And if the majority decided we need to have a human sacrifice to help the crops that would settle it for you?

What this overly simplistic, knee-jerk response fails to acknowledge is that if we lived In an era where the majority of people concluded as you propose, we'd be in a level of human cultural development where you and I could reasonably conclude as you suggested. The attitude of the majority can honestly best be evaluated in the moral framework of the era. Thus why a moral stance that enjoys majority acceptance, when evaluated in it's own era, the majority acceptance signifies that the moral stance is reasonable (though perhaps not optimal) within the framework of it's era.

This is similar to an argument made for supporting slavery in America. It's not about humanity, it's about whose autonomy ought to prevail. Bad precedent to set

Nope, people (regardless of "precedent") can and have successfully navigated competing interests and have overwhelmingly concluded that slave owner and slave interests are equal (as adult humans). Similarly, the majority of folks have concluded that an adult human mother's interests outweigh those of a human fetus'. Simple, really.

Since the topic of the thread is the origin of the concept of gods, it bears mentioning that the issues of godly omnipotence and omniscience are relatively modern ones. The original gods were definitely superhuman, but often not dramatically so. Thus in my opinion their origin story is more likely to explain unexplainable natural phenomena
such as sickness and say, lightning.

Does it imply that our perceptions are not direct? Could there be other factors involved in perception apart from the the object of perception, sensory organs, memories and experiences?

Exactly. More evidence that the brain (not the eyes) is where objects, real or imaginary, are "seen".

"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?" --Edgar Allan Poe

Yes, folks focus (overly focus, in my opinion) on the life vs death of the fetus when addressing the topic of abortion, whereas the crux of the issue lies elsewhere, namely whose autonomy should supercede the other's.

It just appears that way because of the schism between the people and the legislature.

If this was an exercise in all of the possible definitions of "house", then yes. But in exploring the agreements between the homeowner and the contrators, no.

The most common reason for advocating for abortion bans is not acknowledging that this topic is one of competing interests (fetus va adult woman). Thus any argument that addresses only one side of the topic (such as "abortion is murder") is at minimum incomplete, but usually is intellectually dishonest.

Think it this way. A house requires an architect who designs it. A builder who constructs it using the materials from the supplier.

A pile of building materials is not a house.

The OP implies that there is one entity called "love". However most agree there are different types of love. Some are described as a burning fire, others as glowing embers.

When someone really has your back, that's being loved. It's easy to be romantic when things are going well.

But the bigger issue is what it says about someone's life experience (and make up) who needs to ask the question. Nothing dramatic, I hope in your family's case. Good luck.

Uuuumm, no. There is a societal concensus where "responsibility" lies. No personal injury lawyer will try to hold a citizen standing next to the lever (or someone who knows how to swim walking along the shoreline of the pond, to use your example) legally "responsible" for the trolley or pond tragedies, not because they (like you) can't concoct a legal (or "logical") argument to do so, rather because no group of 12 citizens would agree with the argument. No, the trolley maintainance people and the individual who pushed the kid are responsible. It is a common error to confuse a missed opportunity for excellence with incompetence or malfeasance.

The reason why I focus on responsibility specifically is that despite your protestations to the contrary, when most answer the trolley problem they use wording such as "I could never pull the level since I wouldn't want to be responsible for the death of an innocent bystander".

As to logical criticism of action or inaction, you're missing why the trolley problem was invented in the first place. It is an example of a situation where a logical argument can be created for both choices, thus why some casually refer to it as a paradox. If it was a choice between one person on one track and five mannequins on the other track, there would be a single logical answer (whereby those who don't choose it could be logically criticized), but no one would care about or repeat such a trivial "problem".

The way the trolley problem is classically set up missed two important points. First, the trolley maintainance people are responsible for the outcome, not the bystander who happens to be near the lever. Second, at the time the lever is pulled (or not pulled) the exact consequences of action or inaction is not known with certainty by the bystander. Thus the answer is "it doesn't matter", do whatever strikes you in the moment, you're not open to logical criticism either way.

Oh, I wasn't referring to the different subjective opinions on the "goodness" or "badness" of an action by various individuals, rather the reality that a single action which is (stipulated) objectively good for both the person performing the action and the person upon whom the action is performed can also be objectively bad for a third person whose bad effect may be downstream.

this OP is meant to explore, intellectually, the underlying justification for self-defense. Of course, the intellectual pursuit of a coherent ethical theory is going to be much different from the reasoning one may find through experience.

