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Awesomelyglorious
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30 Dec 2008, 9:43 pm

timeisdead wrote:
Killing for food is diametrically different because it is necessary for the survival or development of the species. As for clothing, using animal furs would be justified if it were a necessity to survive, like it was for many of our ancestors. Today, the vast majority of those who wear animal furs do it as a fashion statement and it couldn't be compared to using animal furs for survival purposes.

Lohan doesn't need this fur coat to survive. In this case, the animals died in vain for a fashion statement.

That difference has no objective meaning. Killing is killing. Why is one set of killing *better* than another. Sure you can say it is different, one is survival, the other isn't so much so, but that does not make a moral distinction, and I don't see a reason to agree with your moral distinction.



Awesomelyglorious
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30 Dec 2008, 9:48 pm

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It can be considered moral if we objectively evaluate all options and take the option that causes the least amount of long-term damage.

That makes no sense though. Either reduction of long-term damage is a reflection of irreducible morality, or there is no such thing as that.

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Good question. The consequences that are considered good are either those that control or prevent damage, those that promote justice, and those that create a benefit to either society or the individual.

Well, damage to what? If I sculpt a rock, then am I damaging it? If I process water into urine then am I damaging that water? If I pierce my ear then am I damaging it? As for justice, what is justice? If it is the system of laws put forwards then it seems as if justice can be terrible. If it is something above that, then this can be questioned as well. As for benefits, what society are we taking as relevant? Certain choices will do variate benefits or harms to some society versus another.

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Consequentialism, like any other theory, can be used to promote either good or evil. One must remember that we must use rationalization when coming to a moral conclusion. Another key word is prioritization. If someone shoots a person to take his sneakers, this action is wrong. Whether or not the perpetrator thinks the ends justify the means, in reality they do not in this particular scenario. A person's life is of greater value than a murderous thug's desire for shoes. However, if a mother's daughter was dying of an illness and was told by her doctor that she couldn't afford the treatment, she would be justified in stealing it from the doctor's office. A doctor can always be repaid but a dead child can never be brought back to life. If you understand how to prioritize, consequentialism is quite simple.

But the issue is then you have to have an objective theory of prioritization, otherwise the distinctions are not moral, but rather based upon preferences, in which case the thug could be justified but the mother not so.



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30 Dec 2008, 10:48 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
timeisdead wrote:
Killing for food is diametrically different because it is necessary for the survival or development of the species. As for clothing, using animal furs would be justified if it were a necessity to survive, like it was for many of our ancestors. Today, the vast majority of those who wear animal furs do it as a fashion statement and it couldn't be compared to using animal furs for survival purposes.

Lohan doesn't need this fur coat to survive. In this case, the animals died in vain for a fashion statement.

That difference has no objective meaning. Killing is killing. Why is one set of killing *better* than another. Sure you can say it is different, one is survival, the other isn't so much so, but that does not make a moral distinction, and I don't see a reason to agree with your moral distinction.

The difference is that the latter is based on objective necessity; simply put it's for a real higher good as opposed to one that is merely perceived. A subjective want could never justify killing.



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30 Dec 2008, 10:54 pm

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That makes no sense though. Either reduction of long-term damage is a reflection of irreducible morality, or there is no such thing as that.

We can accurately predict the results of our actions by looking at patterns in the past while also applying deductive reasoning based on the workings of contemporary society.



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Well, damage to what? If I sculpt a rock, then am I damaging it? If I process water into urine then am I damaging that water? If I pierce my ear then am I damaging it? As for justice, what is justice? If it is the system of laws put forwards then it seems as if justice can be terrible. If it is something above that, then this can be questioned as well.

Either damage to either the society or the individual.


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As for benefits, what society are we taking as relevant? Certain choices will do variate benefits or harms to some society versus another.

I am speaking of the needs of all societies.

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But the issue is then you have to have an objective theory of prioritization, otherwise the distinctions are not moral, but rather based upon preferences, in which case the thug could be justified but the mother not so.

