Is this true? Can all moral truths be reduced to "happiness is the fundamental good?" For example, one could say that murder is bad because it makes people unhappy. Are there goods that have nothing to do with happiness?
Thomas Long
Morality follows from the physical principles of the universe. The physical principles of the universe are designed to produce happiness. So, yeah.
Jose Adams
what does it mean to be happy?
Carter Garcia
That is the western worldview. Look into Eastern philosophy. The eastern one is more actionable; are you useful?
Luis Thompson
so many pseuds in this thread
Samuel Gray
It's ok To be gay Let's rejoice With the boys
Ethan Walker
>The physical principles of the universe are designed to produce happiness. no.
Jaxon Allen
Happiness doesn't make greatness, so no, it's not true.
Michael Phillips
Greatness is overrated. Not everyone can be great.
David Wood
>Not everyone can be great. Obviously, otherwise it'd lose its meaning.
Carter Torres
>For example, one could say that murder is bad because it makes people unhappy. So is murder OK if it makes you happy and the person you kill is someone random nobody no one gives a shit about?
Cameron Ward
...
Bentley Sanders
>Crime and Punishment
Thomas Kelly
Useful for what?
Luis Myers
Communism or jihad
Jonathan Ortiz
What does 'ok' mean? Is it morally sound? If so, no, but it is good (in a sense) because you wouldn't do it if you didn't think it was good (for you) (according to Plato). No one does anything that is bad
Mason Powell
>Goethe posting
Jacob King
>dude it's alright if you think it's good lmao
Jeremiah Robinson
what if murdering someone gives me more happiness units than it takes away from my victim? try googling utilitarianism, then try googling pareto efficiency. then realize "happiness" as a measure of anything is a sham.
Isaac Jackson
>I've discovered utilitarianism
Adrian Wilson
Of course not. I could dismember your family in front of you and if your brain were electrically stimulated in the right places you would love it. You would literally be nutting as I sawed your mother in half. Man is mortal and anyone who wants to be happy for the rest of his life should lethally overdose on heroin as soon as possible.
Joseph Clark
This is a fucking meme. There are NO ethical propositions. Take a look at the Repugnant Conclusion and the like. If happiness were the best moral good (and we are all obliged morally to increase happiness), then the best course of action would be to reproduce mindlessly in order to birth new beings in order to feel some happiness in their lives (even at the cost of the social fabric). Also, it would be morally right to create a more sentient being who can feel more profound sensations of happiness that overshadow human sensations of happiness, such as a super computer that feels infinite amounts of happiness (but that doesn't solve anything, because there is no meaning to the existence of anything, even this hypothetical super machine). So yeah, the most important thing for our lives is to be happy. But there is no fundamental good and there is no moral truth or any proposition of ethics at all if you really analyze it enough, you fag.
Cooper King
Oh, nice banter lad, now come have a pint with me and the mates and discus virtue
Julian Gonzalez
(If happiness is the fundamental good, then the highest goal would be simply to produce a sentient being capable of the higher, or highest amount of happiness, even at the cost of everything else). And that is clearly absurd, because it would imply that happiness is the ultimate goal even at the cost of everything else and even our own existence, if a being of a higher order of sentience (of happiness) could come into being. But even that could be overshadowed by another, and so on and so forth.
CONCLUSION: It's just like Wittgenstein fucking said, there are NO propositions of ethics, even though it looks like there are TO us.
Nathaniel Flores
If you really think that go find yourself some cocaine.
Kayden Richardson
bump
Andrew Rodriguez
>being a filthy empiricist wew
Sebastian Perez
Pic related worth considering.
Levi Evans
I know I want Peterson to shut his fool Jungian mouth. Should I use a club to get what I want in this case, if speech isn't an option?
Leo Lee
Are Plato and Aristotle egoists? It seems like they are. The main point of the Republic is to defend justice by arguing it's in a person's self-interest. Plato doesn't suggest there's any other reason to be just. And Aristotle clearly means for each individual to put his own happiness first, even though it requires doing things for the community.
Jayden Morales
My philosophy on life is that from the moment you are born you are thrown into a world of conflict. Happiness is nothing. Victory is everything.
Gabriel White
Ultimately this is what any morality relies on. One obeys a moral code because that is their desire. Even in objective morality with a Christian God, one obeys God because it fulfills either a desire to obey God or a desire to preserve ourselves, but either way we do it because of our desires. Thus in seeking happiness we are compelled to follow some morality.
Nolan Barnes
I was just thinking of that. But even after reading how bad in the head Raskolnikov got from killing that woman I still can't bring myself to believe that it would happen to everyone or even me. Not that I've got the guts to try to kill someone.
Carson Ramirez
But you can desire something without thinking it will make you happy.
Lincoln Anderson
>DUH NO BECAUSE WHAT IF I PUT YOU IN A HIGHLY IMPROBABLE SITUATION? CHECKMATE.
Daniel Ward
No you cannot. You can desire something that doesn't end up making you happy, but "to desire" something is the same thing as believing it will make you happy
Mason Richardson
That's a dumb statement to make.
Brandon Lewis
>The physical principles of the universe are designed to produce happiness. If that were true it would make me profoundly unhappy.
Adrian James
Nuh-uh. If you're addicted to something you can desire it even while knowing it's doing you more harm than good.
Hudson Butler
the drugs are making you happy. You can make statements about which course of action is making you happier, but ultimately you follow your desire to be happy.
Dominic Howard
But obviously what people are aiming for through morality is not just any amount of happiness, but the maximum amount they can get.
Brody Lewis
One can become confused (or simply be ignorant) as to what will maximize their happiness, but they cannot escape the desire to be happy.
Lucas Flores
>such as a super computer that feels infinite amounts of happiness (but that doesn't solve anything, because there is no meaning to the existence of anything, even this hypothetical super machine)
That's a ridiculous way of reducing the problem. Your sense of 'meaning' is itself a good, which is directly part of your own 'happiness' in a broader sense. There's nothing to say that the computer wouldn't be vastly more enlightened than you in ways that dwarfed your comprehension of happiness, meaning and eudaimonia. That you place so much value on things like individuality and personal relationships is an artifact of you living as a human who's capacity for joy and compassion is limited by living in a body bound to ego consciousness to function.
Parker Morgan
>That you place so much value on things like individuality and personal relationships is an artifact of you living as a human who's capacity for joy and compassion is limited by living in a body bound to ego consciousness to function.
You completely missed my point. What you have basically said was: >"Hurr Durr, how do you know if there is more meaning to this machine than you can see?"
It is a fucking hypothetical situation, and you taking the fucking meaning of living that a machine could feel is completely out of the question at hand, you fucking faggot.
And BTW, it's "whose", not "who's", you illiterate faggot. We are on Veeky Forums, not /b/.