cardboard adolescent

the irony is that even in the absence of free will, because we all experience freedom we can still talk as though it exists. just because we don't "get to choose who we are" doesn't mean that all our actions are excused--just because i didn't "choose" to be a moral person doesn't mean that my morality is somehow invalidated, and just because i didn't "choose" to share those morals with others doesn't mean that it's somehow a pointless enterprise, since I can still make others more ethical through my own ethical behavior even if there is no "i" and no "you." (as he says, we're mostly influenced by our peers) the whole free will argument is basically completely meaningless, and really has no bearing on ethics or morality.

Freebase Dali

CA, that brings up an interesting thought about society as a collective influence of ethics and perception... If we're unwittingly shaped by our environments and don't choose the end result of ourselves other than relatively insignificant tiles in a larger mosaic of our personalities, which I agree with in a general sense, then the only choice we really have is to contribute to the influence of others in either a positive or negative way, and become a part of what shapes people into who they become.
The decision to negatively influence people who have no ability to choose against it could even be a form of rape in an abstract sense. It's almost paradoxical though, in the sense of a raped rapist raping a rapist.

I'm talking out of my ass, but what you posted kind of brought that to mind in the context of what you said.

TheBig3

How exactly is this the case?

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midnight rain

what exactly do you mean 'excused'? actions aren't excused because the majority of society has agreed upon an ethics code that people choose to live by. that and something pretty exclusive to humans exists, i think you've heard of it: emotions

prison isn't a punishment so much as something that satisfies the greater good. people decided that they'd rather have a few people who didn't adhere to their morals rot away in prison so that the general public feels more at ease. and i agree with this logic.

Cressidagater

Tuna and dr saltzman, I disagree. You can choose to like vanilla or not. You simply need to ask yourself what you like about it, and what the implications are. Is vanilla something harmful to your body? or is it something good? is there somethign better than vanilla you could eat?

you choose to EAT vanilla. Or not eat it. For exmaple, you dont choose to need to breath to live. But you choose to continue breathing. If you REALLY wished to, you could stop yourself breathing somehow. To breath to live is a truth of your existance. If you dont like it (although i dont know why you wouldnt) you have threechoices

1. keep breathing and live

2. stop breathing and die

3. find a way to live without breathing, thereby mutliating your existance as a human being.

to say thats influenced by your peers is a cop out. I dont agree with what that dr saltzman wrote there, it sounds cowardly to me; and it sounds like an attempt of getting people to accept universal control and reliance to keep the masses ignorant. personally, if i dont know the reason why im doign something, i wont do it. If i dont know why im eating vanilla, i wont eat vanilla. In my opinion, every human being, has a mind to process and think, and a body to sense and interact. If vanilla tastes good to you, in theory, vanilla is good for you. But , regardless of this, YOU decide to pick up the spoon, and eat vanilla. You could not eat it - despite the fact it might cause you pain or extreme misery not to eat it, you could not eat it. You might even die, hypothetically, without it. You still choose whether to eat it or not.


If someone feels a desire to rape, they need to go away, and think about what rape is, what they're doing. Rape may give them an immediate "satisfaction". but every piece, every reasoning you could give me for a person wishing to rape another person, I could give you the completion of this reasoning, which will always lead to

1. be content in your self

2. seek consensual love of another

this would make you a lot happier than raping them, because rape is the incomplete version of these.

To rape is to disrespect and undermine the existance of another being. You're trampling on them. So I dont care personally, if a person genetically NEEDS to do it. In that case unfortunatly I must admit they are genetically inferior. They can either stop themself from doing it, or they should be killed, culled, if they cant stop. Because if they cant control their own functions, and if they choose to do harmful things to OTHER beings, then they are not a human being simply said. They're an illusion with no life force.

midnight rain

Once again, that's not a choice so much as a combination of genetic makeup (what flavor your tastebuds favor) and social influence (how healthy this ice cream is) and a combination of the two (how concerned you are with how healthy the ice cream is for you). It's like music, can you explain why you like, say, Mayhem when others clearly detest the sound of it? What made you choose to like that sound? You can't explain because it wasn't a choice. I could pretend to like Can until the sun goes down to sound sophisticated, but if I'm truly not into that type of music I can't make myself like it, as much as I'd like to.

