The problem with these hypotheticals for someone of my convictions is that they break down the process of moral decision making further than I think we have the capacity to judge of ourselves. I believe moral judgements are made mostly without our conscious awareness and any rationalisation of them is mostly post-hoc. — Isaac
Is that your goal here or what? — Wallows
Address the problem then as you see fit. — I like sushi
It sounds like you didn’t read the OP all the way through carefully? — I like sushi
Again, if you manage to persuade a person that ... — Wallows
Why is it “daft”? — I like sushi
Either retract the “persuading others” line or point out what you disagree with in the text. — I like sushi
Next time you find yourself saying “How can people do such things!?” in what is nought but mock outrage, stop and understand that you KNOW what it is to do such a thing. You are that evil you view in others because you recognise it for what it is. You don’t see the misdeeds in others by having no experience of them yourselves.
How you deal with this is ‘morality’ and what you tell others about it is a lie. — I like sushi
My point is that hypotheticals are of use and that most people, myself included, tend to ignore the use of them. — I like sushi
The “mock outrage” I am referring to is psychological projection. We hear of a murder and we feel disgusted because we KNOW we’re capable of murder and this person has reminded us of our faults and insecurities, of the path we’ve taken to avoid being a murderer, yet we don’t sympathise with the human we mark them as a “monster” or “subhuman” when given a different set of circumstances the chances are we’d do just as they have done. — I like sushi
We say to our friends and family “how can a person do such a thing!” yet inside we know full well that people can be driven to extreme actions and our refusal to address this directly could lead us, in purposeful naivety, to do something abhorrent; although maybe not as abhorrent, then we can rationalise and say “at least I’m not a murderer!” — I like sushi
Extrapolate this to some moral problem. Anyone can say how they should act, but more often they never do act as they say. I think Rousseau commented about this? — I like sushi
It is a reflection of what I need to attend to in my own actions more than it is my dislike of the actions of some hypothetical other - of which you are one being a rather abstract entity online :D — I like sushi
We don’t wish to know what it is we dislike, we prefer to just dislike it and then dismiss it - and this is often the best course of action, yet it is not always the best course to take. — I like sushi
The hypothetical presents an item that can be regarded, turned over and looked at from multiple angles. It is a means of modeling and preparing for future events. I am not saying we should sympathize with the devil, but if we wish to avoid becoming the devil we better understand the roads to hell to some degree in order to understand them - and it’s foolish to think they are marked out explicitly for us to avoid. — I like sushi
By stripping down any given hypothetical and removing each answer as it dawns on you I find that once the biases are ripped away, layer by layer, underneath the worded thoughts something else is partially exposed - such experiences are traumatic by nature it seems. — I like sushi
It is through the Humean hurrah and boo responses that moral behavior is conditioned and reinforced. — Wallows
So, your method is going to produce unhappy people despite good intentions. — Wallows
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