Would it be wrong to murder someone IF...?

...that means they'll enter an infinitely long afterlife where they will be sublimely blissful for eternity? Why or why not?

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

The standard response here would be that it'd be wrong because it's still a violation of their will and that's important for some reason.

That reminds me, I should get back to killing all those babies...

The question is, how would you know they'd end up in a blissful afterlife?

I know, it's only hypothetical, but our notions of morality were developed in the real world, not the hypothetical one in which it takes place. If we were in a world where that was a reasonable expectation, our moral standards would probably be different anyway.

It's still wrong.

I myself expect a perfect afterlife for myself, but there's no way in Hell I'd abandon my sisters, or any of my duties here on earth.

I have stuff to do. Even if life is hard, I manage to like this world, and wish to make something of myself.

I wouldn't take that away from anyone else, either. I'm gonna hang around for awhile myself, thankyouverymuch.

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

@neo YT Pism

I disagree. First, I believe it is common to use hypotheticals in moral decision-making. Correct me if that's wrong. Second, that's a mainstream belief, so it deserves some contemplation. Third, I don't think morality is generally based on empirical evidence. Here's a quote:

"Science has comprehensively confounded "common-sense" in all empirical matters. Our traditional ethical intuitions, when wrapped in secular guise, are less susceptible to experimental challenge. It would be a piece of singular good fortune if the least testable aspects of common-sense folk-wisdom just happened to be the ones that could most be relied on."

edited 13th Feb '11 1:04:18 PM by LoveHappiness

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

"Second, that's a mainstream belief, so it deserves some contemplation." - Love Happiness

So its worthiness of contemplation is proportional to how mainstream it is? Wouldn't that be a little unfair to less mainstream beliefs?

As for the mention of common sense, I don't get what it's saying, but I don't think "common sense" is good enough when it comes to matters of fact or even assumption. (The notion of an afterlife is the latter.)

I would only murder someone if I got an end level bonus score on it! :D

...

Oh wait, we're talking about Real Life. In that case, I'd just activate me Dooms Day Device and kill everyone. That way, nobody gets left out. >:3

♥♥II'GSJQGDvhhMKOmXunSrogZliLHGKVMhGVmNhBzGUPiXLYki'GRQhBITqQrrOIJKNWiXKO♥♥

"So its worthiness of contemplation is proportional to how mainstream it is? Wouldn't that be a little unfair to less mainstream beliefs?"

Of course not. I'm all for contemplating radical ideas. The point is common beliefs like these may have radical implications if they are true. Forgive me if I think that's important. : - )

edited 13th Feb '11 1:16:36 PM by LoveHappiness

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

Isn't this supposed to be a hypothetical?

Why then does it matter that there is no telling what comes after death.

Would it be wrong to murder someone IF...?

...they will go to a wonderful afterlife?

Hai-poe-seh-tic-ahl

edited 13th Feb '11 1:17:30 PM by TheMightyAnonym

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation? Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! ~ GOD

Don't we normally operate under the assumption that "Murder" is by definition wrong?

And another thing, if we know that all people are going to die eventually why not save them the trouble and have everyone killed right now, regardless of whatever afterlife they've earned for themselves?

Answer: Life can be a fun ride in the meantime.

"Silent Hill always gives the best presents." -agentjr "Death feels like acoustic guitar." -helloween

"Don't we normally operate under the assumption that "Murder" is by definition wrong?

Perhaps, but that's not a particularly interesting observation. It doesn't mean we're correct, and in any case people's intuitions differ as to whether murder is always wrong.

"Answer: Life can be a fun ride in the meantime."

Except for a great many people it isn't. And life may be worse for most people than you might think. More quotes:

"...human lives are, in general, much less good than we think they are. We spend most of our lives with unfulfilled desires, and the occasional satisfactions that are all most of us can achieve are insufficient to outweigh these prolonged negative states. If we think that this is a tolerable state of affairs it is because we are... victims of the illusion of pollyannaism. This illusion may have evolved because it helped our ancestors survive, but it is an illusion nonetheless. If we could see our lives objectively, we would see that they are not something we should inflict on anyone."

Or as George Orwell said, "On balance life is suffering, and only the very young or the very foolish imagine otherwise."

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

Love Happiness, who said that first quote?

Anyway, the sorts of religions that believe in a Heaven also make it perfectly clear that "Murder is WRONG". Maybe it's a logical disconnect depending on how you see it, but what I'm trying to say is that it's extremely rare to hear someone say "Everyone will go to Heaven when they die, therefore it's okay to kill people."

But working with these conditions, I'll try to find some sort of rationale for murder still being wrong. "Life may be crappy, and Heaven may be great, but some people are masochists/like a challenge/are delusional, and it would be wrong to forcibly remove them from said crappy life that they take pleasure in/want to succeed in/think is great."

"War doesn't prove who's right, only who's left." "Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future."

My very first quote was from David Pearce, a negative utilitarian philosopher. Second was from Peter Singer's piece "Should this be the last generation?", describing David Benatar's views, who is the author of "Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence".

edited 13th Feb '11 1:46:43 PM by LoveHappiness

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

Sometimes life sucks. Sometimes it doesn't. It's generally better than being dead.