The thug could never bring the man he murdered back to life; he can never truly make up for the actions he took. Another crucial differernce is that his actions were based on a subjective want as opposed to an objective necessity. The mother, on the other hand, has the ability to gradually pay the doctor once her daughter's illness is cured. The doctor can always have his money but a daughter's life can't be returned.



Awesomelyglorious
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30 Dec 2008, 11:16 pm

timeisdead wrote:
The difference is that the latter is based on objective necessity; simply put it's for a real higher good as opposed to one that is merely perceived. A subjective want could never justify killing.

So, let's just say that I could eat bread or meat? Am I wrong for eating meat? Let's say I could choose between killing a lot of animals for food at no risk, or killing one animal at a lot of risk, should I be forced into the latter? In any case, your judgment of higher good I would argue to be subjective, and thus see as flawed, there are a number of subjective things even more important than the "objective".



Awesomelyglorious
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30 Dec 2008, 11:25 pm

timeisdead wrote:
We can accurately predict the results of our actions by looking at patterns in the past while also applying deductive reasoning based on the workings of contemporary society.

No we can't. Public policy should have taught you that. All actions are basically a crap shoot. In any case, you didn't meet my criticism.

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Either damage to either the society or the individual.

Why those 2 things?

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I am speaking of the needs of all societies.

Why do they matter? How do we weight them? How do we weight the elements of them? Are their cultures important? Are their laws important? In any case, you have an enormously complex task ahead of you to weigh *everything*, and likely are trying to reduce it to a much simpler task using blobs.

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The thug could never bring the man he murdered back to life; he can never truly make up for the actions he took. Another crucial differernce is that his actions were based on a subjective want as opposed to an objective necessity. The mother, on the other hand, has the ability to gradually pay the doctor once her daughter's illness is cured. The doctor can always have his money but a daughter's life can't be returned.

What if the thug needed those shoes to boost his self-esteem so that he wouldn't kill himself? What if the mother believed in heaven? The mother doesn't have the ability to pay the doctor though, if she did then why didn't she pursue that path? Are you ignoring the time value of money? Will the doctor be forced to irrevocably lose that? How about this, if we justify theft from doctors then people will avoid the medical field for fear of monetary loss, this will decrease the number of medical practitioners thus increasing medical costs, thus reducing the welfare and increasing the number of preventable medical deaths across the system, thus meaning that consequentialist doctrines lead to bad consequences.

In any case, I think your distinctions are arbitrary. Why does life matter? It is irrevocable, but so is every choice and loss. If X is different at t-1, nothing can restore the exact same choice-set at time t, as the change at t-1 will have effects over time beyond what foresight can predict.



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31 Dec 2008, 9:58 am

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I regard morality as irreducible.


So do I.



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01 Jan 2009, 7:46 am

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No we can't. Public policy should have taught you that. All actions are basically a crap shoot.

Public policy is often based on idealism rather than practicality. These laws are sometimes not designed to be what's best for the people, but what's best for those who rule our society. Many in power support gun control despite the evidence that it fails to deter hardened criminals. This method is far from perfect, but it's far better than using speculation without considering the consequences of similar actions in the past.

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Why those 2 things?

You can also include other things such as protecting the environment but that would also be technically protecting the members of a society.


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Why do they matter? How do we weight them? How do we weight the elements of them? Are their cultures important? Are their laws important? In any case, you have an enormously complex task ahead of you to weigh *everything*, and likely are trying to reduce it to a much simpler task using blobs.

Most matters of morality are objective. If ritualistic rape is an integral part of a person's culture, it is still wrong whether or not society condones it. Slavery, for example, is still wrong in the nations it is practiced in.
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What if the thug needed those shoes to boost his self-esteem so that he wouldn't kill himself? What if the mother believed in heaven? The mother doesn't have the ability to pay the doctor though, if she did then why didn't she pursue that path? Are you ignoring the time value of money? Will the doctor be forced to irrevocably lose that? How about this, if we justify theft from doctors then people will avoid the medical field for fear of monetary loss, this will decrease the number of medical practitioners thus increasing medical costs, thus reducing the welfare and increasing the number of preventable medical deaths across the system, thus meaning that consequentialist doctrines lead to bad consequences.


