The Lost One
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@lostkiera
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Post by The Lost One on Jan 13, 2022 9:55:20 GMT
So, why do we need the extra label of immoral? We don't punish people for being immoral, but for breaking the law. Because the law does not always equal justice. There are illegal things that I don't think are evil. There are legal things that I think are evil. Whether evil should always be punished is another debate - I would say no. But aren't you just disagreeing with your previous point here? You're condemning genocide as evil despite saying it's not exactly illegal - therefore you're using the extra label of immoral. But what does that prove? That many Americans are unwilling to reflect on the bloody history of their nation? Are you trying to argue that this means the genocide of native Americans wasn't evil just because a lot of people refuse to accept it as such? A lot of that debate is more about facts than what constitutes evil anyway - many Americans are either uneducated or deliberately ignorant about the Native American genocide. But the fact that you're using the term 'actually evil' suggests you do have criteria as to what evil is. You previously said an action is evil if it negatively affected you, but now you're saying genocide is certainly evil even though I assume you've never been directly impacted by a genocide. So what is your criteria for evil? OK so for you, evil is at least somewhat related to causing people harm. Great, I agree. So why the reluctance to label Cheney evil even though you admit he caused a lot of people harm and you have stated you disagree with his reasons for doing so?
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The Lost One
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@lostkiera
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Post by The Lost One on Jan 13, 2022 13:56:03 GMT
There are folks arguing that massive rape, pillaging, and murder that made possible the Great Enlightenment Experiment spiced with the Christian religion, called the United State of America, does not matter because look at all the good many things that came out of it. We should focus on the positive and forget about the messy parts. So they're basically arguing that the benefits outweighed the costs. You can accept that principle but still argue that they're wrong (ie comparing benefits to costs is fine but here the costs actually outweighed the benefits) rather than just dismiss the debate as an unresolvable one with different but equally valid points of view. To take a simpler example to illustrate what I mean, a couple of years ago there was a lot of debate as to whether Winston Churchill was a hero or a villain. Those who considered him a hero point to his role in defeating the Nazis in World War II. Those who saw him as a villain pointed to examples like his brutal response to striking Welsh miners, his brutality in Africa and his role in the Bengal famine. However those who saw him as a hero never tried to claim starving Bengalis is a good thing - instead they argued that Churchill's intentions and his role in the handling of that incident were being misrepresented. Similarly those who saw him as a villian didn't consider defeating Nazis a bad thing, but cast doubt upon how much of the success there was really down to Churchill. It was therefore not a debate between two conflicting moralities, but a debate as to the pertinent facts when assessing Churchill under what is essentially an agreed moral framework (ie did Churchill hurt more people than he helped?). So to go back to the Native American genocide, did it really lead to good outcomes that outweighed the slaughter? And if so was the bloodshed necessary for achieving those good outcomes? I think there are plenty of historical facts to suggest a hefty "no" answers both these questions.
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The Lost One
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@lostkiera
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Post by The Lost One on Jan 13, 2022 15:09:37 GMT
Nope. I’m saying what 3 out 5 people will say is evil, 2 out 5 people will say it is good. My life in America is a good one and my opinion that it is based on my relative position of class, race, education, extended family, etc. The systematic genocide of the Native American, coupled with the enslavement of Africans, benefited me mightily and it’s not my fault I got lucky. So, just being white American doesn’t mean I’m evil even though my existence to enjoy it is thanks to two moral evils. I think there is a difference between not feeling guilty about events that happened before you were born and declaring these events as good.
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The Lost One
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@lostkiera
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Post by The Lost One on Jan 14, 2022 9:21:51 GMT
I think there is a difference between not feeling guilty about events that happened before you were born and declaring these events as good. And I never said moral evils were good. No, but you seem reluctant to label them evil. I think your initial post that I commented on claimed that we don't tend to see collateral damage and wars for profit as evil. I think a hefty chunk of us do!
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The Lost One
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@lostkiera
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Post by The Lost One on Jan 14, 2022 15:28:57 GMT
I don’t know your political affiliation, nationality, or how familiar you are with US history and culture, so your answers will be relative to that. Irish/British communist - fairly familiar with US history/culture but no expert by any means. In that they symbolise an evil practice, yes. Depends on their reasons. If they want to retain them due to sentimentality then I don't see that as evil though there is obviously a debate as to how much allowance others should give for sentimentality. If they want to retain them because they agree with slavery and white supremacy then yes, I would have no trouble calling them evil.
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The Lost One
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@lostkiera
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Post by The Lost One on Jan 14, 2022 17:22:14 GMT
That’s relativism and why Nietzsche cynically said moralizing is a waste of time. I think you’ve reasonably argued how evil can be manipulated into a if not good, then not necessarily an evil. Nah, that's not relativism. I think white supremacy is unequivocally evil but I don't think all those who want to retain statues etc are white supremacists. If I were a relativist on the other hand, I would say white supremacy is good for some and evil for others.
