Being a sinner just for being born

[The Grand Nudger]

True... mercilessly killing people wasn't on my mind as a good human action. Mercilessly killing people is a bad action. If a person thinks that mercilessly killing some other person will bring them fulfillment, they are simply wrong. I don't understand why you think I should conclude otherwise.

-and that's a problem..since the frameworks you've offered cannot actually determine merciless killing to -be- a bad action...and may, in some cases lead to it being assigned to the set of good actions.  However, there is already the sense that it is a bad action and no amount of applying those frameworks is likely to change your opinion or my opinion on that.  

Which is precisely the point of asking how we decide between competing imperatives, eh?  

Go re-read this point again. I was calling the ridiculous example the more general case which you described as "Suppose the merciless slaughter of some organism x were beneficial to the community?" <= That was too general for me. I admit, coming after your suggestion that mercilessly killing people is a good action, I thought your were trying to propose an absurd connection between human fullness and the arbitrary killing of organism X.

Out of nowhere? You'd think that the complete eradication of an insect would include at least some ecological questions (at least to me, an amateur). You seem to be in the know when it comes to that topic, so I defer to your knowledge of it. If the complete loss of mosquitoes truly has no impact on the environment and our relationship with it, then killing mosquitoes is quite similar to killing bacteria and other pathogens.

Many agree, and we hardly give the eradication of bacteria or pathogens an ounce of thought, let alone mercy.   We just take the pills.  

1) It has finally occurred to me that since the beginning, when you said "merciless killers", you meant killing much more generally than killing other people. I thought you had shifted to that more general understanding just a few posts ago HERE. But I see now that you were thinking more generally all along. So thank you for answering this question.

I still will not grant you that what-we-are and merciless killer are synonymous. Sometimes, killing things (perhaps like mosquitoes) is a rational and fulfilling way to add to human fullness. Mercilessly killing a mosquito is irrational. Maliciously killing mosquitoes is irrational. Killing mosquitoes as if they are guilty and condemned people is irrational <= If that is not what you mean by mercilessly killing things, then I may withdraw my objection to that qualifier.

Of course it isn't, because that's not what the word merciless means nor have I -ever- mentioned guilt or condemnation............we do an awful lot of it - even to human beings- for something that isn't "what we-are".  I'll be completely blunt and suggest that you might have decided "what we-are" based upon a preexisting and unspoken set of moral value judgements even as you suggest this what we-are business as a way to determine moral good.  

2) Yes, we kill things for our benefit, and there is a fulfilling and rational way to do that, and there is an irrational and unfulfilling way to do that.

So.....if I could come up with a rational and fulfilling way to eradicate humans............would that be kosher?  It would be a moral good?  Or is this a line that simply cannot be crossed?   

Yes, he is. Now consider some people playing darts. They are very and intentionally successful at hitting the wall with their darts just to the right of the target. 

Are they successful at what they are trying to do? Yes. 
Are they colossally failing at the game of darts? YES.

No. See above. If you want to be good at darts, and you think that dropping your darts on the ground is all you need to do to get there, then you are wrong. You'd fail to get good at darts.

Responses like these are what lead me to conclude that you've rigged the moral game....rather than determined it by your stated metrics.   

Ha! You were the one who proposed the hypothetically failing Christian.


Where do you think I have been trying to avoid a moral imperative brought about by the desires and peculiarities of the christian god? I am arguing FOR a moral imperative: seek what is good, avoid what is evil. I don't think that imperative comes externally from us [to us externally], I think [it] comes from what and who we are, [from "within"]. Whether or not god exists, we still are what we are. Atheist or theist, what-humans-are is the measure of our actions, not some arbitrary list of rules/laws floating around in the ether.

We've seen that what we-are doesn't seem to have much to do what what we do, that a significant portion of what we are, by any account..is already bad *for reasons.....and that failing to be a christian is somehow failing at the game of being human.  I think gods wishes are, indeed, under all of this rationalization.  This is the second time you've objected to the notion but you won't be satisfied if the framework offered in it's stead doesn't align with those floating laws, clearly. You won;t even address the notion of competing moral imperatives..instead preferring to frame them in such a way as to pretend that they do not exist.

Fair enough. Can anything add to the fullness of what-we-are?

Look, hopefully by now you know that when I proposed those as metrics of evaluating the evil in the act of mercilessly killing other people, I was speaking to that specific action. You seem to have seized on that as if those are the only two things I use to evaluate the goodness or lack of goodness in an action. It's a straw man.

It's a shittier place, because it is missing the goodness it would have from your fully lived human life.

Unless a fully lived human life requires christianity, this is absurd.   I think anyone who even implies such vaguely is failing to live a fully human life.  Again, an outsiders perspective...but something tells me my not being a christian isn't having that effect on me.  I'm not short any goodness, and neither are those around me, on account of my not being christian.  

No. You seem to have skimmed over the posts in which I emphasize that (contrary to utilitarianism), your fullness and my fullness are connected (HERE; HERE; HERE). Your fullness and the fullness of the community are connected, not opposed. The communal good is not a competitor with the individual good.

It often is. I'm astounded that I have to say this, as it forms a substantial part of our shared narratives and heritage......

Your failure at living a full human life will always bring LESS benefit to the community than your success.

Id like to see the math on that one.