Or, if we keep with the whole "happy afterlife" thing, living mostly in suffering is what makes you appreciate the perfect world you die into. Do we have a right to deny people the suffering that will make them properly enjoy their heaven? Of course not. Pile a few more bricks onto their backs and kick 'em some just to make sure they learn the lesson.

"Silent Hill always gives the best presents." -agentjr "Death feels like acoustic guitar." -helloween

"Sometimes life sucks. Sometimes it doesn't. It's generally better than being dead."

Or is it? That depends on what value you think being dead has. I think it has zero value. If life in general is more unhappy than happy, and assuming a hedonistic theory of value (quite questionable, but that's beside the point), then being dead is "better". Clearly we normally assume otherwise, that doesn't mean we're right. Now to get back on track, reasonably in this hypothetical the afterlife is infinitely good, while "normal" life is only finitely good. It follows that we should always choose the afterlife to this life. And perhaps choosing it for someone else might actually be good. Just like we sometimes force children to take foul-tasting medicines for their own good, perhaps someone might be justified in this case to forcibly send someone to heaven. Why should we be "libertarians" and let people harm themselves to no good?

edited 13th Feb '11 2:21:11 PM by LoveHappiness

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

If we absolutely knew that there was an infinitely good heaven that people went to when they died, then there would be no reason not to go around murdering people for their own benefit. They'd obviously be better off in every way imaginable.

The only reason why you wouldn't kill everyone you met to send them to paradise is if you don't know that they were definitely going to end up in heaven. But that assumes that there is a hell where "bad" people go, rather than everyone who dies ending up in heaven. Even then, you could probably assume that those same bad people did something to deserve being tortured for all eternity for and speed them on their way to their just desserts.

So apparently there is no reason for anyone who believes in such afterlifes to not go around slaughtering everyone. Like in Gantz, where the one guy walks down the street gunning down civilians. Some of them would be photocopied to fight aliens to the death and maybe save a few people, and those that weren't were spared horrific deaths during the later alien invasion.

But of course we DON'T know if there is an afterlife in the first place, good or bad, so it's still wrong to murder anyone.

"Silent Hill always gives the best presents." -agentjr "Death feels like acoustic guitar." -helloween

"But of course we DON'T know if there is an afterlife in the first place, good or bad, so it's still wrong to murder anyone."

In a very strict sense of "know" (absolute certainty) this is true, but this in itself does not moral implications. And of course we don't "know" in this strict sense whether the 'assumptions' underlying "murder is wrong" are correct either. Less strictly, I don't think there's any good evidence for either. One may wonder whether there CAN be evidence for this moral axiom. Most people just take this for granted. Not that I have a problem with this. ;-) But it begins to look absurd to me when people insist that in every conceivable circumstance, it would still be wrong. And I'm open-minded enough (or so I like to think) that I'm quite open to meta-ethical views that think that "murder is wrong" is not ever true.

edited 13th Feb '11 3:23:00 PM by LoveHappiness

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

There's also a very strong notion that if you're the type to go around killing people, chances are you're not the kind of person that would make Heaven a particularly pleasant place.

Exactly. We're working with an imperfect picture. So in the meantime it's better to disallow murder. The low chance that someone will live a perfectly happy life (and the much better chances a given schmuck has of living a "This Isn't Absolutely Horrible" life) is better than the chance of there being any afterlife at all, which is unknown. Or maybe it's that the odds of there being either nothing after death or any afterlife are 50/50. Maybe it is the high possibility that there might not be anything after that makes us value our insignificant lives so highly, rather than uncertainty of the existence of an afterlife.

"Silent Hill always gives the best presents." -agentjr "Death feels like acoustic guitar." -helloween

ಠ_ಠ

@Trickdice

It's an interesting question whether you can get "ought from is". My intuition says "no", but of course it may be wrong.

edited 13th Feb '11 3:42:02 PM by LoveHappiness

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

Well, we don't know until we die do we? And until then there either is an afterlife or there isn't. Fifty-fifty chance of it being one of two possible options. Like a coin flip. We don't know what the result will be beforehand, but we know there are only the two possible choices, Yes and No. Or perhaps my logic is horribly unsound. My title is Lucidly Unsane, after all.

"Silent Hill always gives the best presents." -agentjr "Death feels like acoustic guitar." -helloween

So the odds of Russel's teapot existing are fifty-fifty?

edited 13th Feb '11 4:05:05 PM by LoveHappiness

"Had Mother Nature been a real parent, she would have been in jail for child abuse and murder." -Nick Bostrom

That's just a design flaw, a result of having brains made of meat and only being able to manipulate them from within the boundaries imposed by the laws of physics. People build up tolerance to heroin because their physiology adapts to it. But if you allow for magical notions like an afterlife, there's no reason that ever has to happen. You don't need a perfect world or any world at all if you can magically induce a permanent state of sublime bliss. The outside world can be rendered obsolete.