing one. To be an antinatalism you don't have to say that life is mostly suffering, you just have to accept that suffering is all that can be considered, so if ANY is experienced, it would be better never to have been.

I'm saying you cannot desire the potential for morality to be expressed. This would be the argument presented by saying giving birth (avoiding extinction) is the only way to guarantee ethical treatment. My point is it isn't innately valuable in itself so we have no reason to guarantee it. We can, however, say that eliminating potential harm is good. This is the asymmetry.