RE: Meaning of Right and Wrong... Finally Answered!
October 6, 2010 at 5:17 pm
(This post was last modified: October 6, 2010 at 5:19 pm by theVOID.)
(October 6, 2010 at 9:15 am)Cerrone Wrote: As for the OP's "blog"... there is no seriously tangible meaning of right and wrong, it all depends on the rules laid out by the society you happen to be in at the time. And if a man was marooned on a desert island, he would make his own ideas about what is right and what is wrong...
I disagree, under desirism all moral statements can be factually true or false.
A man isolated on a desert island can still be judged in terms of the impact his actions have regarding promoting desires vs thwarting desires. If he is alone then his desires can't thwart any desires but his own, and he will always act in accordance with his more numerous and/or stronger desires, so he cannot act morally wrong.
(October 6, 2010 at 9:57 am)tavarish Wrote:(October 6, 2010 at 8:01 am)The Omnissiunt One Wrote: As theVOID said, many of our most basic moral intuitions have nothing to do with survival. How does giving money to a charity for starving Africans increase our chances of survival? It doesn't.
It increases the strength of bond we share with other members of our species. We have to live together on this Earth, and altruism is a way to relieve tensions and work towards a common goal - such as eliminating hunger or stopping disease, both very moral actions.
I agree it increases our bond with them, but that alone does not make it morally right. My torture of jews may increase my bond with Nazi's, and as long as their are more Nazi's than jews my bonds have increased positively, but that has no impact on the morality of torturing jews.
Eliminating hunger and stopping disease are morally good because they promote more and stronger desires than they thwart. It is impossible to desire torture, because it is non-consensual act, therefore considering the desires of all persons, there cannot possibly be more and stronger desires to torture than there are to not be tortured, so torture is morally wrong UNLESS the torture will allow more desires to be promoted, such as preventing murder from the information, and since you cannot desire to be murdered either, and the desire to not be murdered is arguably stronger than the desire not to be tortured, this becomes a numbers game and under circumstances where more and stronger desires will be promoted than thwarted, torture is morally good.
/2cents
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