Help me understand moral philosophy better

Don't forget to buy a cup of coffee at starbucks throughout the month of december! A dollar from every purchase goes toward helping starving children in Africa, buy now!

lol

Taking advantage of your lucky circumstances, having been born in a modern western democracy, buying products produced via third world slave labor, and then sitting on ass babbling over the internet about morality, that's what makes you a slave to consumerism.

I would do it too OP, but your reasoning (and probably any reasoning on this topic) would give off edgelord vibes. My reasoning would be that I don't really care about some random person, but I care a lot about myself. That probably sounds edgy, but it's how I honestly feel and how I think most people feel if they were to be honest with themselves. Otherwise how else would you justify the idea that we all lead our lives without the perpetual concern and dismay for the thousands dying from disease and starvation each day. Why are we not all humanitarian peace corps activists?

However, it's pretty fucked up for your friend to have introduced that question if the universal assumed answer was going to be 'no' by everybody. In that case, it's literally posing a hypothetical question with a readymade answer for the sole purpose of virtue signalling if they never planned to even entertain the alternative argument, even as a thought experiment

I wouldn't. Killing is bad and I don't need a million dollars.

Why are you all such immoral shitheads? I thought Veeky Forums was a Christian board.

you are tacitly involved in the deaths of everyone by not actively working against their occurrence. From there it is merely a continuum of moral agency toward actively causing death with your own hands, on which continuum this 'button press' is somewhere in between. Look up the trolley problem, just because you opt not to touch the lever, you are still culpable for the outcome simply by being aware of the variable of change

>mfw I press the button more than once

>press button
>you die

>I,I,I, me, me, me...
>the badness IIIIIIIIIIIII would feel
>the goodness IIIIIIIIII would have

Why don't you try thinking about someone else for once?

Why should I? For all I know you all don't even exist and I'm just in a simulation. If I'm not, what are human beings other than a cool thing that dirt does(Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen. i.e., the most common elements in the universe.) Why should I give a fuck about anything outside my own experience?

I think r/atheism is more your speed my little friend. It's ok, once you get over this little angry hump of Linkin Park-tier whining, you'll gradually start to work empathy into your pitiful view of the world

This is the standard response I get from everyone but I have yet to hear any argument that does deeper than "stop being an edgelord".

>for all I know

Then make a choice base on probability:

-either the pain, misery and suffering that ever means of perception you possess points to is just a figment of your imagination

or

-it really does exist and you have an moral obligation to care

maybe your philosophy that so conveniently places yourself at the centre of the universe isn't, in fact, base on reason; but is actually the consequence of your psychological preoccupation to only care about yourself.

What if the random person is your mother or your child or even you?

If it was me then I wouldn't care because I'd be dead. And the question was really about the moral guilt of killing a random person rather than the potential for that person to be a loved one.

Kek. I bet you think you're "redipilled" too.

Based on the knowledge I posses, there is no possible way I would ever be able to experience others' pain and suffering, so it is illogical to be concerned about it for any reason other than the guilt I would feel from the natural or learned empathy I have.

The point is that they; other living organisms; feel pain, and pain is bad; that it isn't about you.

Why is pain bad?

>trolley meme
not pushing the button in this instance does not imply that anyone will be harmed, whereas not pulling the lever in the trolley problem will inherently cause harm

Nope, but I do think that I'm being honest with myself about who I am. Maybe you are too and wouldn't do it because you genuinely care about every human on this earth more than you care about getting a million dollars for yourself. Cool I guess. I would take the million dollars

what if I were to donate a third of my winnings out of a guilty conscience toward vaccines for hundreds of African children, effectively saving their lives from hepatitis or whatever the fuck. Is taking the money and pressing the button still immoral?

because it causes suffering, and is the axiomatic foundation to ethical reasoning and something called 'progress'.

I never said I wasn't bumboy. But I don't watch TV, I dont pay taxes and I recycle aggresively. I buy clothes manufactured in the UK/US/JP/Portugal (because I'm very fashionable) I cook farmers market produce with my girlfriend and pirate every book I read. If I'm going to be a slave I want to be one that's at least somewhat self aware.