I am essentially endeavoring on determining a fully coherent and plausible account of what is right and wrong; and so, although it may seem in practicality obvious that self-defense is permissible, I must be able to back that up intellectually in a way that coheres with my ethical theory.

In your OP, the second stipulated premise is completely dependent upon the perspective of the observer (specifically the labels of "bad" and "good"). Thus any "good" action I may choose to perform can produce a "bad" effect upon someone somewhere, perhaps in a tengential and/or marginally important or even measurable way or amount. In that case (practically all cases if one searches hard enough), then the action may be good from my perspective and perhaps to the direct recipient of my action, yet be bad to a third party, perhaps remote from the primary and secondary actors. Is the action therefore "good" if the third party suffered a "bad" outcome from it?

To my mind there are two practical options to address this situation. First, one could also stipulate that only the primary actor's perspective is used. In that case self defence would be "good" since from his perspective he is saving a life. The other option would be to acknowledge that all actions have good and bad qualities so the entire scheme needs to be adjusted to mean: "majority good" and "majority bad" (instead of good and bad). In that case self defense would be permissible because while partially "bad", it is majority "good".

Do you mean animals besides humans?

I agree with you that past racial discrimination has current generational effects. I also agree with the idea of current policies to compensate for this. I agree in addition that a lum sum check from the government is not a very good way to accomplish this. Firstly, because the government is currently underfunded to complete it's current mandate, let alone taking on this financial burden. Thus the fund drain would likely weaken the social safety net that these same individuals use disproportionately. Thirdly, this generational disadvantage will persist for several more generations regardless and I don't trust this generation's recipients to use the funds in such a way to benefit those future generations. Lastly, those future generations would likely suffer worse effects from the society declaring "hey we paid our debt, it's over, problem solved, let's do whatever we want to whomever we want".

Science is what you study to get a high salary job. The Humanities (and the Arts) is what you spend your high salary on.

Better quality medical care. Medical "tourists" aren't folks with lots of money available to spend on top notch care.

Yes, poor people in the US go to SE Asia for the better price, BUT rich people from SE Asia go to the US for better quality.

The fact is while your reality is worse than your estimation of "optimal", it's better than your estimation of what divorce has to offer, otherwise you guys would be moving towards divorce, but you're not.

In other words, the worth of such life will be measured by its overabundance and/or the protracted conditions under which it suffers; and those people can eventually receive meagre column inches on the back page of the First World’s daily news. It’s an immoral consideration of ‘quality of life’.

First, it is an error to use First World newspaper coverage as the measure of importance or human caring. Are Third World media carrying these stories in significantly higher volume?

A lot of the current elderly took a 5hit ton of drugs in their day.

Just don't get seriously ill.

↪John McMannis, ↪LuckyR Do either of you think that we can make the world fairer? Do you think we ought?

Can we? Sure, we already have. It's a laudable goal, thus I support continuing down that path.

I don’t think the world is fair or just. I think we humans make up those ideas and apply them to nature. To say everything happens for a reason is kind of true, but not for some big plan or something. Things just happen and it’s mostly luck. That’s my view anyways

I agree, the descriptors fair, just and lucky are all subjective, post hoc labels to help humans make "sense" of individual events by making them appear to be part of a universal "plan".

The entire premise that folks are obligated to donate to a charity misunderstands the meaning of "donate".

but our personal experience of the color red may very well differ from the actual experience of the same light wavelength another may have, which we’ve all agreed to call “red.” I am speaking solely on the subjective experience of “redness.

By stipulating that you are speaking specifically of the subjective experience of red (as opposed to the ability of objects to reflect certain wavelengths of light), then redness cannot exist without an observer to interpret visual images as "red".

Happy to hear I communicated accurately, yes the fretting thing. Also glad my observations (despite your, warrantless as it turns out, concern) turn out to also be accurate. Lastly, as I predicted, the way Determinists approach decision making (as you confirm) is similar, if not identical to that of everyone else.

As to why folks who believe humans can't actually choose between options would "fret" about making "wrong" choices, I have no answers (never did). It's just a question.

