Who is the better person?

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Spiral Out
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Re: Who is the better person?

Post by Spiral Out »

Wilson wrote:The exact details aren't critical.
Yes, the exact details are critical.

Your argument is that every person should be judged by what that person does regardless of what they believe.

Who is the better person?

1. A poor, elderly, quadriplegic resentful woman who hates everyone and thinks they should all die an immediate but slow and painful death, yet who smiles gently and graces them all with kind platitudes.
2. A young, strong and cocky male MMA fighter who loves all people and genuinely cares for their well being, yet who enjoys ruthlessly and brutally assaulting his opponents in the ring.

The details matter.
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Lucylu
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Re: Who is the better person?

Post by Lucylu »

Wilson wrote:1. A racist in Mississippi, who is convinced that all blacks are inferior and thinks all homosexuals are sinners, yet is kind and generous to all .. or 2. An upper class businessman in Los Angeles, CA, who believes that people of all races and sexual preferences are equal and donates to charities helping the underprivileged and fighting discrimination, yet pays minimum wages to his employees and is abusive to his wife.

I think that person number 1 is the better person. His actions are at a least kind, whereas person number 2 is mean, greedy and abusive.

However, given the different types of prejudice (personal, cultural, institutional, systemic) these people are both, in a sense, subjects of their environment/ upbringing as well as their natural characteristics.
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts". -Bertrand Russell
Wilson
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Re: Who is the better person?

Post by Wilson »

Lucylu wrote:
Wilson wrote:1. A racist in Mississippi, who is convinced that all blacks are inferior and thinks all homosexuals are sinners, yet is kind and generous to all .. or 2. An upper class businessman in Los Angeles, CA, who believes that people of all races and sexual preferences are equal and donates to charities helping the underprivileged and fighting discrimination, yet pays minimum wages to his employees and is abusive to his wife.

I think that person number 1 is the better person. His actions are at a least kind, whereas person number 2 is mean, greedy and abusive.

However, given the different types of prejudice (personal, cultural, institutional, systemic) these people are both, in a sense, subjects of their environment/ upbringing as well as their natural characteristics.
Thanks, Lucy. I agree with all that.

-- Updated March 29th, 2016, 7:36 pm to add the following --
Spiral Out wrote:
Wilson wrote:The exact details aren't critical.
Yes, the exact details are critical.

Your argument is that every person should be judged by what that person does regardless of what they believe.

Who is the better person?

1. A poor, elderly, quadriplegic resentful woman who hates everyone and thinks they should all die an immediate but slow and painful death, yet who smiles gently and graces them all with kind platitudes.
2. A young, strong and cocky male MMA fighter who loves all people and genuinely cares for their well being, yet who enjoys ruthlessly and brutally assaulting his opponents in the ring.

The details matter.
What I meant was that I was going for the concept rather than the specifics. Of course details matter. I believe I was pretty specific in my original question, by the way.

As to your question, the nasty old lady is a horror and should go to Hell, if Hell exists. And it isn't a matter of what she believes. It's a matter of her lack of compassion for other people, not that she has mistaken opinions. So my argument is NOT simply that every person should be judged by what he does regardless of what he believes.

There is a contradiction in your second example. The MMA fighter cannot both love all people and care for their well being, while enjoying hurting them. Presumably he compartmentalizes. But if your description is correct, then he is a good person, except when he's in the ring - and clearly a better person than the old bitch. People are complicated. And of course each person judges the morality of others according to his own individual standards. What I told you was how I would judge those people. A sociopath would probably just them differently. I believe that there's no absolute answer to questions of morality; it's all individual opinion.
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Spiral Out
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Re: Who is the better person?

Post by Spiral Out »

Wilson wrote:There is a contradiction in your second example. The MMA fighter cannot both love all people and care for their well being, while enjoying hurting them.
There's no contradiction. Not only do the details matter but the context as well.

The MMA fighter is an elite athlete and enjoys the H2H combat with another elite athlete. They both know what they're in there to do. Enjoying the violence in that context does not make him a bad person.

Contradiction:
Wilson wrote:So my argument is NOT simply that every person should be judged by what he does regardless of what he believes.
Wilson wrote:A person can't really help what he believes, when you come down to it. But he can control how he treats people. In my opinion, that's what we should judge people on. Otherwise we are thought police.
Wilson wrote:The point I was making was that I try to judge the moral character of a person not by his beliefs but by his actions - how he treats others...
According to the second two statements above which you made earlier in the thread, the old lady should be the one you would judge as the better person, not as a "horror who should go to hell".
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Re: Who is the better person?