>when the first reply is always the most correct and on point

>It's ok because I KNOW that I'm a slave

great justification

Why is suffering bad >:)

why is suffering objectively bad?

because you don't like it. By empathic extension, other people are capable of suffering and wouldn't like it either. While there is no imperative that you try to prevent or mitigate suffering in others, it is a process that theoretically provides reflexive benefits to yourself if your community were to participate in this type of mutualist prevention of harm.

You probably find it easier to deny any need to involve yourself in this implicit group egalitarianism because you are spoiled and probably live in a comfortable house off of your parents' or the government's backs, but were you actually destitute, you might think the idea of other people looking out for one another is pretty crackerjack

Don't run away with your win kid, heh. The only justification I'm concerned with in this thread is the random murder of a mystery person for a mil. If you agree then cool, if you don't then you're edge.

Because it is demonstrably the case that the only rational justification for any action is the net elimination of pain.

Like some mathematical conjectures; everyone knows that the case is such, nobody questions that the case is such, but it cannot be proved. Despite this nobody changes their mind because the conjecture is so obviously true/false that you would be re-homed in a mental institution for questioning it.

I'm not debating whether pain is bad with you.

u were right desu

>people who agree with me are right and people who don't are a pejorative insult that doesn't really mean anything other than 'something I don't like'

man oh man your arguments are sound

>everyone is utilitarian and it's impossible to disagree or question utilitarianism.

So it just is? Wow, very convincing.

So than it IS all about me. Your justification for pain being bad is because YOU feel bad when you see others in pain.

>Because it is demonstrably the case that the only rational justification for any action is the net elimination of pain.

Agreed. Let's exterminate humanity.

You're being ripped off.

faa.gov/regulations_policies/policy_guidance/benefit_cost/media/econ-value-section-2-tx-values.pdf

For this year, the FAA's value of a statistical life is $9.6 million. That's the value they use to do cost-benefit analysis when deciding whether to implement potential safety regulations. Each federal department that regulates products has a value they rely on, and they go up over time with inflation, life expectancy, and other factors. Corporations do the same calculations for product recalls and non-required safety features.

At $1 million, you're taking just over ten cents on the dollar for every button push. Unless you're getting $8.6 million worth in sick kicks out of killing random strangers, which would put you firmly into edgelord territory, I just don't see the value in it.

Why does my not liking something make it bad as well as disliked? Why does something benefiting me make it good?

>Because it is demonstrably the case that the only rational justification for any action is the net elimination of pain.

How do you explain the existence of flagellants?

When you are a bit older you will realise that everybody above a certain age in this thread, by virtue of experience alone is capable of anticipating every response that you will make and every line of reasoning that you will follow.

You imply, like a 16 year old, that it is intelligent to state that axioms can't justify themselves.

Any progress that is made; in logic, mathematics, science or ethics; has axioms.

Axioms are what is unquestionably true. If pain being a net negative is not unquestionably true to you, then start again.

If you are rational, yes. Answer the question: If you were God what would you do with your power ethically?

If your comment is critically sarcastic, then answer the above question.

They're Irrational :^)

>Being honest with people is always a mistake, especially liberal people in public. Are you going to tell them your real views on black people and trans women too?

I never said anything about something being 'bad'. I made an argument that because you wouldn't like to suffer, it makes sense to think that others also wouldn't like to suffer, and then it would be logical to safeguard each other's suffering because in many ways you and they are not all that different, only insofar as you happen to occupy different corporeal vessels and have different subsets of experiences. Of course it is the case that your interpersonal relationships are valuable because of how they make 'you' feel, but that doesn't invalidate the value of the individuals in question just because you've redundantly managed to establish that phenomenological experience is based in the subject. When you love someone, their suffering makes you feel bad because you know it makes them feel bad. The relationship is not devalued because the locus of your feeling is you

So you admit you're unable to argue for it! Even your definition of progress in this case is dependent on your chosen axiom. You're unable to convince me it's true, or that any other axiom, however arbitrary, wouldn't also serve. Is funny.

I am and not any of the other posters. I think you're mistaken to think of 'good' and 'bad' as anything other than personal value judgements. 'Good' means 'desirable to me' and 'Bad' means 'undesirable to me'. That's all they mean, there is no inherent good or bad

lol holy shit dude you could not come off as more of an edgy 16 year old right now, thinking you have the whole world figured out and shit with your exclamation marks. I'm not the user you were arguing with but I felt I had to say it, you're a cringey faggot

>You're unable to convince me it's true

The point is that it is impossible for any axiom to justify itself.

