Are we morally obligated to make the best form of society?

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Terrapin Station
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Re: Are we morally obligated to make the best form of society?

Post by Terrapin Station »

MoralIdentity wrote: March 25th, 2020, 4:59 pm the main goal is to eliminate suffering.
I don't agree with that. For one, I think "suffering" tends to be used too many different ways/it tends to be too vague, and even aside from that, I don't at all think that suffering is categorically bad.
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Re: Are we morally obligated to make the best form of society?

Post by GE Morton »

MoralIdentity wrote: March 25th, 2020, 4:59 pm I do, though, believe that to be moral you have to at least UNDERSTAND the premise of morality. I.E. that the well being of sentient life is important, and that the main goal is to eliminate suffering.
Yes indeed. Someone who doesn't accept that premise doesn't understand what morality is.
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Re: Are we morally obligated to make the best form of society?

Post by Terrapin Station »

GE Morton wrote: March 25th, 2020, 9:24 pm
MoralIdentity wrote: March 25th, 2020, 4:59 pm I do, though, believe that to be moral you have to at least UNDERSTAND the premise of morality. I.E. that the well being of sentient life is important, and that the main goal is to eliminate suffering.
Yes indeed. Someone who doesn't accept that premise doesn't understand what morality is.
If you're claiming this definitionally, per your norm, you'd need to provide sources for that definition.
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Re: Are we morally obligated to make the best form of society?

Post by Alias »

MoralIdentity wrote: March 25th, 2020, 4:59 pm "ted to save a drowning person, even if you can swim. Though, if something happens to that person, you might be morally responsible. Once we begin telling people what they HAVE to do, we are overruling their autonomy,
We do that the minute they're born into a human community, instead of hatching on a beach.
which tosses their moral compass out the door.
No, the community provides them with the tools to fashion a moral compass.
I do, though, believe that to be moral you have to at least UNDERSTAND the premise of morality.
Also to be immoral. If you don't understand the concept, you're simply amoral - innocent, free and utterly alone.
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Re: Are we morally obligated to make the best form of society?

Post by littlejrubin »

I think any help forced upon a person is in fact an annoyance and hinderance. We take away a person’s right to help themselves by pushing our services onto them in an attempt to feel needed. Beyond basic needs (food and safety) I don’t believe we owe anyone help. Who are we to assume that a person wants help? That they need help? What kind of help? Perhaps there are people who feel contention in a lifestyle that we believe needs help. I believe we don’t even know the type of help we need ourselves. Often we ask someone else to save us before any attempts at self preservation. In fact I often think the act of helping others is a way to make ourselves feel purposeful more than a true act of compassion.
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Re: Are we morally obligated to make the best form of society?

Post by Kaz_1983 »

Let's go with this thought experiment.

The veil of ignorance, and let's extend it.

Ok instead of entering the world as a human, not only being black, white, rich or poor - you enter it in a box not knowing what you are? Hell, you could be a brick, you might be a pig or cow but if you're lucky to be a human, that's great.. but most likely you won't be. Anyways now design society.
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Re: Are we morally obligated to make the best form of society?

Post by Papus79 »

With this whole Covid thing going around I'm thinking more about pain thresholds and what sort of things mangle a society to where human beings aren't just sometimes but as a general rule treated strictly as natural resources, like wood to be chopped down or fuel rods to be burned or batteries to be depleted. We live in a world where the map of what stabilizes things seems to be divergence of preference, narcissism and power seem tightly correlated, and it's a place where we can't always trust each other's intentions in the best of times. I remember hearing something about the king of any country needing to be, as well, the richest man in that country and for practical reasons it would be a national security threat (the other person could raise a standing army against him) if he wasn't.

I really don't know what sort of positive system comes from economic activity getting smashed and how people come out better on the other side of it, especially when people realize that the value of human life is something that holds far better good times and becomes a much more pragmatic thing during bad times. On one hand we may not have any capacity to promise a better world, especially if the headcount of humans is a large part of the problem, or where natural events completely change the reality we live in enough to where significant enough numbers of people tribalize in the military sense, the fabric of society starts unraveling, and from there it ends up being unrecoverable by any means aside from brute force. I don't think most of the west is likely to unravel to that extreme but it seems like the whole globalist project of raising the standard of living and democratic inclinations of developing and middle-income countries might see something like thirty years of work go out the window in little more than a year.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Are we morally obligated to make the best form of society?

Post by Terrapin Station »

Kaz_1983 wrote: April 7th, 2020, 6:07 am Let's go with this thought experiment.

The veil of ignorance, and let's extend it.

Ok instead of entering the world as a human, not only being black, white, rich or poor - you enter it in a box not knowing what you are? Hell, you could be a brick, you might be a pig or cow but if you're lucky to be a human, that's great.. but most likely you won't be. Anyways now design society.
What sort of preferences/desires/etc. am I supposed to assume I have? The same as I have now wouldn't make sense if I'm a brick or something like that.
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