You now confront the basic problem of morality
(media.communities.win)
You're viewing a single comment thread. View all comments, or full comment thread.
Comments (17)
sorted by:
I'm not sure you understand how 'devoid' is typically used in English. "A devoid of B" implies that "B" is a typical property or content of "A" (and thus that "A" and "B" are different in character) such as "A home devoid of furniture" or "An argument devoid of sense." Your phrasing of the question implied that by "humanity" you meant "the intangible (or perhaps physical, if you're a materialist) qualities that makes one 'human'", not "the human race."
He still had worth prior to the creation of Eve. After all, how could it be "not good" for him to be alone if he had no worth? A human, in the total absence of other humans, or even the total absence of the possibility of other humans. still has worth.
I'm not dismissing it, I think it's midwit philosowank and I'm dissecting it and showing why.
That a "structure must punish cheaters with a violence that grows in proportion to its own success." Not only is the logical chain incomplete, but the conclusion can, on it's own, be shown to be incorrect. As an example: two men with identical backgrounds decide they're going to steal a dollar from 100 people. One does so in an impoverished country where a dollar is the average monthly income of a working individual. The other does so in a country where the average monthly income is ten-thousand dollars. Which should be punished more harshly?
You can quibble with the specifics or adjust the parameters, but ultimately, punishment should be based on the harm caused by (or, if you're not a pure utilitarian, the 'wrongness of') an action, not the success of the 'structure' it occurs within. And don't try to tell me that it's talking about overall punishment and not specific instances. A prosperous structure has far more ability to absorb corruption and remain functional than an impoverished one.
I have. You clearly don't understand what Game Theory is. At a fundamental level, it has nothing to do with determining moral action, merely obtaining the optimal result from a given set of parameters. It's a field of mathematics closely related to sociology and psychology, and has been used to study ethics and the development of social mores, but outside a purely utilitarian system where every action has a knowable, quantifiable moral value, even its use as a tool is limited.
Those are value judgements made by the actor, not incentives given by a 'structure' he is a part of.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcx6ILRVA_4
See you just can’t help but be a prick. It’s not my fault you have poor reading/context comprehension and a shallow understanding of philosophical concepts like Boltzmann brains and game theory.
Sure, debatably. Does that same human have more or less potential worth when part of a system of other people? It should be obvious that any intrinsic moral value of a person is dwarfed by the moral value they can achieve in a system of other people (moral harm too)
What kind of worth did he have if he was incapable of comprehending that worth without another person present?
Poor example. Let’s look at the child who took from the cookie jar, the thief who stole a loaf of bread, and bill gates seizing control of 50%+ of Americas farmland recently. The child can be talked to or have the jar moved out of reach. The thief can be brought to the stockades and shamed, and gates can have his hands cut off. Can you follow the progression between “success of the system” and “degree of punishment for overstepping the system”?
Lmao
Except for the fact he’s standing at the switch making his decision based on who he wants alive more.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8U18EuNN2D0&pp=ygUfRHVrZSBudWtlbSBibG93IGl0IG91dCB5b3VyIGFzcw%3D%3D
Dude, I'm sorry that your English education has had gaps that lead you to make word choices that fail to properly communicate your ideas, but me pointing that out isn't being a prick. If you want to have a good faith discussion you shouldn't lash out when someone tells you why they misunderstood you.
You're also very clearly attached to the belief that the central statement of the piece is valid, and when presented with examples that challenge it, rather than showing why the example is invalid, you present an improperly constructed counter-example, or you conflate two similar but disparate concepts and act as if this proves your argument.
And stop acting like Utilitarianism is some fundamental philosophical law. I understand the appeal of Utilitarianism (and would consider myself to be a utilitarian, broadly speaking), but it's neither a complete moral system (it requires an underlying framework to assign values to actions), nor was it ever intended to be applied beyond the level of an individual judging his own actions, as when applied at a societal level it can very easily be used to justify heinous evil. Take a step back and look at the questions you're being asked without a utilitarian lens first; you might find they're not the questions you've been answering.
Here you go again - presented with a discussion prompting short text piece, you began with personal attacks and hostility and have continued ever since. Frankly it’s ironic you say:
Because that’s exactly what you’re doing. It’s an interesting piece to get the noggin joggin on such interesting subjects as have so far been merely scratched at here, yet you want to turn it into a personal “own” on a “midwit philosophy”, by….misreading people’s points, not answering their discussion prompting questions in good faith, and fixating on semantics and word choice instead of just accepting the reality that your failure to understand my opening reply is, perhaps fittingly to the conversation, a shared responsibility, and moving on in good faith.
As a sign of my good faith, I’ll explain what I thought was self-evident from all my previous comments, maybe then this can get back on track:
The thief who takes 1 dollar from 100 hungry mouths has captured the system to a far greater degree than the thief who takes 1 dollar from 100 tips left on the table at a fancy restaurant. Following the logic of the piece, this higher degree of capture would necessitate a higher degree of punishment (hence, logically, the prevalence of hand-removal in subsistence cultures for thieves, or the execution of cattle thieves, and the relative disappearance of those punishments as cultures develop/grow). Analogous to the example I laid out as a more clear replacement to your own
Your example wasn't more clear. It introduced/changed several variables and obfuscated the question (Whether punishment for cheating must increase as the prosperity of a society/organization increases.) When presented with a pair of examples where the only variable is the relative prosperity of the two societies, we both agree that the example with the less prosperous society ought to be punished more severely. You claim this follows the logic presented, but our conclusion directly contradicts the conclusion presented at the midpoint of the piece. Analysis of the rest of the logic in that paragraph is only useful to find where it is incorrect, as it produces an obviously incorrect conclusion.
Go fuck yourself. You're being disingenuous and you know it. Those two sentences are in separate paragraphs and are at literal opposite ends of my post. It's completely inappropriate and contrary to the idea of a good faith discussion to quote them that way. To this point I have made exactly two statements that could be reasonably construed as personal attacks. In the first, I mildly insulted your intelligence and suggested you find some better sources of literature and philosophy. This was at the conclusion of my first post. The second was when I just told you to go fuck yourself. Every other attack I've made has been on your actions or arguments (or those of the unnamed Destiny writer[s] responsible for the piece.)
You say I'm looking for an own, by which I assume you mean a minor error in logic through which I can justify dismissal of the piece. If this was the case, I would not have started my first post by attacking the foundation of the argument made by the piece, nor would I have challenge the central conclusions of the piece (literally, the conclusions in the middle of the piece, in this case.) You claim that I'm focusing on semantics in a discussion on logic, philosophy, and morality; a discussion where semantically incorrect arguments have no value. You claim I'm not engaging with the discussion questions in good faith. I've not answered a couple rhetorical or compound questions, and when I misunderstood a question, I explained the cause of my misunderstanding and answered the clarified question. You, on the other hand, have repeatedly misquoted me, engaged in personal attacks on my motives, and otherwise acted in and assumed bad faith. I'd say you'd get better discussion if you didn't, but seeing as how active I've been in this thread, maybe that's incorrect.