So continue to spit on and deride progress while others make it; and continue to contribute nothing.

When did I say I've figured the world out? I haven't made any positive claims beyond the obvious. Besides, aren't you more embarrassed to resort to insults?

Those words are so empty now you've shown what's beneath them. Alack-day. Enjoy your crusade, I guess.

I don't know what that means; of course meaninglessness is your speciality.

I want you to know that I stayed up especially late for this argument, and am very triggered.

If you are a troll then well done.

I will check the thread tmrw and reply then if anyone has contributed any more.

Have a good day.

Regards.

please read books

What's funniest is I'm not a nihilist or even a skeptic about morality. I just think the abhorrence of suffering that's so fashionable at the moment is effete and contemptible.

Moral questions are harder for men to answer than gods. Consider two average people dying who need organ transplants. A utilitarian god would heal them, hard to complain. A skilled utilitarian doctor would kill the average person should they be on hand if needed to get the organs to save them. However this behavior would be condemned by western society. I would rather be just than good.

Is a million dollars in this fleeting corporeal world worth an eternity of damnation?

>eternity of damnation

wot?

This reminds me of a twilight zone episode with the exact same scenario.
It was a nice episode indeed.

From a Kantian perspective.

"If I have a magic box, I will push the button, to get a million dollars" is not a universalizable maxim. If everyone would get the magic box (and why not it's magic) then everybody would push the button and everybody would be dead and nobody would have a million dollars, which contradicts the goal.

Also this obviously violates using the second formulation as it uses someone as mere means to an end.

That's only if they all push the buttons at the same time. The faster ones will ensure an asymmetry in number of deaths/people with buttons.

Or just actually donate through your preferred and well researched charity like a normal person.

"The essence of the principle of equal consideration of interests
is that we give equal weight in our moral deliberations to the
like interests of all those affected by our actions. This means
that if only X and Y would be affected by a possible act, and if
X stands to lose more than Y stands to gain, it is better not to
do the act. We cannot, if we accept the principle of equal consideration
of interests, say that doing the act is better, despite
the facts described, because we are more concerned about Y
than we are about X. What the principle really amounts to is
this: an interest is an interest, whoever's interest it may be." - Peter Singer's Practical Ethics.

Guess you have never heard of "empathy" or "mirror neurons"?

Did a simple calculation and I estimate that of the 7.4 billion people alive today, 2.2 billion would survive and become millionaires. The real problem is there isn't that much money in the world.

implying OP isn't already going to hell for being a faggot this is a no-brainer from a christian perspective

I am pressing buttons right now, and people are dying. It has no causal relation to my typing. They were going to die anyway. Look at the stats if you don't believe me. People die all the time.

>no causal relation
That's also why no one is paying you assassination money. If you're gonna ignore the premise of a thought exercise, why bother with it at all?

>oh noes if you press it SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE WILL DIE
kek people die all the time. One life is barely anything.
>inb4 nothin personnel kid
It's in my self-interest.

Random acts are irrational. Killing a random person is a random act. Therefore, pressing the button is irrational.

You already have pressed the button. Let's assume you live in America, and will live in a reasonably comfortable household, drive a moderate vehicle, and utilize technology to an average degree.

What you don't see is the degree on which your entire life is built upon the suffering of others. Statistically speaking, the absurdly small percentage of us who are here bandying about hypotheticals on the Internet are very likely to make and spend $1 million over our lifetime, and it is almost certain that someone in another country who is treated like a machine in order to produce the necessary labor to support us will either die prematurely or kill themself.

That button is just the part of our brain that stops thinking about that, and we press it all the time.

Of course, there's a basic information problem with your scenario, because without knowing who will die or what the consequences of that will be, you can't make an informed decision. Hell, what if it killed a philanthropist who would deem you worthy of a billion dollars one year from now? It's pretty stupid, really.

So yeah. Just here brightening your day, OP. You're welcome.

Wrong

Trading with first world countries benefits third world countries.

