RE: Immoral atheists
July 4, 2013 at 3:18 am
(This post was last modified: July 4, 2013 at 3:24 am by genkaus.)
(July 3, 2013 at 7:06 pm)Inigo Wrote: Mary's husband is dead. She loved him and thought they had a great relationship and has many cherished memories that provide her with enormous comfort. However, unbeknownst to her he never loved her (just did a good impression of loving her) and was having lots of affairs. You know this, she doesn't. Telling her will not make her happy. It will distress her enormously. She'll be in touch with the truth, but it will make her unhappy. Would you tell her?
Personally, I think it would be horrible to tell her. I think you'd be a bad person.
Now imagine that in addition to loving him etc, she also believes that he wanted her to remain faithful to her even after he died. He never actually said this to her - she has no direct evidence. She just suspects this is what he would have wanted. Because she loved him so much she foregoes important relationships in order to honour thee wishes she assumes he had.
What do you do now? Do you tell her he never loved her -that her whole relationship with him was a sham and that he was having affairs all over town? That would certainly release her from her commitment to stay faithful to him. But it would also distress her enormously. Wouldn't it be better - more moral - to try and persuade her that he did not really wish her to forego important relationships?
I think so. I think it would be wrong to smash all those memories of hers and totally destroy her worldview just in order to free her from her commitment to honour her dead husband's supposed wishes. It is unnecessary and cruel. Just try and persuade her that her dead husband wished no such thing.
I think a lot of atheists behave in ways that are analogous to telling Mary her husband was a git and never loved her.
In normal circumstances - I wouldn't care about Mary and her personal life. So, it's unlikely I would say anything to her about it.
If Mary was someone close to me - I'd tell her.
If Mary was going around telling my wife and wives of my friends how their husbands should be more like hers - I'd tell her.
If I'm one of the guys she rejected in favor of her dead husband - I'd tell her.
(July 3, 2013 at 7:28 pm)Inigo Wrote: Then I think your moral sense is off. You're disabuse someone of an idea that provides them with huge comfort for no reason other than that the belief is false? Don't you care about people's welfare?
We simply don't consider false comfort to be any kind of "welfare".
(July 3, 2013 at 7:35 pm)Inigo Wrote: Yes, but that's not true is it? In the example she will be miserable if she finds out the truth. Either you are a git and just don't care about a person's welfare or you think it more important, morally, that someone know the truth than that she be spared great suffering. She's on her deathbed and you'd inform her that her husband played around and didn't love her. Someone who thinks that's the 'right' thing to do is, well, just plain incorrect about that (just as someone who thinks cruelty is a virtue is incorrect and needs rewiring).
Why the hell would she be miserable?
Sure, she may feel some form of distress for some time - but upon reflection, she'd realize that the sleazy son-of-a-bitch who cheated on her is dead and now she is free to do whatever she wants without feeling any guilt or shame. My guess is that she'd dance on his grave, flush his ashes down the toilet and go with the next guy she meets.
