The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

As I see it killing is not miraculously moral because its self defense, it is however justified because self defense is a good reason.

Lets say in this scenario you have two choices: kill or dont kill.

You can be justified in not killing because you think killing is immoral.
You can also be justified in killing them because you value your life more than theirs.

Im confused how you come to the conclusion that killing and not killing are both moral in that scenario, since they are in direct conflict.

Edit: ill check out the video on my lunch break.

Karma just comes down to stats. If you're doing bad ****, you're probably going to surround yourself with other people who do bad **** which increases the likelihood of bad **** happening to you.

So can any of the moral subjectivists on here explain to me how you deal with this dilemma? Feel free to insert your own justifications for the actions if you think I gave bad ones, I'm more concerned with the bolded.

If you define moral as any action that can be reasonably justified you’re clear.

If not you need a clear list of dos and don’ts. Just in the general betterment of mankind positions won’t work.

I guess I just don't understand what the point of morality is at that point.. If you're going to dumb down morality to any action which is justifiable you run into all sorts of problems that are counterproductive to society. That makes 0 sense to me. Lots of BAD things can be reasonably justified, unless you plan on redefining reason to fit your argument as well.

This all sounds very circular..
"I'm justified in my position because it's moral to me, which makes it justified"

Self driving cars have to be programmed to make those kinds of “trolley problems” as they’re known

DWV - I think you’re the one being circular with your logic.

You also keep asking for very broad stances but so far you haven’t dealt with the minutiae

Frankly, it’s starting to feel like you don’t even know exactly what it is you’re asking

The reason it isn’t circular is that the onus is on the person who takes action (or chooses not to take action) to make an acceptable case on why the action is justifiable

I’ve been avoiding saying this because the “semantics” argument gets tiresome but all you’re really asking is if justifiable and moral are synonyms. And yes, the meanings overlap.

Like elph pointed toward the trolley problem I too think it’s time for you to think about specifics. Tell us how your position is applicable.

No, but it's justified because one action is objectively less harmful to well-being than the other.

I'm still trying to wrap my head around how you justify something with morality if you believe there is no foundation to morality itself.

@OH - I'm not asking, I'm arguing they are not synonymous. How am I being circular exactly?

And yes, the onus is on the acting agent. And if we agree that death is in conflict with well-being than any action that intentionally causes death is, by definition, immoral. Again, that doesn't mean it's not justified, because there may be good reason, as with the train example.

Did you even bother to watch the short portion of the video I provided?

Aren’t you an atheist?

Yes, and?

Where does your moral foundation come from?

Well-being. I stated this and asked you to consider for conversation sake that we agree that morality is concerned with well-being.

We can make evaluations about any scenario and determine objectively what is best for well-being. There are a finite number of responses to any situation and some set of those have to cause less harm than others. I agree morality doesn't stand on being reasonable, that's justification. Morality as I'm using it is concerned with well-being.

Well that's a false equivalency, the man isn't going to die. You can certainly make a case for justified, but definitely not moral.


I provided a video, did either of you bother to watch, or is the 10 or so minutes that I timestamped for you too long?

I watched it just now. I’ve heard Harris say all that same stuff already.

Dillahunty and Harris want to place religious codes with some kind of new secular humanist/ atheist based morality. If that caught on their names would be cemented with names like Martin Luther and Voltaire and Hammurabi.

But it’s not going to catch on because of a few reasons. 1) Harris and Co. are out of their depth. Harris is fun but he’s a pop-philosopher. What Michio Kaku and Neil deGrasse Tyson are to science, Harris and Pederson are to philosophy. They’re celebrities but Harris really wants to be taken seriously. He’s fun. I like him but he and Dillahunty are not going to redefine morality under a new atheistic code. The well-being idea is vague to the point of near meaninglessness. Pederson was destroying him even at the most fundamental level that it’s not a given that life is preferable to death.

I recommend being wary of these guys, Lawrence Kraus included, who want to be these like atheist leaders. Kraus’ book, Universe from Nothing, was an embarrassing overreach.

Well-being as a concept to strive for is worthless unless it has applications. And it’s just dull to try to replace religion with a codified form of atheism. I have no sense of allegiance to other people who DON’T believe something. And Sam Harris sure as **** isn’t someone I see as a leader. I don’t want any kind of leader but least of all a guru for my atheism. I don’t need to be guided through not believing.

Lol.. Guess this is a done convo.

Seems like empathy towards drunk drivers is the reason why we don't do that.

One of the strongest traits that humans have is our sense of community. Not only has it ensured our survival but it's the main reason we thrive so well. With out a sense of morality society would crumble so maybe it's wired into humans as a survival instinct.

I'll address this since it's not full of bs like OHs post.

First, I never said that well-being as a moral outcome isn't subjective. I said if we agree it is, and specified it's the position I take, than "everything I've already said". If you have some other idea about what morality is, that's fine, I said from the start I disagree.

Second, I don't know why it's so hard to understand that justification is not dictated solely by morality(im not denying it doesnt factor in but it is not the arbiter of justification). You regurgitating this point doesn't make it true. Justification is about reasoning, you can have good reasons to do even subjectively immoral things. What is your definition of reason that requires I consider morality to be reasonable?

Third, sorry you're correct, I misunderstood the tracks example.

Is this not a philosophical discussion? I never once said I was right, I will however say that my approach to morality would make for a more consistent and probably better society than subjective morality.

Lastly, idgaf what you think about Dillahunty or anyone else.. I only care about the ideas, so you can both stop using ad hominem, assertions, and no true scotsman bs as an argument. "He's not a real philosopher". We are all philosophers. Also, well-being does have applications, what doesn't is subjective morality. How the hell do you apply that in a useful fashion?

Because driving drunk isn't a conscious effort to murder. It's a mistake made by somebody with impaired judgement and doesn't guarantee that anybody will get hurt. That's why morals come from empathy and not a set of rules. Rules imply things are always black and white while empathy shows that there are some very grey areas.

Also, it's kind of a sick use of the slippery slope fallacy to assume that there will be future victims of every DUI arrest. Reminds me of anti gay propaganda from the 50s where they assumed that every homosexual would be a child predator.



^Real commercial they used to air on American television in the 50s. Probably inspiring to [merit].

Drink drivers do get off too easily considering the damage they could cause.

I don't have stats, but how many of them actually kill people?

The rules of empathy obviously change when you know that somebody doesn't mean to cause the suffering. Well, for most people. Because I do have this theory that empathy comes from narcissism because we are essentially projecting our egos on to others.

On a danger to others scale of 1-100 walking is a 1, cycling is a 5, driving sober is a 95, driving drunk is a 100. Outrage against drunk driving without outrage against the private automobile in general is bull****.

You mean like delivery truck drivers? I think the fault is more on the beer and spirits companies for producing the product, the drivers are just trying to get by.

You know what I mean.

How was this never edited?

Topical bump

Well to get back to the original question if you want a man dead the only answer is to kill the mother****er

Poison isn't violent.

Good to know

However poisons can make you violently sick.

The Kremlin approves this message

Boring someone to death is probably the least violent way to end a person.

sometimes

Whentimes?

Right now

https://media2.giphy.com/media/K3ZjR6Dc22t9e/giphy.gif