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Altruists sacrifice themselves to save their kin.
Quote from: hamdani yusuf on 09/02/2021 12:12:34Altruists sacrifice themselves to save their kin. which is why we need a second test to determine the morality of an action that might harm someone else.
Quote from: hamdani yusuf on 06/02/2021 19:25:04This situation might be the reason why Alan saw the necessity to add the second rule for his morality.No, it is necessary to test an action from the standpoint of both the doer and the receiver.
This situation might be the reason why Alan saw the necessity to add the second rule for his morality.
The next question would be, what's the boundary of kin? How much similarity could still be considered our kin? How much difference can there be before it's no longer a kin?
No need to complicate matters. If you'd be happy for me to do it to you, and for you to do it to your immediate family, it's moral. Necessity may require you to do things that don't meet those criteria.
It's no big deal.We know what black and white look like, but some things are green. If we map them to monochrome in a photograph the green may come out as light or dark depending on the characteristics of the film.
Bit of an oxymoron there, my friend. How can the UMS (whatever that may be) be "especially useful" if there are "simpler and more practical" rules? You have chosen the problem: please now solve it using the UMS and a simpler alternative, and explain why the outcomes are different and which is preferable.
Solving for universal morality inevitably forces us to somehow make a connection between is and ought world. It's like bridging two parts of a city separated by a river. Non-universal moralities try to build the bridge artificially. They provide shortcuts between those city parts, but only work for some cases, in specific time and space. In some other cases, other bridges are more suitable.Universal morality employs naturally available connection between is and ought worlds, which is the cogito ergo sum. In our analogy, it's comparable to landmass around the river source. It may take longer route to proceed, but it works for all cases universally.
Morality is the quality of an action that you would be happy to have others do to you, and you would be happy to do to your loved ones. An action is either moral or immoral. It can also be necessary or expedient, but these have no bearing on its morality.The concept of morality has no meaning outside of human society.
I no longer call myself a humanist. Here’s why.In 2019, I was confronted with some ideas which lead to an ideological shift. Thanks to Carl Sagan’s Pale Blue Dot, Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind, and Peter Singer’s Animal Liberation, I came to see morality a bit differently. Rather than humanism, I’ve taken to sentientism and ethical veganism (and have for some time now). Ultimately, I don’t think labels are nearly as important as the principles they’re meant to communicate, so I don’t care to squabble over labels or definitions when I could instead cut directly to the issues at hand.The Great Demotions often contribute to the cessation of various kinds of human prejudice. Speciesism, I think, should be the next to go.
Vanitas vanitatum!If you abandon speciesism, you place yourself as no more deserving of life, liberty and happiness than whatever wants to infect or eat you. That doesn't flow from atheism but from an implicit assumption of some external arbiter (if not creator) of worth! The first lesson of every first aid, mountain or sea rescue course is always: protect yourself. That's not just speciesist, but necessarily selfish: you can't help others if you are dead. And before you mention rescuing battle casualties from no-man's land, it still applies: crouch and crawl, and show a red cross. The morality of kamikaze is left as an exercise for the reader (hint - it works best if the enemy has been dehumanised by propaganda)!
We came from ancestors who didn't think that earthly life is ultimately empty.
If our fish ancestors thought that their lifeform and lifestyle were the most suitable in the universe, and resist changes to improve and adapt to changing environment, we won't be here to talk about this.
Quote from: hamdani yusuf on 16/02/2021 05:32:03We came from ancestors who didn't think that earthly life is ultimately empty. I must reject the vanity of presuming that you know what our ancestors thought. Recent history is indeed perverted by belief in the supernatural but you have no right to inflict that disease retrospectively.Quote If our fish ancestors thought that their lifeform and lifestyle were the most suitable in the universe, and resist changes to improve and adapt to changing environment, we won't be here to talk about this. Do you have any evidence for voluntary or intentional evolution? "What man is there among you that by taking thought could add one cubit to his stature?" (Jesus, somewhere in the book). Resistance to change is however common - most groups reject the abnormal.
Either they did think that earthly life is ultimately empty, or they didn't think about it at all.
The thought that earthly life is ultimately empty can suppress those necessary instinct and emotion.
Quote from: hamdani yusuf on 16/02/2021 10:12:09Either they did think that earthly life is NOT ultimately empty, or they didn't think about it at all.Or they thought about it and didn't think it was ultimately empty. That pretty much covers all the possibilities, and the answer is that we don't and can't know.
Either they did think that earthly life is NOT ultimately empty, or they didn't think about it at all.
Quote from: hamdani yusuf on 16/02/2021 10:12:09The thought that earthly life is ultimately empty can suppress those necessary instinct and emotion.Speak for yourself! I think that earthly life is ultimately empty and have no evidence to the contrary, but I have plenty of survival instinct because my emotions tell me that life is enjoyable.My nephew teaches people to jump out of aeroplanes with a parachute because it is fun. I have dealt with others who jump out of windows without a parachute because life is not fun.