I apologize for being difficult to understand. I'm not dictating how Determinists think (since as a non Determinist I have no firsthand experience), I'm reporting my observations of Determinists. If you disagree with those observations, I welcome your insight as a Determinist. Perhaps you DON'T worry about making poor or erroneous choices, since you're not really making "choices" because decision making is an illusion, we're all going to do what we're determined to do (by our initial brainstate). I don't know. You tell me.

Nope, the most free of Free Will folks.

Pardon me, but that sounds like a post hoc rationalization (not an explanation).

Not my point. Say you're absolutely correct. Believers in the idea that thoughts are "pushed forward by physical causality" could just coast along believing that their cascade of brainstates are going to arrive at the inevitable conclusion. Yet they don't. They fret about making "wrong" decisions (making mistakes), just like the 99% of the non philosophical who've never heard of Determinism.

What I will say is giving away all my possessions and living basically poor as well is definitely not the best way I can help. I can help much more effectively if I allow myself to lead a successful life and attempt systemic change or at the very least yield more lucrative donations

Exactly. Making the economic pie as large as possible makes it easier to give a meaningful slice of it to charity. Shrinking the pie requires a gigantic (and unrealistic) slice be given to charity to make a difference.

But the money to be donated by the non-poor is so ridiculously small that almost anyone without a job could make this donation. It's not a question of helping the poor buy a swimming pool, but simply lifting them out of extreme poverty. In a calculation above, I focused on ending world hunger, and that requires a donation of $3.15 a year from every non-poor person in the world (!)

I don't disagree with your posting, but that is worlds apart from the OP's notion that "it's immoral to spend money on products we don't absolutely need, instead of giving it to charities that save lives". Implying that one's money should either be spent on 1) necessities of living or 2) donated to charity.

If that's not what Singer means then he needs to reword his commentary.

The OP is incorrect that Determinists don't ponder choices in their daily lives, identically to how "non Determinists" do. Despite the fact that in Determinism the physical/electrical/chemical brainstate Determines the outcome of "decision making", as opposed to pondering and weighing options (ie thinking) within one's mind.

In other words, on Philosophy Forums folks will state that humans don't actually make true decisions, but everyone goes through the motions of decision making all day, every day as if they do, regardless of their stated stance on this topic.

Wait, is it true that if we released farm animals in the wild they would ALL just die? What if we released them in an appropriate environment? What if we were to release them gradually, to allow time for adaptation?

Alas, a non question. If everyone went vegan (highly unlikely, but it's a thought experiment), it would happen gradually. Thus as demand dropped over time, the amount of domesticated animals bred would drop to keep operating expenses down and profits up. Thus when demand hit zero, there would be close to zero animals to "release into the wild".

I get that domesticated animals aren't exactly akin to a sickle, however they're not like a wild animal either. Their genetics were crafted by humans to fulfill a human designed function. This function is their "purpose", really a quasi-purpose, hence the quotation marks.

As far as I can tell we're in basic agreement, my only point is that to be fair, we should take into account the "purpose" of domesticated animals as being fundamentally different from the lives of wild animals.

For example? And how would this be an objection? Singer would just add: use your discretionary dollars to help people in need, whether it is through humanitarian organization or not.

Oh there's plenty. Say I spend money on plane tickets to visit my daughter on vacation. Say you're employed by the airline. How much are you going to give to the poor if you lose your job? If I don't recharge my emotional batteries by taking a vacation how much quality will I bring to my employment when I'm working? Less quality equals less compensation, less compensation means less discretionary income to give to the poor.

As I used to tell the residents in training, you can't take care of patients if you don't take care of yourself.

Basically there are those who benefit others through their employment directly. Good for them. If one happens to be employed in an industry that doesn't directly help people, making maximal compensation maximizes the opportunity to help others. Who helps more poor people, a doctor working in a poor section of town or Bill Gates who made computer programs?

As to your "proof", sure one can prove that giving a million dollars can save, say 1000 lives BUT there's no proof that giving a million and one dollars saves an additional life. Well if the million and first dollar doesn't save a life, why not use it to go out to the movies?

I agree, it's worth it to me to choose higher quality (thus more expensive) meat and dairy not only for the quality of the product but also to compensate ranchers who practice more expensive techniques.