Your response is wayyyy too long for me to respond to the rest, as right now I'm just killing time while studying for a final.

Cressidagater

This is completely irrelevant man. Despite the fact I believe you can, through intelligent thought, actually choose on what you like, its irrelevant.

And yes I can explain why I like certain music. the intonations, the language, the words. I could pick a band and explain why I listen. Whatever it is, I have discovered that this music sounds good to me. Its still up to me to listen to it. If i really thought about it and dsicovered its harmful to me, or sends a message i disagree with, i wouldnt listen anymore, even if it sounded very nice to me. There are many communist songs which sound very nice, which come from my home country from many years ago. I dont listen to them because despite the fact they're skilfully played, they stand for an ideal I disagree with. you're proposing that all of the reasoning as to why I like the music, is something else, or someone else, separate from me. Everything that leads me to like it is a part of me and my experience of life. I choose to then act upon it accordingly. Personally, if I like something, I choose to do it. If I dislike something, I choose not to do it.

what im saying is you CHOOSE to pursue things. You could listen to can, or not listen. You could eat vanilla, or not eat vanilla. You could rape, or not rape. To put thing sin perspective, it doesnt matter what you "like", even. You choose what you DO, do you not?

midnight rain

It's not irrelevant at all, in fact it's what I originally posted and you went off on some other tangent about healthiness and ice cream or something.

And it's complete BS to me that you can think intellectually about chocolate ice cream enough to start liking it if you previously hated it. I'm not talking about appreciating Can's musi, I'm talking about actually liking it. Maybe it takes a few listens to wrap your head around what it is you like, but that's very different from music just not appealing to you

You don't choose what you do. You react to your environment. You eat vanilla ice cream because it appeals to your taste and your hot.

You rape because either you grew up in a dysfunctional family and don't grasp why it's taboo, you recognize that it's unacceptable and do it anyway, or your main drive is pleasure and that comes before all the consequences of raping (lots of these people are probably sociopaths and are physically incapable of sympathizing with who they're raping)

you don't rape because you can sympathize with the person you'd be raping, or you don't care about the person but recognize the consequences you face for getting caught

obviously these are different thought processes, seeing as how everyone thinks and reacts differently to different situations it'd be impossible to cover all of them

Cressidagater

If thats what you believe then i'd appreciate it if you stop using the pronoun "you". because I dont do those things, im more than the sum of my environment, my friend. I think methodically, on every action before I do it. Why I'm doing it, what I'll achieve, if there's a better way to achieve that. I dont run around like a headless chicken acting off supressed childhood memories and neurosis.

If I eat ice cream because im hot, then I have CHOSEN to eat ice cream, to cool me down, because im hot. Its preposterous and quite ridiculous that you're stuck on the point of whether I chose to be hot or not in the first place. You decide what YOU do. Unforeseen outside factors may affect you. thats life. but still you decide what YOU do with your own mind and body. Reacting to your environment, IS choosing. But to say that one HAS to rape because of how they were brought up is insulting - you're condemning people. Why should they rape? I can teach them why not to, and how they can get greater joy from life. And if I cant, well then humanity and co-existance is flawed, and this whole conversation is irrelevant, because I dont give a **** about anyone who HAS to do anything. i dunno what that is but its inferior in my eyes, if it cant make its own decisions. Thats not my definition of Human.

midnight rain

if you like to think you're above it all and the world is a cookie jar for you to pluck from, more power to you. apparently nature gave you a distorted sense of optimisim.

humans are animals, and that methodic thinking you do is thanks to that brain you were given by nature

and I've been using "you" as an application to anyone. I thought that was obvious seeing as how I said you don't like Mayhem even though i have no idea what you're music tastes are like

i'm not insulting anyone, i'm simply stating the way things are. i personally feel for people who were raped, but that's just me and not everyone else

the only ridiculous thing is the condescending attitude you decided to take towards me in an otherwise civilized (and extremely complicated) debate