No, it was an attempt to clarify your own position by asking a question about your position and you avoided answering it because it would show that your position is total nonsense.

That attempt failed obviously and only told us something about your personal vocabulary.

If you want me to clarify something about my view to you, though, simply ask (in a manner where you're asking me to clarify something)

I did. It was each sentence with a question mark at the end of it. That is how most people ask questions by using language.

When would anyone feel good about their goals being inhibited? If they feel good about it, it's because they realized that it wasn't necessarily a goal of theirs. — Harry Hindu

That's not a "clarify your view for me so I can understand it better" question. It's a rhetorical question--you immediately afterward give your answer. In other words you're presenting it as an argument, not as a question about my view.

How do you feel about your stuff being stolen? Wouldn't you feel wronged because you have the goal of keeping your stuff in your possession? — Harry Hindu

Aside from that not being specific enough--I'm going to feel different ways in different scenarios, and you've already announced that you're going to parse any response as an opportunity to show how you personally use particular vocabulary, my philosophical comments above re possible scenarios weren't a report of how I'm personally going to feel in some situation.

What if you had a button which would kill off half the population of China, would you press the button?
What if you had a button which guarantees the aversion of a Malthusian catastrophe, would you press the button?
What if those events were exclusive to one another?

Basically, if an action that could cause betterment to the majority of people in the future though it causes the detriment of many people in the present, is that action good?

P.S. I keep on defining good and evil as moral terms. Is that what this discussion is about?

Maybe I can help here a little?

How about someone having a goal that was, unbeknownst to them likely to end in painful death. Let us say they wish swim in lava annd imagine it to be a pleasant warm experience. You stop them. You “inhibit” them. They then see someone else dive smiling into the lava and then watch them scream in tormented pain briefly before dying.

Do you think the person feels “wronged”? Obviously not.

What you appear to be saying though is that at the moment they are prevented from carrying out the act they most certainly do feel wronged. No argument there! (Regardless of their ignorance of lava or possibly deluded psychological state.)

If someone kills me I don’t feel anything about it. If someone was to chop off my arm I wouldn’t be happy about it even if the reason was essentially for my own good. Not being happy about something is not necessarily the same as being wronged (gangrene would be one condition that made this necessary.)

Your post on the first page seems to be a gist exposition of “social contract” theory. Hobbes, Hume, Rousseau and many others have toyed with that.

The judgement of what is and is not an “evil” goal is something you don’t appear to have looked/explained closely enough.

What you appear to be saying though is that at the moment they are prevented from carrying out the act they most certainly do feel wronged. — I like sushi

I don't think that's universally the case, though. Claiming that it's universally the case doesn't seem to acknowledge the huge variety of ways that persons' consciousnesses, thought processes, etc. can work--as inscrutable to us as they may be at times.

We could stipulate that we're not going to call something a "goal" just in case the person wouldn't feel wronged at the moment we prevent them from otherwise carrying out the goal, but that doesn't at all amount to the person in question necessarily not thinking of it as a goal in a very similar way to how we personally think about goals (whatever term we want to bestow on the phenomenon).

I never claimed it was. Of course I am happy to accept that such a barrier may instantly conjure latent doubts and bring the “goal” into immediate question.

Singlemindedness and focus on a particular goal may or may not block out any chance of any other thought process rising to the fore.

As a general rule if someone (an arbitrary “someone,” not a close associate/friend/family member) sctively halts my progress toward a goal I have set my mind too I don’t assume they have my interests to heart because I understand that I am pursuing my goals for my reasons (which benefit me and those I know) and not necessarily for the person seemingly blocking my progress.

You can of course continue to split hairs if it suits you to. It might prove fruitful.

The problem is simply that we're going to go off track if we try to suggest that anything is going to count as good/bad for everyone, in general.

Suffering is universally “bad” by definition. That doesn’t make “suffering” universally the same thing for everyone though.

No idea what track we’re trying to stay on. I don’t agree with most of what the OP says simply because it is unclear what is being said.

I know I can do evil and do good. What I mean by that is likely akin to the kind of things you mean when you talk of evil and good. Where Harry looks towards the blocking of a path toward some goal as a way to express “wrong” and “right”, and/or “good” and “evil” I don’t. My view is from the negative aspects of human existence. For me “suffering” thing we try to minimize yet equally a certain means of coping with suffering does seem to produce good. I see both passivity and activity as being two extreme poles that cause equally high levels of net suffering. The key, as I see it, is to take on challenge to cope with suffering rather than hide passively from it.

I could easily write seferal books on different ways to use the term “evil” and “good” from barious perspectives. My gist, as noted above, would still be the same more or less.

The difficulty I always find is in the judgement of long term effects of our actions. Hypotheticals are the best way I know of exploring moral problems and framing a personal idea of evil and good, or right and wrong. Many sadly confuse true with right and false with wrong.

Suffering is universally “bad” by definition. — I like sushi

Well, so for example I don't agree with that.

You could, of course, define suffering so that it includes the word "bad" in it, but plenty of conventional definitions do not have the word "bad" in it, and I don't at all agree that what people variously have in mind by "suffering" (and people have all sorts of things in mind with that term) are necessarily bad.

