The philosophy thread general discussion

Sure and that's reasonable, unworthy to live has negative connotations for the obvious reasons.

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

For me personally, it's less "You don't deserve to live because you attack innocent people" and more "I don't want to hurt you, but you voluntarily created a situation where at least one of us has to die, so I'll assume that you're okay with the risks."

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.

I’m sorry, I fail to understand the military part, is it about military people being deemed unworthy or rather the part of killing enemy soldiers?

As for capital punishment, in countries where it’s applied within the rule of law, those condemned to death are, in principle, deprived of their right to life as a result of their criminal act not for them being inherently unworthy of life.

Combat is considered a case of force majeure where it’s just as a matter of survival as in self-defence, there are rules to it however and the enemy soldier who shot at you a minute ago is off-limits should he be taken prisoner of war, and all that.
Again, that is different from ruling that according to certain criteria, such and such persons have been found inherently unworthy of life.

It’s about what one does rather than what one is.

Sorry if I wasn’t clear earlier.

edited 14th Mar '18 3:47:36 PM by AlityrosThePhilosopher

Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend

I thought we were just talking about people just being declared unworthy to live, being inherently unworthy to live is rather different. Obviously that isn't something that most people would defend.

edited 14th Mar '18 3:52:26 PM by Fourthspartan56

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

The original context of this discussion was the possibility of choosing who should live vs. who should die based on objective criteria. Punishing people for their destructive actions or defending oneself or others are a different dynamic.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

Unless I’m misinformed, we have no actual knowledge whether such objective criteria exist and so cannot judge accordingly, although we often believe that they do and that we can.

edited 17th Mar '18 5:28:21 AM by AlityrosThePhilosopher

Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend

Exactly my point.

"We learn from history that we do not learn from history."

Yes by its very nature any judgement of value will be inherently subjective, and anyone who claims otherwise just wants you to follow their subjective criterion.

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

“My subjective criteria are your objective ones, your fantasy is my reality, it’s good to be the king!”

Just as my freedom ends where yours begins my tolerance of you ends where your intolerance toward me begins. As told by an old friend

With self-defense part of it is breach of contract: if one attacks others, then they don't have much moral ground to stand on to complain about being attacked.

Another angle I'd look at it from is that of responsibility: if you attack someone and they kill you in self-defense, it's less that they killed you and more that you got yourself killed by provoking them. They had no duty to die for you, and when you set up a situation where they have to kill to stay alive that's completely your fault.

With the death penalty (as well as other forms of punisment) I have a pretty neutral opinion, but generally I'd say it's acceptable on the basis of "social rejection of evil". Failing to punish evil can be equivalent to tacit support of their evils. In some circumstances, an individual can do something so cruel that the best way for society to wash its hands of the whole thing is to kill them.

Mind you, I'm mostly of the opinion that circumstances where the death penalty is the optimal punishment are rare.

"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"

You could also do a sort of practical approach to the Categorical Imperative.

First of all, we would say attacking someone in the first place is wrong because we don't want to live in a society where the norm is that people attack each other. Then, we can look at the next step in our scenario; that of the act of self defence. Would we like to live in a society where people don't usually defend themselves? Wouldn't that just mean that the most audacious criminals are the most prolific and successful - in other words, wouldn't we, then, have a society where attacks occur regularly because of the lack of a deterrent?

So after the initial violation, self defence can be justified because without it, crime will continue to permeate society.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Absolutely, I wasn't saying that tolerating their harm or death was a bad thing. People who choose to attack others should face the appropriate consequences in the name of maintaining societal order.

"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn

No intent to be disruptive with a small non-sequitur or anything.

Has moral nihilism been discussed here?

I don't know. I have to mention that Moral Nihilism (and regular nihilism) aren't actually serious positions at all. Especially because Moral Nihilism is impossible to practicate unless you have actual Blue-and-Orange Morality

Watch me destroying my country

'Kay, how is it impossible?

The issue isn't with moral nihilism per se but with the conclusions drawn from it. To say that morality derives from human thought rather than from anything objectively present in the physical world (my position) isn't a big problem, but the proposition that there are no moral facts and therefore all morality is false can have dangerous consequences if adopted by someone with a predisposition to aberrant behavior.

General morality says that murder (killing a human being without legal due process, declared warfare, or an imminent threat of grievous harm) is wrong; a person who discards this claim as inherently false cannot be counted on not to kill other people for any reason or no reason. Such a declaration is so inherently dangerous to the cohesion of a society that the society might take it as a threat in and of itself.

This is not to say that all moral nihilists are potential murderers, but that someone unironically and literally adopting that philosophy would not recognize any moral argument against murder, and thus could not be counted on to be part of the social contract that defines murder as wrong.

edited 29th May '18 2:53:55 PM by Fighteer

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"

Personally, I find moral nihilism self-refuting. One who says that killing people is always acceptable forfeits any defense from their execution. After all, by their own logic, killing people is always acceptable, so that also means legal executions of murderers.

"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"

I don't believe such a person would need anyone's permission to do dangerous shit. I mean, if someone's really predisposed to that kind of behavior, then he/she is already rejecting the contracts as a starting assumption. What would guarantee against such people turning up in the healthiest of societies and still reject these societies' unspoken contracts?

It would seem it's these contracts that keep human groups together. It's not like no human group has ever done or ever does anything that other groups would find appalling.

It really is Self Defeating. And self contradictory.

Watch me destroying my country

I don't think that killing people is WRONG^TM, but I believe that most people (including me) don't want to die, and that agreeing not to randomly kill each other makes more sense than the opposite. I also value the life and well-being of other people much higher than any personal benefits I might gain from harming them, because I happen to be wired that way, but I won't pretend that such values are somehow objectively true or whatever.

What would you call me?

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.

You operate by rules, which happen to co-operate with others' rules and happen to work well generally for both you and others? /amateur question

More or less. It's mostly a "mutual self-interest" sort of system, except that my self-interest also includes the needs of others due to empathy and whatnot.

Still a great "screw depression" song even after seven years.

Would morality have something to do with empathy?

What about who's worth empathy and who is not?

The concept of morality itself is kind of tough because it’s ultimately completely constructed and can vary pretty significantly.

If I can, I prefer to describe myself as a humanist. Before they went off the rails a few prominent atheists coined the term as to mean “supporting human flourishing”, and I think that describes my view on the situation nicely. Don’t kill or discriminate against or disadvantage people, because that’s against humanity.

They should have sent a poet.

Proceeds to commit xenocide

Also, you're still describing an ethical moral system. And one that is extremely lousy when you start to considerate the hypothetical implications of it. Like, then any hypothetical non human entity would be lesser.

edited 29th May '18 5:22:21 PM by KazuyaProta

Watch me destroying my country