A person...either gonna hurt or gonna hurt! No point to being born! — Agent Smith

Succinct, but to the point. I like it.

Adaptively managing suffering (attempting to do so) is not "justifying suffering" any more than to eat "justifies" hunger or to bury the dead "justifies" mortality. :roll: — 180 Proof

:fire:

Succinct, but to the point. I like it. — schopenhauer1

:smile: Victim or Victimizer; choose!

Victim or Victimizer; choose! — Agent Smith

And one can't do otherwise. Hence morally disqualifying system/existence.

It's immoral to wear hats. This proves that all policeman are immoral.

It's immoral to eat spaghetti on a Tuesday. This proves that all Italians are immoral.

It's immoral to stand less than 2 metres away from another person. This proves all rock concerts are immoral.

And one can't do otherwise. Hence morally disqualifying system/existence. — schopenhauer1

Not to contradict you but here's the deal.

1. Existence is inseparably linked to happiness & suffering. It's kinda a package deal of sorts: If you wanna live, you can experience happiness, but you gotta suffer too. This is The Hedonic Trinity (life, sorrow, joy).

2. We havta, if we want people to reject antinatalism, cleave The Hedonic Trinity apart so that we can live happily sans even an iota of suffering. This sentiment has a precedence, in almost all religions, goes by the name paradise/heaven/jannat.

The fact that most religions have a better idea of what hell is like (exquisitely detailed descriptions exist, complete with ghastly illustrations) than what heaven is like is rather disheartening; we know suffering better than we know happiness which speaks volumes in re the living conditions on earth (hellish).

Nice red herrings there.

The fact that most religions have a better idea of what hell is like (exquisitely detailed descriptions exist, complete with ghastly illustrations) than what heaven is like is rather disheartening; we know suffering better than we know happiness which speaks volumes in re the living conditions on earth (hellish). — Agent Smith

Good point. That’s because dissatisfaction is the norm. It’s harder to pinpoint what permanent satisfaction is like. Everything is so based on struggle, we’ve made an art of justifying it, making peace with it, enshrining it, recommending it. You name it.

Existences can be characterized as good or bad.. not just people. If you lived in hellish conditions at all times..you would call it bad. — schopenhauer1

But what if your family/children are happy? Or you see a higher purpose in your suffering? How does that compare to someone who's content but without family/community? People are not isolated, atomistic individuals that you can conduct thought experiments on because that's not true to real life; people are embedded within communities and families and their own happiness is inseparable from that. We also just don't know whether the soul is immortal/what happens after death and our conception of happiness would change depending on that. We have no idea.

Sometimes someone's preferences can also hold them back; for instance Moses' preferences were not to step out into the world/public sphere because of his speech impediment, but God had other plans and was able to see the real good for Moses beyond his preferences.

I recommend book of Ecclesiastes to op.

In other words, Wayfarer, I see a sort of dominance here of the people who get their way when they like the status quo... They will justify it by saying, you NEED this. Those are some hefty implications there.. mainly of the comply or die variety. How do you justify complying? Well, make it into something of a value/moral dimension whereby the current reality is something people NEED to work through, even if it doesn't conform to their preferences. Apparently, because SOME PEOPLE (who like the status quo) don't mind it (at the moment of inquiry at least), it is a necessity for ALL people, and any negative qualities are necessary for OTHERS (who would not prefer this situation) to endure.

Thus those with preferences set to higher thresholds of tolerance for the realities of THIS world get THEIR way, but those whose preferences set to lower thresholds of tolerance for the realities of this world do not.

However, we don't have to make it so complicated. As long as preferences are not met for some people, and as long as SOME people's preferences get to encroach on other people's preferences as an entailed feature of this world, the morally disqualifying qualification can obtain for this world.

Sometimes someone's preferences can also hold them back; for instance Moses' preferences were not to step out into the world/public sphere because of his speech impediment, but God had other plans and was able to see the real good for Moses beyond his preferences. — Moses

And this exemplifies the immorality I am talking about.. My answer is the same:

I see a sort of dominance here of the people who get their way when they like the status quo... They will justify it by saying, you NEED this. Those are some hefty implications there.. mainly of the comply or die variety. How do you justify complying? Well, make it into something of a value/moral dimension whereby the current reality is something people NEED to work through, even if it doesn't conform to their preferences. Apparently, because SOME PEOPLE (who like the status quo) don't mind it (at the moment of inquiry at least), it is a necessity for ALL people, and any negative qualities are necessary for OTHERS (who would not prefer this situation) to endure.

