Theists: Hitchens Wager

[robvalue]

I'm just throwing in a couple of thoughts on morality.

I understand that maximizing human wellbeing (hopefully animals too) is a great goal of morality, that we could mostly agree on.

But to me, it's the whole picture which builds up the morality of an action, from the circumstances, the person taking the action, their beliefs at the time, their intentions, and of course the outcome. To ignore almost all of that and just say outcome = morality (only a few people do that) seems strange to me. It's not only redundant as we already have the outcome and no one is disputing it; but it also provides no judgement whatsoever and opens up no dialogue.

It's an absolute pure form of utilitarianism of course. It would rate the "morality" of accidentally running someone over the same as deliberately doing so. And it still enters a massive grey area when you have to decide exactly what you're responsible for and what you're not; how much do your inactions count, for example? How far down the line do you look at the knock-on effects? How much are animals worth compared to humans? Do we look at net or individual results?

Anyhow, I just watched Death Note which is the most awesome Manga I've ever seen. And it's a terrific example of the kind of thing you end up with using such an approach.

I'm not saying utiliwhotsit isn't correct; morality is so vaguely defined that there's no such thing as correct. It needs carefully defining for any debate. But I certainly think it's way too simple to be of any practical use, and even those apparently supporting it would abandon it pretty quickly in moderately complex real situations. I'm not referring to anyone in particular here, and perhaps no one here has such extreme views. If so, don't worry about it. But it's the kind of thing I've heard before and I thought it was worth mentioning.