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Morality is based on reducing harm/suffering.
in General
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The issue with his premise is that he states that a universe of pain is undeniably better than a universe of pleasure.
He has forgotten two things here:
1) If you can't experience absence of pleasure (which in its extreme is 'pain') then you'll never have any suffering to compare your current sensation to be PLEASED by it hence no pleasure. In other words, we only feel 'good' when we are happy or 'good' when we orgasm because we know what it is to be without joy and orgasm.
2) In reverse of point 1, there actually HAS TO BE PAIN and HAS TO BE SUFFERING if there is pleasure. Even if you are in the most communistic universe imaginable, maybe for them pain becomes not having a million dollars as $999,999 is very poor since there's only one-dollar variance in people's income brackets... No matter how tiny a difference there is, the lower end is always suffering and pain. It's actually why people born into harsh childhoods end up much more resilient and why spoilt brats are so easy to anger or make upset; it's not their fault, their threshold of what suffering even is is preset during their upbringing so by adulthood it can't be altered as their brain has formed its subconscious around their scale of experienced pleasure and lack of it.
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If someone aims to inflict harm they demonstrate they have no regard for reducing harm/suffering (at that time) and deserve no such consideration from others.
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Inflicting harm on 49 or 50 persons without good reason would be unnecessary. I thought I was clear that I would prefer to avoid unnecessary harm.
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Assuming it is appropriate punishment would be necessary harm. There is no contradiction in inflicting harm to achieve a net positive outcome.
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This may come as a shock..but I'm not Sam Harris and his arguments are not mine . (plus, I have a hard time believing you're representing his arguments correctly). I've stated avoiding unnecessary harm is 'good', but avoiding necessary harm would be ...harmful. As you've pointed out, suffering can generate a net positive outcome, so there can be times when harm or suffering are desirable - vaccinations would be a good example of this.
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As I stated in one of your earlier replies (in the other thread), Defining morality by what is 'immoral' is incoherent. You need to understand what morality is before you can label something as not that. I don't understand what you are trying to say in the bolded.
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You've copied this line a few times in a few different threads, but it's not clear to me what you actually mean to say. Would you expound on this?
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Good question. I’ll try to answer your question in steps concerning the evolution of a moral code of conduct. Before getting into the weeds, let’s see if we agree on some foundational concepts and their traceability to thermodynamics.
In the pursuit of happiness (bio-positive feedback for life in general), the audible dynamics of life’s unalienable rights (life’s bio-primitives, traceable to the physical constructal law a law in thermodynamics) begin at birth. When a distressed infant cries (a non-verbal form of inter-specie communication), the symmetry of that sound is recognizable to many species whether the cry comes from nest, den or cradle, etc.
In contrast, any method used to soothe that cry results in the perception of happiness (positive feedback). The difference between happiness and distress are the tenets of right (positive feedback) and wrong (negative feedback): the primitives of a universal morality.
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SkepticalOne said: I may not have said why you had to inflect pain on one group but I did say you had to do it which makes it necessary. The reason does not matter only that it is necessary. The point was that I believe in many situations being fair is the right thing to do even through in some of thous situations being fairs ends up causing more suffering.
SkepticalOne said: In this comment you admitted that being fair is some time morally excaptable even if it causes more suffering. Your first comment does not allow this.
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Some of that might be applicable to the dawning of proto-morality in our evolutionary past, but it cannot explain certain aspects of our modern moral understanding: Moral actions aren't necessarily those which make us happy. So, I'm struggling to understand the relevance of your post to this thread.
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“Moral actions aren’t necessarily those which make us happy.” Good point!
When two or more humans form a group, the group comes alive as a separate civil social entity having its own unalienable rights resulting from the aggregate of its members. The objective of a universal morality is the genesis as well as the evolution of a subjective moral code of conduct, while following a code of conduct becomes a moral event preserving the life and norms of the group. The conservative evolution of these norms flows from one generation to the next, establishing society’s culture. A moral order guides individuals in the prudent exercise of judgment relative to those norms. An individual in a civil society strives, albeit imperfectly, to be virtuous, restrained, ethical, and honorable, respecting and embracing the unalienable rights of others relative to those tested norms (the moral code of conduct) in the attempt to keep the society alive and civil.