Thus those with preferences set to higher thresholds of tolerance for the realities of THIS world get THEIR way, but those whose preferences set to lower thresholds of tolerance for the realities of this world do not. — schopenhauer1

So are you saying people wish to have other people's preferences thwarted to have these things (love, friendship, loyalty, etc)? If so, more evidence for my case.. preferences had means having other people's preferences thwarted.. Thus morally disqualifying the whole thing (because it is a feature of the system and an intractable conundrum..other people's thwarted preferences allows for our preferences met). — schopenhauer1

So, in order to have a good life, I can't restrain my desire for complete freedom, even if I choose too. Even if it will make me happy. Do I have that correct? You forgot gravity. Gravity keeps me from flying if I want to.

This is a circular argument - In order to be happy you have to be unrestricted. The things that make you happy restrict you. QED. It is immoral to be happy.

I don't just write something and not defend it. I do try to rebut objections, even if people think it unsatisfactory. I write in good faith. — schopenhauer1

Agreed.

This is a circular argument - In order to be happy you have to be unrestricted. The things that make you happy restrict you. QED. It is immoral to be happy. — T Clark

No to get at the immorality you have to phrase it this:

In order for me to be happy you have to be unrestricted. The things that make me happy, means you must be restricted. QED. It is immoral to be happy.

Now, the predictable move from here is to say, “Well, that’s just how things work in our world (aka “the real world”) and that’s exactly my point about entailed moral disqualification.

Now, the predictable move from here is to say, “Well, that’s just how things work in our work (aka “the real world”) and tests exactly my point about entailed moral disqualification. — schopenhauer1

We are social animals. We like to hang around with our friends and family. It's unavoidable. It's been in our DNA for millions of years. This entails restrictions on our, and their, freedom, which we all accept. Morality is the deal we make so that the whole thing will work. It's all about restrictions. In essence, you are saying morality is immoral.

I'll give you the last chop on this. I've taken it about as far as I can.

There's nothing red about them (nor herring-like). It's exactly what you're doing here. Declaring some really odd thing to be 'immoral' and then acting like its any kind of interesting revelation when the result of doing so is that odd things turn out to be proscribed by your new bizarre rule.

Absolutely no one thinks that denying people every slight whim is immoral, so absolutely no one is going to be in the least bit interested in your conclusion that life is thereby proscribed by such.

Life comes first. Then morality. The other way round is impossible since morality is a creation of living humans (or other social creatures). Morality is the effort of people to get along with other people. No people, no morality.

I don't just write something and not defend it. I do try to rebut objections, even if people think it unsatisfactory. I write in good faith. — schopenhauer1

Unless you believe that your take on the pre-conditions for a moral stance is utterly original, it might help at this point if you could scrounge up some supportive quotes from a well known moral philosopher. Then you won’t have bear the burden of defending your view all by yourself. Let the academic philosophers make your argument for you ( or with you) and force your respondents to deal with them.

In order for me to be happy you have to be unrestricted. The things that make me happy, means you must be restricted. QED. It is immoral to be happy. — schopenhauer1

In keeping with

We are social animals. We like to hang around with our friends and family. It's unavoidable. It's been in our DNA for millions of years. This entails restrictions on our, and their, freedom, which we all accept. Morality is the deal we make so that the whole thing will work. It's all about restrictions. In essence, you are saying morality is immoral. — T Clark

… but addressing the issue more generally:

Intent upon what is morally good by its very nature limits/binds/restricts our otherwise present freedom to engage in morally bad conduct. Hence, to claim that that which constrains our freedom is necessarily bad is to claim that anything morally good is necessarily morally bad.

-----

Also, to add this into the equation:

Victim or Victimizer; choose! — Agent Smith

And one can't do otherwise. Hence morally disqualifying system/existence. — schopenhauer1

In a relationship of earnest love, for one example, there is neither victim nor victimizer among the parties concerned; all parties concerned are nevertheless willingly restricted to not victimizing each other, and this while each gains greater happiness via such relationship. This, I think, in itself evidences the quoted strict dichotomy erroneous.

feck — ZzzoneiroCosm

Congratulations! You are the first person at TPF to use "feck" properly. (It has appeared several other times as a euphemism or local slang substitute for "fuck"). The usual manifestation of feck is in "feckless".

According to Google Ngram, "feckless" appears in print now more than ever before. That more human efforts are being branded as feckless than in previous decades and centuries strikes me as altogether meet, right, and salutary.

I don't understand the focus on fulfilling preferences. If a couple of racists tell you to grab them a beer do you do it because it fulfills the preferences of many at little cost to yourself and is therefore good? Even in an example where they're not racists I don't get why I need to be constantly compelled or obliged to fulfill the preferences of those around me. Why am I obliged to fulfill an alcoholic's preferences for more beer? Talk about enabling.

Similarly, if I had a child or someone that I actually cared about had a speech impediment and was ashamed and responded by hiding themselves from the world is it morally good to respect those preferences and in turn reinforce those views? Absolutely not. You cannot reinforce those views. It is incumbent upon you to challenge them; note that I am not necessarily "compelling" or "forcing" here, but I am challenging. Some ideas/assumptions need to be fought with fire and ableism is among them. Do not let it creep into people's minds.

