Immoral atheists

[pineapplebunnybounce]

I think your moral sense is off.

Who stopped existing and made you god?

[Silver]

Of course you wouldn't care. That's the problem.

One could work under the logical assumption that I have informed her due to the fact that I do care about her enough to ensure she does not go to her grave not knowing that her husband was a disgusting sleazebag.

[simplexity]

So you genuinely sense that it is right to tell her the truth? I think your moral sense is off.

Well, I think you need a proper 'psychiatrist'. In this case the truth is too large to hold back and I would want to hear it if I were her. It would startle, but unneeded suffering would be ending and she could go on to live her life. If she was on her deathbed, no, it would be pointless to tell her.

[paulpablo]

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.

I still think it's strange, the original question says

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.

Then you changed it to her being on her death bed.
What commitment is she being released from if she is on her death bed? If she were uncommitted at this stage would she feel the urge to be getting randy with the nearest passer by while the cancer is eating away at her, or whatever the cause of death is?

[Angrboda]

[Inigo]

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.

I still think it's strange, the original question says

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.

Then you changed it to her being on her death bed.
What commitment is she being released from if she is on her death bed? If she were uncommitted at this stage would she feel the urge to be getting randy with the nearest passer by while the cancer is eating away at her, or whatever the cause of death is?

No, I altered the example to try and extract the relevant moral intuition.

First, the example was supposed to show that truth isn't the only thing that matters and that we regularly recognise that it would sometimes be immoral to tell someone the truth. Often this is when telling someone the truth would cause the person great suffering without preventing any greater quantity.

Second, in one of my examples her (false) belief has led her to have other false beliefs that are dangerous to her (and perhaps to others). Here the point was that it would be immoral and imprudent to challenge her original false belief. All one needs to do is challenge the worrying false beliefs, not all of her false beliefs.

Most - many - atheists have problems with the religious primarily because the religious often have rather worrying moral views combined with a greater motivation to behave morally. But rather than challenge that such moral views are correct, the tendency is to challenge the entire world view instead. This is imprudent and unnecessary.

[paulpablo]

I still think it's strange, the original question says


Then you changed it to her being on her death bed.
What commitment is she being released from if she is on her death bed? If she were uncommitted at this stage would she feel the urge to be getting randy with the nearest passer by while the cancer is eating away at her, or whatever the cause of death is?

No, I altered the example to try and extract the relevant moral intuition.

First, the example was supposed to show that truth isn't the only thing that matters and that we regularly recognise that it would sometimes be immoral to tell someone the truth. Often this is when telling someone the truth would cause the person great suffering without preventing any greater quantity.

Second, in one of my examples her (false) belief has led her to have other false beliefs that are dangerous to her (and perhaps to others). Here the point was that it would be immoral and imprudent to challenge her original false belief. All one needs to do is challenge the worrying false beliefs, not all of her false beliefs.

Most - many - atheists have problems with the religious primarily because the religious often have rather worrying moral views combined with a greater motivation to behave morally. But rather than challenge that such moral views are correct, the tendency is to challenge the entire world view instead. This is imprudent and unnecessary.

I personally try and avoid arguing with people about religion if I know it will upset them, people with lost loved ones who obviously converted just for the reason they want to see them again, but realistically have probably never read a bible or quran or torah before.
I've had a terminally ill guy try to convert me in my city center before and I basically just nodded and agreed but said I didn't want to join the club thanks.
And I don't argue with the mormon girls on buses when they try and convert me but that's just because they are ridiculously good looking, I might even convert to mormonism if it means I can marry 5 girls of that caliber, it might be worth it.

[Bad Wolf]

I don't get the point of this post. Are you trying to somehow prove that atheists are immoral. Immoral in your own opinion. There is no fixed answer here. If this woman wasn't about to die, I would tell her the truth. If she was on her deathbed, I would just let it be. Who cares, she's going to die soon.
The term: 'ignorance is bliss' is absolute BS. Knowing the truth is always best and I know I would always want to know the truth.
And another thing, why should we care at all? Presumedly we don't know this woman at all, why should I particularly care what she feels? I can empathize to a degree, but her feelings don't really matter to me. If that makes me a bad person.... well, i guess i'm a bad person.

One more thing:
You can't apply this whole arguement to Religion. This woman and her feelings have no impact on the world and the people living in it. Religion and the decisions made by religious people, have had and still do have a large influence on the world. If the fact that this woman didn't know about here husbands affairs caused her to become a threat to everyone else e.g. become the next hitler or shoot up a school or something, then you could argue this on the same level as religion.

[Godscreated]

Don't you care about people's welfare?

One would think that what was best for another person's welfare was to live in reality rather than exist in a delusion.

She did live in reality, she loved him through all those years, just because her husband did not love her does not mean her love was not real. Why tell her anything, her love for him was so great she believed she should stay committed to him, I know the story says she believed that's what he would want. It was her love for him that lead to her belief, so why shouldn't she live the rest of her life the way she desires. Gee's why make something so hard, let her true love live on.

[genkaus]

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.

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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".

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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.