Basically, if an action that could cause betterment to the majority of people in the future though it causes the detriment of many people in the present, is that action good? — NuncAmissa

If the was really no other option but the button then technically it would be a good action as it benefits more people. But in a real situation, there would be better options and you would choose the optimal (most right) option.

P.S. I keep on defining good and evil as moral terms. Is that what this discussion is about? — NuncAmissa

I've defined right and wrong in mathematical terms. I think right=good and wrong=evil.

Do you “enjoy” to “suffer”? Come on now, really?

Of course you can argue that “suffering” now can lead to less future suffering but that defeats the point for the sake of pedantry wordplay. The psychology of loss aversion would point to people generally being over sensitive toward negatives outcomes (it is better to not lose than to gain.)

Other than your pedantic protest over my purposefully parenthesised “bad” (which you apparently took to mean some ... I don’t know?) the rest of what you wrote was complete twaddle.

Just because people feel pain for different reasons and suffer for different reasons and to different degrees doesn’t mean the term “suffering” can be used to express some joyous delight. Why is it I have to point this out? Exactly how did you assume stupidity on my part here? Utterly bizarre!

Do you “enjoy” to “suffer”? Come on now, really? — I like sushi

What definition of suffering are we using? Different people have in mind a huge variety of things with that term. See, for example, my post here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/225001

Maybe English isn’t your first language? If it is I think I’m done here.

That's not a "clarify your view for me so I can understand it better" question. It's a rhetorical question--you immediately afterward give your answer. In other words you're presenting it as an argument, not as a question about my view. — Terrapin Station

No. It was a question you should be asking yourself. You take a position and then, if you truly are objective and want the truth, you would question your position yourself and check to see if it is consistent with the rest of what you believe. I don't make distinctions between a rhetorical question and any other question. You should always be questioning what you know.

How about someone having a goal that was, unbeknownst to them likely to end in painful death. Let us say they wish swim in lava annd imagine it to be a pleasant warm experience. You stop them. You “inhibit” them. They then see someone else dive smiling into the lava and then watch them scream in tormented pain briefly before dying.

Do you think the person feels “wronged”? Obviously not. — I like sushi

You and don't seem to understand how we make decisions.

Decisions are made with the information we have at any given moment. We can't make decisions with knowledge that we don't have. Our goals are the intent of any decisions we make. Goals are ideas about the future in the present. We then make decisions to reach our goal. There is no reason to make decisions without having some goal in mind.

You and Terrapin keep referring to some future knowledge that the person in our examples have after the fact, that they didn't have at the moment of decision. If the information changed, then as you both have pointed out, their goals change. That isn't to say that they made the wrong decision with the information that they DID have at that moment.

What if the person that wants to jump into the lava lake told you and I, "God told me to jump into the lava lake for a greater good." when we tried to stop them?

War is not the optimal solution to any problem, so it is always wrong. — Devans99

I think it's always true to say that war is a failure, in some sense, usually of diplomacy. War should be avoided because it's so often the case that all involved parties lose. There are no winners. But is it always wrong? When diplomacy has failed, and one side feels the need to enforce their position using soldiers and weapons, then the other side must consider what is most wrong: not warring, because it's "always wrong" (?), or resisting the invading army, because not doing so would be more wrong (from the perspective of the defender)?

I have not claimed to understand how I make decisions.

If you know tell me please :)

I have not claimed to understand how I make decisions. If you know tell me please :smile: — I like sushi

:up: :smile:

You take a position and then . . .you would question your position yourself and check to see if it is consistent with the rest of what you believe. — Harry Hindu

Just how stupid/inexperienced/unfamiliar with philosophy are you figuring I am?

I just did. Do you not understand how to read posts and answer questions posed to you, either?

So you're not going to answer the question.

Which question, "When would anyone feel good about their goals being inhibited"?

The reason I'm not bothering with that is that you'd just say, for any example, "Then they didn't really have such and such as a goal," wouldn't you?

Sure, unless you can provide an example where someone would be glad to have to have their goal inhibited, or where they didn't have a goal in the first place. Good luck with that.

Go back and read what I wrote to I like sushi.

Sure, — Harry Hindu

"Sure" as answer to the question I just asked should indicate that you'd just say, "Then they didn't really have such and such as a goal."

All you can do is point to a goal, or knowledge, that they didn't have, or have access to, when making a decision based on the goal at the moment. So no, they didn't have the goal you say they have. They may have that goal later, after their knowledge is updated, but not before.

I told you how my claim could be falsified. The ball is in your court now.

Who kowns! Deos the dcuk eat bnnaaas or the gboibn sniwg in teres? Hvae you raed atninyhg or do yuo jsut pfreer to saht wdors out at rdonam?

New hree. Jsut tniryg to frugie out who the mpuptes are and who has stinhmoeg of vluae to say.

You're coherent when you have an argument to make but become incoherent when you are shown your argument doesn't hold any water. How typical.

So no, they didn't have the goal you say they have — Harry Hindu

As I said, I knew that would be your response, hence why I didn't bother. It tells us merely something about how you use language.