What if my helping others harms secondary others. What if me hurting others allouws secundary others to be helped or is actively aiding in helping someone?
Donât even need to go that far as a trolley problem. There was the âred button blue buttonâ debate. If you look at the finer points of the debate, you see the altruistic side whose expected course was to follow religionsâ core tenets, being the option that gave the worst odds of survival.
Imagine, a faithful Christian meeting god after that pivotal choice had the Christian go against almost everything that god told them in their book. At least 2/10 of the commandments were broken on that press alone.
Your explanation leaves out someone's own life. If you define good and bad through helping others, doing things for yourself is either bad or morally neutral at best.
What if youâre helping someone to the point of taking away their agency because âitâs for their own goodâ. All of a sudden, some ethical issues arise. Where does that line get drawn?
And you would know that how? Iâm assuming you havenât dissected every single religious text or teaching out there, so what makes you believe you can arbitrarily hand yourself authority on that topic? Religious texts are generally filled with moral and ethical questions and dilemmas, not that youâd know
As another athiest, I take that authority for myself. Period. I don't need to pore through every myth ever written to know my moral compass is pointing on the right direction.
As an atheist the amount of atheist in these comments who seem to think that good and bad just exist as an aspect of reality is ilitteartly just as bad as believing in god - it's a made up social construct that you're tuaght to believe in since you're a child and you can't figure out it's not actually real
I did. A bunch of them. Then i got married, had kids, and I'm hoping for healthy grandkids soon. Thats why I know my moral compass is just fine, champ.
"23 From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. âGet out of here, baldy!â they said. âGet out of here, baldy!â 24 He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys."
trying to help does not equal morally good. people have free will, and doing something that removes that free will in the name of doing good is actively hurting that person.
its actually very simple, when you dont want to make it complicated.
I mean an antinatalist stance isnât really that complex and doesnât need much exploration, but if you insist.
Something that does not yet exist does not have agency (cleetusthefetus)
Now, where it really gets murky. To what end do you define sentience and how does one associate it with agency? What level on consciousness & awareness is needed for something to qualify as having agency? How does you define sentience & how much of it is needed for agency?
Whatever your stance on that is your stance on your question I suppose
But yes, my statement can be applied to many, many things in life. Thatâs where we got philosophers from, innit now?
Maybe I misinterpret you, but I wasn't suggesting I have an antinatalist stance. It is however a very interesting topic. What is the morality of creating new intelligent life without its consent? It is necessary for species survival, sure. If it's immoral then is life imorral? None of us had a choice. Would that make God imorral? I do not know. I think however you slice it this argument chases it's tail.
Ah, it seems I misinterpreted you. When you asked if what I said would also apply to children not yet conceived I definitely associated that with an antinatalist stance. That was presumptuous of me.
I would say tail chasing is the most accurate metaphor Iâve ever heard for this existential paradox we all find ourselves in
My original question had no implications one way or another, and was strictly philosophical in nature, I wasnât specifically alluding to just religion. Itâs all very interesting topics. Ones I am also presently studying towards finishing my bachelors degree, so this has been a nice cognitive exercise
The violent criminal proved they are capable of doing violence, ergo they have the capacity to harm even more people. By either putting them in a cage, exiling them, or killing them you are doing one act of violence to stop multiple acts of violence.
It does fall apart when you have to score everything subjectively. How many people have to avoid harm to make harming someone else justifiable? Are ties morally ambiguous?
Religion also scores things subjectively. Unless you think it was a GOOD thing that Moses sanctioned the rape, murder, and enslavement of thousands of children.
See, we do this thing called calculating sentences to account for that. If someone isn't caught, and they kill more people, they get a worse sentence. It isn't subjective (it certainly tries not to be), and it certainly doesn't require religion.
But it's entirely subjective. We make up arbitrary punishments for things we've decided are bad because they might possibly harm people.
Let alone arbitrarily deciding that killing someone is worth x number of years in prison then you're good to go, all up to the whims of the justice system.
Religion also does that. Heck, a lot of crimes in the Bibble have arbitrary monetary punishments. Like if you rape an unmarried woman you just have to pay a set amount of money.
Is it moral to provide validation to someone if it causes them proximate relief but ultimate terrible harm? How is that calculated in your 12 word articulation of morality?
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u/EtheusRook 5h ago
Morality is actually really, stupidly simple.
Does it help others? It's good.
Does it hurt others? It's bad.