>capitalism is socially beneficial for the poor
nice one

Because people who have experienced both sides all agree, there's greater happiness in not being a slave.

> lol your argument is invalid because you're a white male
What a terrible thread. OP read some Hume if you want to be a skeptic who's not an asshole.

Heres a few ideas, maybe you'll like one of them.

Morality is, by nature, the question of how we ought to act towards others. By your original post it does not sound as though you believe there is any moral law, and thus there is no reason to behave a certain way towards others. Why is it that you don't commit to this philosophy and attempt to gain this sort of position, where anonymous murder would gain you money? You say that normally it would make you feel bad, but why haven't you tried to rid yourself of these feelings?

Would you be comfortable living in a world where other people had this button? I imagine you would disapprove of 99% of people using it, because you might die. Not that you simply prefer to live in a world where they don't press the button; if you had knowledge that they were a real, sentient being, living in the same world as you, you would disapprove of their actions because of the risk.

If the world is how you describe it, you have total freedom as to what to do. This includes a certain amount of freedom in choosing what makes you happy. Look at the kinds of people in the world who are petty and self interested, and those who are compassionate and friendly. Which type seems happier to you?

Found the murrican

Read the selfish gene.

/thread

This for a well structured argument on the place of altruism in an indifferent universe.

Shhhhhh, the adults are talking.

To understand morality outside of religious faith, you need to start at the foundation of civilization (metaphorically) - the founding of Plato's ideal nation-state, Rousseau's social contract, Locke's "man in a state of nature," and other such examples.

When you begin with a rudimentary society - a lone family, then a pair of families, etc., etc., or alternative versions of this - there are always modes of action leading to greater levels of collective benefit and methods which lead away from this or destroy the existing harmony.

Morality, is essentially the shunning of actions which generally lead to a destruction of existing social harmony, or which prevent the establishment of social harmony.

Civilization is essentially the balancing of human interests for the greatest collective benefit. In a pure sense, of course.
Realistically, there are always self-interested individuals who seek to manipulate systems to their private advantage at the expense of others within the system.

The reason this is "morally" wrong, is that it is a rejection of the system itself. The system is built on a balance of interests. To reject the balance and seek only self interest is the luxury of an isolated man. This is why society rejects those whose self-interested action poses a threat to systemic harmony via jailing, exiling, and executions.

These individuals choose to reject the system (which is their right) however, even while rejecting it they seek to remain within it to reap its benefits. Pure infantile insanity.

There is, of course, always an element of subjectivity to everything (as in, murder is wrong, but in circumstances a, b, and c it is right, etc.,...) the purpose of morality is the same as Plato's searching for ideal forms. We seek to get as close to Pure Objective Truth of right and wrong while recognizing that we will always be working within subjective subsets within the over-arching domains.

The reason an action like Murder can be considered morally "wrong" is simple: the byproduct of unrestricted murder is a breakdown of civilization and a return to barbarism.

It is literally that simple. The objectivity lies, not in our ability to be completely separate from human experience, but to look objectively at the byproduct of specific modes of action within the subjective domains of human interaction and civilization.

The "wrongness" of your choice to press the button, comes from your willingness to destroy social harmony for transitory, personal gain.

Personal "Good" v. Collective Good
Social Harmony v. Anarchy
Barbarism v. Civilization

This last of the dichotomies listed is really what the person choosing to push the button is deciding.

Anyway, I'm kind of rambling - I just woke up, but I hope this makes some sense and am willing to discuss it further.

Every human life has an end. "So what if I cut one short?" you say. All of us, participating in this delusion of significance, are pressing that button every day of our lives friend.

Your eyeballs pay for television programming, state/corporation-approved propaganda, which promotes the dehumanization of and figurative and literal destruction of your fellow man. We've all had a taste from this fountain, and I should be lucky to be paid for my sins.

youtube.com/watch?v=XU-6ioKKYHY

I don't speak Soviet so your response is a non sequitur. I'm assuming you're the long-winded chap above me, mad that I condensed your soliloquy into reasonable terms.