Post by Wilson »

The only reason we know the old lady hates everyone is that you told us. If she really and truly hid her true feelings successfully, how would we know what she felt? All we can judge someone on is what we observe. But since you gave us a psychological profile, we are able to use that in our evaluation. Besides, as I said, there's no one correct answer to moral questions, there are only individual opinions, and as we learn more about a person, we may well change our opinion of him or her. I know what I use to evaluate someone's moral character, and word play will not convince me otherwise.

This is getting a little tedious. Do you really not understand my original argument?

-- Updated March 30th, 2016, 1:31 am to add the following --

Oh, and the contradiction in the description of the MMA fighter is that you said that he "loves all people and genuinely cares for their well being, yet enjoys ruthlessly and brutally assaulting his opponents in the ring." If you hadn't used "all" in that sentence, or if you had said that he "loves all people and genuinely cares for their well being OUTSIDE THE RING," I would buy it. I know that's nitpicking.
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Spiral Out
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Re: Who is the better person?

Post by Spiral Out »

Wilson wrote:The only reason we know the old lady hates everyone is that you told us. If she really and truly hid her true feelings successfully, how would we know what she felt?
I was following your own formula. The same applies to the 'racist' in your example. How would we have even known he was a racist if all we saw was that he's kind and generous to all?
Wilson wrote:All we can judge someone on is what we observe. But since you gave us a psychological profile, we are able to use that in our evaluation. Besides, as I said, there's no one correct answer to moral questions, there are only individual opinions, and as we learn more about a person, we may well change our opinion of him or her. I know what I use to evaluate someone's moral character, and word play will not convince me otherwise.
You might call it word play but I call it philosophy. Contrary to what you stated earlier, the exact details DO matter as I've demonstrated.
Wilson wrote:This is getting a little tedious. Do you really not understand my original argument?
Yes, it is getting tedious. Welcome to the world of subjectivity. I do understand your original argument, but I don't agree with it. It's an oversimplification of Human nature and interrelationships. I'm simply showing how judging someone solely on their actions is irresponsible. We must have the whole picture of why they act the way they do or we risk making lazy judgments which lead to false stereotypes.
Wilson wrote:Oh, and the contradiction in the description of the MMA fighter is that you said that he "loves all people and genuinely cares for their well being, yet enjoys ruthlessly and brutally assaulting his opponents in the ring." If you hadn't used "all" in that sentence, or if you had said that he "loves all people and genuinely cares for their well being OUTSIDE THE RING," I would buy it. I know that's nitpicking.
I'm assuming you're not a competitive athlete. Nevertheless, it stands that context, race, gender, social status, handicap, physical appearance, mood, facial features, tone of voice, body language, environmental conditions, etc., etc. all play a part in our interactions with other people especially when judging them. It's not really a "fair" circumstance but it is Human nature.

Your example was a "not enough info" oversimplification of a fundamental subjective Human psychological process that has evolved over thousands of years. You simply cannot break it down to a 'person A thinks this but does that' type of scenario.

The exact details matter.
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Steve3007
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Re: Who is the better person?

Post by Steve3007 »

Spiral Out:
How would we have even known he was a racist if all we saw was that he's kind and generous to all?
Perhaps we could tell by considering the details of his kindness and generosity. I think I'm pretty kind and generous to my cat, but not in the same way that I'm kind and generous (I believe) to my kids or to some adult humans.
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LuckyR
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Re: Who is the better person?

Post by LuckyR »

This whole issue of "racism isn't all that bad" or "I know a racist who is a better person than that guy", falls into the category of true yet of limited importance.

Heck, I know a thief who is a better guy than that murderer over there. Good for me... How has the discussion progressed?
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Wilson
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Re: Who is the better person?

Post by Wilson »

Well, to summarize, after all this:

A good person is a good person, by my measure, no matter what his factual beliefs are, even if he believes those of another race are inferior.

A bad person is a bad person, by my measure, no matter what his factual beliefs are, even if he believes that all races are equal.

The point of the exercise wasn't to provide a measuring stick as to relative goodness - the original comparison was simply to make the point above.
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Spiral Out
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Re: Who is the better person?

Post by Spiral Out »

There are things we think, things we say and things we do. Any one of those being the weakest link in one's being will erode one's character and will make one a "bad person".
Wilson wrote:The point of the exercise wasn't to provide a measuring stick as to relative goodness
Yes it was. You have asserted that your measuring stick is the correct one, and as far as subjective measure goes, we all have the correct one.
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