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| 10 Dec 2014 04:56 PM |
It's so innovative it's existed for decades.
It's simply this: define what is moral as what promotes well-being, and what is immoral as what demotes well-being. And you're done, that's all you have to do.
Then, you build on from there. You may say, well, what constitutes well-being? Well, we can build systems around that, develop ways to measure it, etc, which many people have already been working on.
But after that, morals aren't arbitrary in this system. Is it moral to steal for the sake of it? No. Is it moral to steal from the rich to give money to the starving? Actually, yes, but it's dangerous. That's why most countries give that job up to the government (welfare).
Stuff like that. Like, with this system, we could even begin to quantify morality and decide on numerical systems what is moral and what isn't.
I think it's an infinitely better system because it's much more concrete.
And, to note, this system is simply called humanism. I took the definition of "it's good to promote well-being" from the Humanist Manifesto where it says "Humanists ground values in human welfare shaped by human circumstances, interests, and concerns and extended to the global ecosystem and beyond."
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johnb
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Typocrite
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| Joined: 28 Aug 2013 |
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| 10 Dec 2014 04:58 PM |
there arises a problem:
what happens when your well-being conflicts with the well-being of another |
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| 10 Dec 2014 05:01 PM |
>"what happens when your well-being conflicts with the well-being of another" That's not a problem at all. Like I said, it's moral to take from the rich and give to the needy. How can this be if it demotes the rich's well-being? Well, the amount of well-being you take away from the rich is less than the amount you promote by distributing the money to those who really need it. The good outweighs the bad, so to speak. But the best system is the system that promotes the most well-being. So if it's possible to not take the money from the rich and yet still rid poverty and starvation, that would be a significantly better option. |
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Typocrite
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| 10 Dec 2014 05:04 PM |
thats a pretty easy example
but deal with this one:
youre homeless
youre living at a homeless shelter
they can only serve so many meals a day
youre starving and theres one last meal, its some bread or something
theres others at the homeless shelter but theyre out in the streets begging for money and are unaware of the food here
what do |
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| 10 Dec 2014 05:07 PM |
@Typocrite
If there are two people with equal body structures and are both equally starving and giving them food would raise their well-being an equal amount, then whether you give the last burger to the first or second person doesn't matter. It's equal. |
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Typocrite
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| 10 Dec 2014 05:07 PM |
surprised you didnt
split the burger in half |
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| 10 Dec 2014 05:09 PM |
@Typocrite
I did write that, but I removed that before I posted it, because I didn't really think that's relevant.
You're talking about the consequences of giving the meal to person A or B, and I'm saying that both actions are equally moral.
Sure, you could think outside of the box, and maybe splitting the meal in half would actually be the best decision.
But I didn't think that was relevant to what you were asking me. |
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Typocrite
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| 10 Dec 2014 05:12 PM |
yheah im just saying morals are a tough thing and there can never be a truly concrete system, at least, beyond murder is bad, stealing is bad, etc
even then, theres murky examples (furg.uson, zim.mermen)
for example gray marriage and abor.tion there are large segments of the population who support and don't support these things to establish a concrete set of morals for society could be shutting out a minority |
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lagio
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| 10 Dec 2014 05:14 PM |
| morals are essentially subjective, though. What if the majority of people want cheap meat? At the cost of humanity to cattle? That means that if people want cheap meat then intensive cattle farming is ok to normal people. But it's not moral, is it? In my opinion it's not. In someone else's opinion it might be. |
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| 10 Dec 2014 05:27 PM |
>"yheah im just saying morals are a tough thing and there can never be a truly concrete system, at least, beyond murder is bad, stealing is bad, etc" But my system is concrete. >"even then, theres murky examples (furg.uson, zim.mermen)" These are only murky because we're missing a lot of evidence. That is like saying biology is not a real science because we haven't proven abiogenesis. Just because we don't know something for a specific case doesn't mean the whole system is flawed. That's actually the great thing about the system. It helps concretely defined what is evidence and what isn't, so we can admit whether we know something is moral or not. >"gray marriage and abor.tion" First one is easy. The studies have been done, we we know gay marriage does not harm anyone, and in fact, children with same-sex parents tend to live happier lives. So we know it's not immoral based on my system. The second one I agree is confusing. This is mainly because the moral system is based on well-being, which incorporates things like health, wealth, happiness, freedoms, etc. All humans have these to some extent, except when they're first developing, because they may have not even developed a system for happiness yet. But this is essentially another evidence problem. We don't have all the evidence about fetuses so we don't know when it would be most logical to consider them a person. Again, this is more of an evidence-based and maybe even definitional-based problem. It doesn't contradict the rest of the system, though. Because it's pretty obvious that at least outside of the womb, all these systems are in place, so there's no issue with the system after birth. Again, it's fine to debate finer details. This is true in all systems. Economists just don't all agree on the best economic strategies because they have a theory of economics. No, they debate quite a bit. >"there are large segments of the population who support and don't support these things to establish a concrete set of morals for society could be shutting out a minority" That.... makes no sense. The population disagreeing on things is the problem. We need a concrete system or we'll never agree on things. >"morals are essentially subjective, though." That's a ridiculous way to look at life. By that logic, what Hitler did was A-OK, because morals are subjective, and he believed it was moral, thus, it's moral. Stupid system. It's ridiculous to have a system where everyone's right. There needs to be a system where we can clearly prove that someone is wrong. >"What if the majority of people want cheap meat? At the cost of humanity to cattle? That means that if people want cheap meat then intensive cattle farming is ok to normal people. But it's not moral, is it? In my opinion it's not. In someone else's opinion it might be." Who cares if people disagree with the system? That doesn't mean the system is wrong. Humans all going vegetarian, by this system, would be the most moral decision, if it did not harm humans, because it promotes the well-being of the animals. Killing animals could only be seen as moral in this system if it is absolutely necessary to keep the humans alive. I mean, I don't quite have a system to analyzing animal well-being at the moment, but they torture them by the thousands just so a random dude can have a tasty meal that lasts about 5 minutes. There's clearly a problem there. Once we develop some better methods to quantify well-being, this could actually be proven using this system. |
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