Comparing a human life to "self esteem"? Give me a break! If a thug needed to kill to boost his self-esteem in order to prevent himself from committing suicide, he deserved to die anyways. Also, what you are suggesting the mother do is also immoral. You are putting the value of money over the value of a human life. What if the doctor had demanded a down payment she didn't have? It is possible that she has the ability to gradually pay off the debt but has nothing saved in the mean time. If I were in that situation, my daughter's life would matter more to me than a doctor's income. Morality is sometimes a matter of prioritizing. Results do matter.


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In any case, I think your distinctions are arbitrary. Why does life matter? It is irrevocable, but so is every choice and loss. If X is different at t-1, nothing can restore the exact same choice-set at time t, as the change at t-1 will have effects over time beyond what foresight can predict.

Nothing can change the choices we have made in the past but at least some choices can be made up for. For example, a girl steals a doll from a classmate; if the teacher intervenes and the girl is forced to give the doll back and sit in the time-out chair, the action is made up for. It would still be wrong for that girl to do so but I am simply stating a point.



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01 Jan 2009, 7:53 am

Awesomelyglorious wrote:
timeisdead wrote:
The difference is that the latter is based on objective necessity; simply put it's for a real higher good as opposed to one that is merely perceived. A subjective want could never justify killing.

So, let's just say that I could eat bread or meat? Am I wrong for eating meat? Let's say I could choose between killing a lot of animals for food at no risk, or killing one animal at a lot of risk, should I be forced into the latter? In any case, your judgment of higher good I would argue to be subjective, and thus see as flawed, there are a number of subjective things even more important than the "objective".


Meat has been proven to positively contribute to the physical and mental development of children. You would not be wrong for eating meat because omnivores can be positively affected when they consume meat.
As children are the future, it would be wise to do what's best for them in terms of health.
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Health- ... upplements

Death can contribute to life. Carnivores and omnivores naturally thin out the population of herbivores and prevent overpopulation, starvation, and destruction of much of the fauna of the ecosystem.



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01 Jan 2009, 8:01 am

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Why does life matter?

If not for life, none of us would ever exist and neither would our loved ones. The Earth would lose much of the the beauty and wonder it once had. No longer would there be any prairies or forests; no longer would there be any form of wildlife that separates our planet from the rest. All creativity and innovation would come to a halt. Nothing would be deliberate. All intentions would be removed and thus all purpose as we know it would come to an end.



Awesomelyglorious
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01 Jan 2009, 11:03 am

timeisdead wrote:
Public policy is often based on idealism rather than practicality. These laws are sometimes not designed to be what's best for the people, but what's best for those who rule our society. Many in power support gun control despite the evidence that it fails to deter hardened criminals. This method is far from perfect, but it's far better than using speculation without considering the consequences of similar actions in the past.

Umm... I was actually referring more to economic policy, and the failure to predict the economy, and to set ideal economic stimulus and such. An example of this problem was shown by Nobel Laureate Robert Lucas who showed the wide gap between predicted GDP and actual GDP throughout history, another was with Milton Friedman who showed the common occurrence of Keynesian stimulus being poorly timed.

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You can also include other things such as protecting the environment but that would also be technically protecting the members of a society.

Well... no, I was questioning how those 2 things were objective.

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Most matters of morality are objective. If ritualistic rape is an integral part of a person's culture, it is still wrong whether or not society condones it. Slavery, for example, is still wrong in the nations it is practiced in.

How can morality exist? How can it be discovered as existing? What is it?

