The Problem With Utilitarianism

@Night Ripper,

(For the record, I think gutting ehBeth like a fish would be rather unethical)

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@Night Ripper,

Okay, because this seems to completely contradict any prior points you've made...

Define 'innocent.'

@Night Ripper,

I see. So morality is all about you. Whatever entity you can muster empathy for merits moral consideration. If you can't, tough luck for the entity. Whatever act makes you feel unclean when you commit it is immoral, no matter how much good it does for other people. Because it's not about those other people, it's just about you.

I don't think you're engaging in ethics at all---just in narcissism.

Night Ripper wrote:

Thomas wrote:
There are plenty of people who are incapable of feeling empathy, you know.

I'm not one of them.

That's not the point. The point is, do people who're incapable of empathy get excused from the moral obligations other people have?

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@Night Ripper,

Quote:

No, I'd gut you like a fish if you tried to torture an innocent child. I'm not squeamish at all, I just don't hurt the innocent even to protect other innocents.

Isn't this just a matter of perspective?

You object to someone attempting to save hundreds of lives by torturing the life of one child to cause their parent to give up the location of a bomb.

If you were the parent of one of those hundreds of lives that would be lost when that bomb goes off, would you still stand on your principle of protecting the innocent child of the bomber and "gut her like a fish" to stop her from trying to find the location of the bomb that would kill your own innocent children?

1 Reply

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper wrote:

I just don't hurt the innocent even to protect other innocents.

I'm an innocent child trying to protect my family and the world by hurting another innocent child (but as I'm an innocent, I don't have the knowledge that the other child will be harmed). Still gonna gut me like a fish?

Enjoy your exhilerance.

1 Reply

@ebrown p,

ebrown p wrote:

Quote:
Things I don't feel empathy for don't even get moral consideration

There are plenty of times that human beings don't feel empathy for other human beings. Evolutionarily we developed empathy for people we consider to be like us-- human's quite often feel no empathy for the "other". This is quite pronounced in times of war-- quite often people have no empathy for the "enemy" (this has been demonstrated countless times).

Night Ripper, In the case where soldiers feel no empathy for the enemy, is raping children as an act of war unethical?

You're asking me to evaluate other people's actions according to their sense of values and not my own but it doesn't matter if others don't feel empathy. I do and therefore I will fight against any perceived injustice.

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@Butrflynet,

Butrflynet wrote:

If you were the parent of one of those hundreds of lives that would be lost when that bomb goes off, would you still stand on your principle of protecting the innocent child of the bomber and "gut her like a fish" to stop her from trying to find the location of the bomb that would kill your own innocent children?

Yes, I would like to think that my personal stake doesn't affect my sense of decency.

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

Night Ripper wrote:
I just don't hurt the innocent even to protect other innocents.

I'm an innocent child trying to protect my family and the world by hurting another innocent child (but as I'm an innocent, I don't have the knowledge that the other child will be harmed). Still gonna gut me like a fish?

Enjoy your exhilerance.

Can you give me a concrete example? I'm having a hard time picturing how that should play out.

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@Sentience,

Sentience wrote:

Define 'innocent.'

Someone that hasn't done something wrong in the current situation. The reason why I would torture a terrorist but not the terrorist's children is because the terrorist is guilty and the children are not.

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@Night Ripper,

That seems incredibly selfish to me. You would preserve your own moral code over human life. The children are going to suffer in either outcome, only in the event in which you torture them does no others die. You are indirectly torturing several million innocents by not acting. Either way the innocents are hurt, one simply has less casualties then the other.

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@Sentience,

Sentience wrote:

You are indirectly torturing several million innocents by not acting.

Ultimately, the guilt rests on the terrorist that planted the bombs. That's what matters. If I were to torture the children, the guilt would rest on me.

1 Reply

@Night Ripper,

OK, so, affirming that morality is all about you, you're content to acquiescing to evil, if only it's somebody else's fault. You don't care to exchange it for a much lesser evil, even when that would be in your power. It's better for a million people to be killed than for you to feel bad about yourself.

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@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

OK, so, affirming that morality is all about you, you're content to acquiescing to evil, if only it's someobne else's fault.

I'm responsible for myself, not the rest of the world. If I can avoid doing evil then so can everyone else and it's their responsibility to do so. It's not my responsibility to prevent them from being evil by being evil myself.

1 Reply

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper wrote:

I'm responsible for myself, not the rest of the world. If I can avoid doing evil then so can everyone else and it's their responsibility to do so. It's not my responsibility to prevent them from being evil by being evil myself.

So where does that leave us in the Communism thread? How would your logic apply to an IRS official taxing your income and property? She's only responsible for herself---not for the rest of the world, including you. So as long as her conscience isn't troubled by taxing you, you don't really have any moral objection to what she's doing. You only have a selfish objection: like everybody else, you don't like paying taxes.

1 Reply

@Night Ripper,

Night Ripper wrote:

Can you give me a concrete example? I'm having a hard time picturing how that should play out.

parent says to child, I need you to go to X and do Y.

innocent child is not aware that the parent might have them do anything which would harm another

the innocent child doing Y will result in another child, or many other children being tortured or killed

are you going to gut the innocent child like a fish to prevent another innocent being tortured or killed?

~~~~

the Y could be as simple as the child making a delivery, passing along a message unknowingly, activating something

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@Sentience,

Sentience wrote:

That seems incredibly selfish to me.

word

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@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

Night Ripper wrote:
Can you give me a concrete example? I'm having a hard time picturing how that should play out.

parent says to child, I need you to go to X and do Y.

innocent child is not aware that the parent might have them do anything which would harm another

the innocent child doing Y will result in another child, or many other children being tortured or killed

are you going to gut the innocent child like a fish to prevent another innocent being tortured or killed?

~~~~

the Y could be as simple as the child making a delivery, passing along a message unknowingly, activating something

No, I'd try to restrain the child but wouldn't kill him or her.

1 Reply

@Thomas,

Thomas wrote:

So as long as her conscience isn't troubled by taxing you, you don't really have any moral objection to what she's doing.

No, remember, it's all about me. Her conscience doesn't enter into it.

1 Reply

@Night Ripper,

If restraining the innocent child would not prevent them from causing harm to another child, if the only way you could prevent the innocent child from causing harm to another innocent child was to kill them - would you do it?

1 Reply

@ehBeth,

ehBeth wrote:

If restraining the innocent child would not prevent them from causing harm to another child, if the only way you could prevent the innocent child from causing harm to another innocent child was to kill them - would you do it?

No, like I said before, I'm not going to kill anyone innocent to save anyone else that's innocent. The guilt ultimately rests on the person that put the child up to it.

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The Problem With Utilitarianism

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