Chance me, my wife, or one of our immediate family members dies: 1 in 1 billion
I can think of maybe 250 other personal relations whose deaths would upset me and 100 artistic or political figures whose deaths would be a tragedy.
Chance one of those people dies: 1 in 3.5 million

With that in mind, the question becomes not would I push the button, but would I stop at 1000 presses? As long as the deaths are inauspicious and evenly spread throughout the human population, the chances of me even hearing about the consequences of 1000 presses are slim.

Good contribution.

So, would you say that the inner (the subjective) is less important the the outer (the objective)?

Isn't this the same man who advocates for chimpanzee's having greater rights than the mentally retarded?

>I am a nihilist

Cringe. Stopped reading there.

>would you murder someone for $1 million dollarydoos
>woah a million bucks wowza!!!! yowza!!!! imma millionarie wahooo
yeah it's such a moral dilemma.

Yes, but their relative importance is also subject to the situation.

However, in order to understand the inner (subjective), as you say, one must first grasp the outer (objective), so in that sense, the outer is more important as it allows you to define the inner by comparison, i.e. ratio, i.e. rationality.

Y'know on second thought I would like to amend my statement.

Neither one is of greater importance.

A man, to reach his full potential, must grasp both the objective domain and the subjective domain.

In all circumstances, there are elements of subjectivity (how do I feel in this situation, what do I want, how are others involved, etc.,.) and objective elements (what are the potential ramifications of the alternatives presented, what are the ethical implications (and even ethics are, to varying degrees subject to man and cultures), etc.,.).

Man will never be able to live a purely objective life. He can however live a life in pure subjectivity - which is to say, he can live as an animal.

Yes, a man can live purely subject to the needs of the body, pleasure-seeking, etc., but to live this way is to be a beast and on one extreme of the spectrum.

The other extreme is to be so abstracted from human experience as to be useless to man, and foreign even to oneself - like the Laputans in Gulliver's Travels.

Man is at his "most human" state when he is in between these two extremes. He is not so abstracted from what it means to be human as to become a sojourner in his own domain, and he is not so earthy as to reduce himself to the hedonistic state of an animal.

However, one can also say that certain moments in life will call for one or the other of these two extremes, but that is what I meant when I spoke of the subjectivity of circumstance.

>Morality, is essentially the shunning of actions which generally lead to a destruction of existing social harmony, or which prevent the establishment of social harmony.
Is abolition in America considered immoral due to this definition? Is the beheading of homosexuals in Saudi Arabia considered not immoral? I have not read Locke or Rousseau but it seems that society can many forms in order to be stable. Does not it make morality just a product of social whims, to an extent?

And you don't?

I mean moral within the context of any given society.

Within an Islamic society, beheading of homosexuals is considered moral, yes.

Outside of that context it is not. This is why the subjectivity of environment is important when considering ethics.

To create an argument for why the beheading of homosexuals could be considered immoral, even in the context of an Islamic nation, would be to attempt to supersede the subjective context of that society and provide an argument which was more objective because it would necessarily deal with a larger domain - such as being a human, in general.

By "abolition," I'm going to assume you meant "abortion," in which case, no, I would not think social harmony is the main reason for opposition of abortion. I think social harmony plays a role, in that coming to a compromise between tradition, Christian-influenced viewpoints, and more existential, secular points of view is what is taking place. Achieving a balance which is largely acceptable for both sides is the edifying of social harmony which legislators must strive for.

Also, my definition of morality was just me spit-balling a definition, not looking one up. It isn't some "widely held by scholars" view - just my own simplification of a complex subject.

Morality could be a product of whims, or feelings and their justifications, on a small scale - like one person.

However, the larger the scale, the less a product of whims it is because there is a perpetual process happening of coming to a consensus, society changing which necessitates the need to reach a general consensus once more, and this takes place over and over and over on a near infinite number of issues, or minutiae within reemerging issues.

Over time, this continual striving for consensus creates certain beliefs, for lack of a better term, which become generally accepted as true or right. This becomes a basic sort of moral code, and each society has it's own variations of these moral codes - though their cores would overlap in many places.

Think the flower of life diagram, except each circle represents a moral code of a different society, and each general section could represent a broader category. You could even expect to be able to zoom in to a specific circle within the diagram and find within it another flower of life ad infinitum.

If this doesn't make sense, I'm sorry. I'm probably doing a poor job explaining what I mean.