If morality is just a psychological thing, then why can't it be ignored? Why does it have any importance? If morality is a part of nature, why would nature care? Why would a set of atoms care how larger sets of atoms conduct themselves? If morality is supernatural, then how can it be infallibly established? Wouldn't the assertion of morality be on the same level of an assertion of Christ's divinity or any other theological claim?
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Comparing a human life to "self esteem"? Give me a break! If a thug needed to kill to boost his self-esteem in order to prevent himself from committing suicide, he deserved to die anyways. Also, what you are suggesting the mother do is also immoral. You are putting the value of money over the value of a human life. What if the doctor had demanded a down payment she didn't have? It is possible that she has the ability to gradually pay off the debt but has nothing saved in the mean time. If I were in that situation, my daughter's life would matter more to me than a doctor's income. Morality is sometimes a matter of prioritizing. Results do matter.

Wait? Why does one person deserve to die because the conditions of their life are so bizarre? I hardly see any epistemic justification for that.

Well, money is stored human life, people labor to put create the resources that money is a representative unit of, and it is hard to say that all of the labor in the world could rationally be sacrificed to save one person, so therefore there *MUST* be a logical trade-off between money and life, saying otherwise naturally leads to absurdity.

In any case, if there was a rational means of getting this done, then why wasn't it getting done? You either have to say that some party involved is stupid, or you have to say that it isn't as simple.

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Nothing can change the choices we have made in the past but at least some choices can be made up for. For example, a girl steals a doll from a classmate; if the teacher intervenes and the girl is forced to give the doll back and sit in the time-out chair, the action is made up for. It would still be wrong for that girl to do so but I am simply stating a point.

Well, it seems to me that "actions being made up for" is subjective, as one person might only be satisfied with the murder of the girl in order to make up for the temporary loss of the doll, another person might not even care about losing the doll in the first place. And if "made up for" is subjective, then how can it's objectivity be brought in? Not only that, but how can the morality be infallibly established?



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01 Jan 2009, 11:09 am

timeisdead wrote:
Meat has been proven to positively contribute to the physical and mental development of children. You would not be wrong for eating meat because omnivores can be positively affected when they consume meat.
As children are the future, it would be wise to do what's best for them in terms of health.
http://www.nutraingredients.com/Health- ... upplements

Death can contribute to life. Carnivores and omnivores naturally thin out the population of herbivores and prevent overpopulation, starvation, and destruction of much of the fauna of the ecosystem.

So, if I find evidence that wearing furs can lead to health benefits, it is justifiable to wear furs? Not only that, but if meat is only justifiable for the health benefits, is it immoral to eat meat beyond where the health benefits extend? Has any creature ever been so analytical about the morality of it's food actions?



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01 Jan 2009, 11:10 am

timeisdead wrote:
If not for life, none of us would ever exist and neither would our loved ones. The Earth would lose much of the the beauty and wonder it once had. No longer would there be any prairies or forests; no longer would there be any form of wildlife that separates our planet from the rest. All creativity and innovation would come to a halt. Nothing would be deliberate. All intentions would be removed and thus all purpose as we know it would come to an end.

Beauty is subjective, and wonder is subjective as well.

I don't see how the death of purpose would mean anything though, there is no purpose for the purpose.



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31 Jan 2009, 7:34 am

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For a first post, I think it'll be fine.

Now, the question-- Why is 'human life' so important? We kill way to much of everything, use absurd amounts of everything, take absurd amount of space, and it's all good and dandy. You can kill infinite amounts of everything, but if you claim that you wish to punch a human, you will be punished. It goes against all the little logic bells in my head, this system. Well, yes, individuals will see themselves more important, but when the community thinks the individual of the species is more important than other species, it's "wrong" to me. If humans left, the only real issue I see is the radioactive shite left behind, and so on, but many -people- think it's the end of the world. ( The world is beyond earth, beyond humans, in my thoughts. ) I'm sorry if this is hard to understand, but I write as it comes out. ..or something.


Important to whom and for what reason?

ruveyn



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31 Jan 2009, 3:20 pm

gives the robots something to shoot at


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18 Sep 2016, 2:41 pm

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