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The Lost One
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@lostkiera
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Post by The Lost One on Jan 14, 2022 20:30:54 GMT
So morals exist on a sliding scale or not? I think most people when they think of acting morally have some sort of view that they shouldn't cause unnecessary harm to others. That doesn't mean it exists in any objective sense but it's so common as to be almost universal. People of course do end up causing unnecessary harm to others but usually one of the following is true: a) they're fully aware they are behaving immorally; b) they lack understanding as to how their actions hurt people; c) they aren't aware of better alternatives available; or d) they've come up with some ad-hoc reason to justify their actions so they can do what they want without feeling bad. I think the number of cases of people where none of the above apply, where their moral compass actually equates hurting others to being somehow good is negligible. But even if it is pretty common, there's no reason why the rest of us ought to tolerate it even if we accept moral subjectivity. We can label such people evil with a clean conscience.
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The Lost One
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@lostkiera
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Post by The Lost One on Jan 15, 2022 9:08:05 GMT
So morality is fixed or not relative, that is slavery is always evil, but each person’s relationship to it is not fixed or relative. Good people can own other humans. I'm not saying morality is fixed - only that most people agree on the fundamentals of what is moral and for those that don't there's no objective reason why we ought to tolerate them. Saying morality is relative so moral debates can never be resolved is I think giving up too easily. So if Bob is against slavery and Linda owns slaves, Bob shouldn't just say "Well morality is all relative so Linda's position is equally valid". Instead he should question Linda about her justifications - are they based on faulty logic or information that he can challenge? Does Linda believe her slaves are an inferior brand of humanity that have fewer rights for instance? If so Bob could challenge her on a) the scientific claim to inferiority; and b) the philosophical claims about what rights are and how they are distributed. Or maybe Linda has differing views about how the world works - perhaps she thinks society would collapse into barbarism without the lesser evil of slavery, or the slaves are better off than they would be free. Again, Bob can challenge these arguments. If he successfully does this and Linda still stubbornly wants to keep her slaves, then she is not meeting the common standard of morality. But does she uphold this standard in other avenues of life? If so, Bob can point out this hypocrisy to her and make her reconsider her position on slavery. And if after all that she still retains her slaves, Bob can declare her evil and seek support against her from other good folk. Just shaking one's head and saying "it's all relative anyway" is just a cop-out imo.
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The Lost One
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@lostkiera
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Post by The Lost One on Jan 15, 2022 11:17:47 GMT
You keep thinking moral relativism is an excuse or cover for moral failure. How do you define moral failure and how do you address it? There were arguments to justify such things in the past and they were generally based on lack of knowledge and bad logic. Homophobia in 1850 was justified by a mixture of divine command theory and fallacious thinking that something that disgusts or is unusual is immoral. These arguments are still made today and we have no problem pointing out their logical weaknesses - so why can't we apply that to the past? I don't see it as useless, even if we accept moral relativism. Nothing like a bit of righteousness to motivate a movement.
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The Lost One
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@lostkiera
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Post by The Lost One on Jan 15, 2022 12:26:15 GMT
Set of morals each individual claims, then fails to keep them, yet claiming they have not failed them at all. Well that's not so different to my approach but I find when you really drill down into the sets of morals individuals hold there are common factors. These are missed if you only look at the surface moral stances. If we say Linda thinks "slavery is good" and that's her moral stance without questioning her why she thinks slavery is good, I think we miss something vital to the debate. This is where I get confused by your position. I would see "moral failing", "sin" and "evil" as pretty much synonyms (albeit sin is laden with religious connotations) while you seem to view them as qualitatively different. Washington grew up at a time where slavery was the norm and he benefitted from slavery. So we can't be too surprised he would find a shaky justification for it. But we can still question whether that justification stands up to scrutiny. Washington may have done good things as well but here he acted badly. Even if we understand why he did so, we shouldn't let him completely off the hook. Agreed. But then why the reluctance to consider Cheney evil when he denies the rights of those who died in a war he partly orchestrated? Touché!
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Post by rachelcarson1953 on Aug 7, 2022 0:29:00 GMT
For the record I do believe that objective morality is real in a sense, but whether or not a person cares about it is where the subjectivity comes in. A psychopath knows that it is morally wrong to kill someone else, they just don't care. I think this is part of the reason why the idea of eternal torment was introduced in the first place, as incentive to not harm other people even if you would like to. The threat of death or prison just isn't enough reason for some people. I'm not sure I agree with everything Tom the atheist says here (I'd have to think about it a lot more, but I think he goes too overboard with the free will stuff), but I haven't heard the "problem of evil" addressed quite this way before. I'd say the fact that we have no choice in whether we are born or not is a very easy way to address "the problem of evil." I am mostly talking about whether Hell exists, but it also can be applied to people who experience an unnecessary amount of suffering in this life. It has been argued and the argument is solid imo, that it would have been more moral for God to create nothing than to create something if that creation entails thinking beings that can suffer. Anti-natalists take this position within a naturalistic framework. On a side note, it is interesting to me that in most of these online debates the atheists never hide their faces. It is the theists who hide their faces more often than not. I just now stumbled onto this thread, and it has been an interesting read. The above bolded type fits with my view of "May all sentient beings be free from suffering" the Buddha There used to be an actual Anti-Natalist that posted on this board, I believe his username was miccee. His posts were always interesting. It made me glad that I had not had children. Edit: this also reminded me of a conversation between Behavioral Analysis agents of the FBI, on the TV program of Criminal Minds, in an episode called Demonology, where they have captured a priest who was killing people by extended exorcism rituals.
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