Since an individual strives, albeit imperfectly, to be virtuous implies, not all “moral actions aren’t necessarily those which makes us happy,” because it is the struggle to keep a civil society alive.
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If the objective of morality were to create a subjective moral code, then preservation of life in general is not mandated - only the preservation of the individual life. I think if this were true, things like altruism and being concerned with other species would be difficult to explain.
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“The objective of morality is the preservation of life.” Bingo! That there my friend is the objective of a universal morality found throughout all species of life in group formation (genetic and/or social). For humans in group formation, the life of a civil society is dependent on the evolution of a moral code of conduct that is a function of a universal morality.
No “horse before the cart” here! And on that note, I think we beat this “horse” of a subject to death; I must move on.
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I believe what I stated is distinct from what you originally posted. (It seemed you were claiming morality came about for subjective reasons). Nonetheless, I am glad we could find common ground.
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Both the situations Say two attackers are trying to shoot you. They chase you into a massive room with no other exits and no where to hide. But in the middle of the room is a gun with two shots. You know if you shoot the attackers in the leg or arms that that would be you only shots and they could still shoot you. Say Jimmy is in this situation and he decide to, in a panic, shoots both of them around the body before they can shoot him. They both die. By your definition this is an unmoral diction. I would disagree and say he made a morally exeptable diction.
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A person with lactose intolerance can expect gas, bloating, diarhea, etc., from eating dairy products. By all accounts, this is not generally a fatal experience. On the other hand, nut allergies can be and often are fatal. So, assuming I am somehow able to circumvent the volition of other beings and make them a slave to my choices (not very likely) I would choose the pizza shop and keep a large stock of lactaid available. Win/win :-D
As for your self defense scenario, I have successfully addressed it and you have now modified the circumstances. This is moving the goal posts.
https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/129/Moving_the_Goalposts
FWIW, Jimmy did not commit an immoral act 'by my definition'. Feel free to ask questions.
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My second example is originally hypothetical. Weather we can make good examples or not the point is to apply morals to this situation to try show many times it is not better to minimize pain but be fair. Non the less morals depend on the person and as such it is perfectly fine if one thinks you should strive to minimizing suffering in that situation.
How did Jimmy not commit an immoral act if he caused two people to die instead of one causing more suffering. That is not minimizing harm or pain.
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For instance, consider the following situation. Abel is a mean old man with a lot of money. His sons, Ben and Cole, are very poor and have large families of extremely gifted children. Abel is loved by no one and is too old to contribute in any meaningful way to society. The converse is true for his sons. They decide to murder him, knowing that they will inherit his large estate. Upon being confronted by his sons, Abel (who has a gun) has the choice to either a) kill them both to save himself or b) allow them to kill him. By your theory of minimizing harm, Abel is morally obligated to choose (b). In scenario (b), only one person dies and the benefits of the two sons having that money is substantial. Their gifted children will get to eat and to go to college.
For obvious reasons, this interpretation is problematic. It undermines the idea that one has the right to protect oneself. It also implies that murder in the name of getting money is sometimes justified. One can twiddle with this scenario such that one can justify all manner of acts which people might normally consider bad. Even more, this isn't just a "classroom" scenario that won't ever happen in the real world. Scenarios like the one above happen often enough to be considered relevant.
If your aim is to make the world a better place, you can't adopt objective standards like these. You have to judge everything on a case-by-case basis and use the skills of logic and reason to determine whether a particular action was appropriate or inappropriate. It is generally not in the best interest of humanity to have these objective standards, but rather to adopt a system of rules, admit that they are not objective, and allow for these rules to be changed whenever wisdom suggests it.
Note that any set of rules has problems such as these. I post all of this because your error is in trying to take all possible human behavior and limit it according to a simple rule. It's important to talk about the subjective moral system that "wisdom suggests" is good for us, like mentioned above, but it is not particularly constructive to suggest that a rule that can be contained within a sentence is the answer to all (or even most) of our ethical dilemmas.
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I agree generally, but if someone is like the Nazis, your only defense is to cause them extreme amounts of harm and suffering.
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Then, would there be anything wrong about kidnapping people and giving them pills to make them happy and not notice that they have been kidnapped? Assuming no injury was done.
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