Congratulations! — Bitter Crank

Ha, never hurts to add another good one-syllabler to the loadout. I used it, then double-checked the etymology....

According to Google Ngram, "feckless" appears in print now more than ever before. That more human efforts are being branded as feckless than in previous decades and centuries strikes me as altogether meet, right, and salutary. — Bitter Crank

No doubt.

In other words, Wayfarer, I see a sort of dominance here of the people who get their way when they like the status quo... They will justify it by saying, you NEED this. Those are some hefty implications there.. mainly of the comply or die variety. How do you justify complying? Well, make it into something of a value/moral dimension whereby the current reality is something people NEED to work through, even if it doesn't conform to their preferences — schopenhauer1

Your OP is predicated on the premise that fulfilling preferences, or desires, or needs, is the summum bonum, the only real good. But I'm questioning that. Take Buddhism, for instance: first noble (let's say "basic") truth is that existence is dukkha ("sucks", in the vernacular). And why? Because we don't get what we want, or don't want what we get, and everything we know and cherish is bound for old age and decay. But that's only the first stop. The argument then develops over the remaing three - the cause, the end, the way to the end, none of which involves getting what you want.

As long as preferences are not met for some people, and as long as SOME people's preferences get to encroach on other people's preferences as an entailed feature of this world, the morally disqualifying qualification can obtain for this world. — schopenhauer1

And the alternative 'morally qualifying world' is? :roll:

Good point. That’s because dissatisfaction is the norm. It’s harder to pinpoint what permanent satisfaction is like. Everything is so based on struggle, we’ve made an art of justifying it, making peace with it, enshrining it, recommending it. You name it. — schopenhauer1

:up: Here's a thought: Suffering/Pain (avoid) and Happiness/Pleasure (approach) are kinda like a guidance system that keeps life, including humans, in the Goldilocks zone.

So long as our hedonic system (biological & psychological) serves this life-critical purpose, there's little hope of alleviating/eliminating suffering. We would be left without a warning system that alerts us of danger. Yeah, old news!

In a relationship of earnest love, for one example, there is neither victim nor victimizer among the parties concerned; all parties concerned are nevertheless willingly restricted to not victimizing each other, and this while each gains greater happiness via such relationship. This, I think, in itself evidences the quoted strict dichotomy erroneous. — javra

That's not quite what I'm talking about.
Rather, let's say you like playing a game. We will call it the "game of life". Let's say I don't like the premises of the game. My threshold for compromise in order to play this game (of life/the "real world") is such that any compromise is distasteful to me. However, your threshold for compromise in order to play this game (of life/the "real world"), is such that compromise, while not optimal, is still okay.. Since this conforms to the "real world", this by default WINS OUT. The person who would have wanted a world with less compromising (like things needed to do survive, illnesses, harms of all kinds etc.), have to deal with it.

Now, you can come back and say, that the non-compromiser should wear his big boy pants and "deal with it", and learn to have different expectations, but then here we are again that some people's preferences are not being met. Only those who align with the "real world's dictates" (compromising) get to have their way.

Remember, in the OP, morality was determined by how much people got their preferences satisfied without infringing on other people's preferences...

So a world whereby we have to do X, Y, Z to survive may be thought as being "acceptable' to one group but "not acceptable" to the other. Just because the "acceptable" group conforms with current realities of what is needed to survive and have accepted harms like illness and disasters, does not mean that thus it is moral. It simply is what needs to happen if one does not want to die.. Either way, this still makes this "real world"/existence morally disqualifying because whilst some people don't mind/like the terms of this reality, THEY get to have their way above and lording over those who would not have wanted this reality.

That's not quite what I'm talking about. [...]

So a world whereby we have to do X, Y, Z to survive may be thought as being "acceptable' to one group but "not acceptable" to the other. Just because the "acceptable" group conforms with current realities of what is needed to survive and have accepted harms like illness and disasters, does not mean that thus it is moral. It simply is what needs to happen if one does not want to die.. Either way, this still makes this "real world"/existence morally disqualifying because whilst some people don't mind/like the terms of this reality, THEY get to have their way above and lording over those who would not have wanted this reality. — schopenhauer1

In fairness, the reply you’ve quoted was strictly concerned with the purported strict existential dichotomy between victim or victimizer - which I find fallacious.

As to the larger picture addressed, to assume that a morally good world is one where all preferences get accommodated without any negative consequences (setting aside its apparent impossibility given interactions between sentient beings, each with their own preferences of interaction) is to stipulate that in a morally good world all conceivable evils get accommodated and realized as intended without any negative repercussions - and, thereby, that the realization of all such evils is of itself morally good.

This, however, contradicts there being such a thing as a moral good - via which one can discern the morally good from the morally bad such that, for example, the world can be labeled morally good, morally bad, or a mixture of the two.

I get that many aspects of the world are unjust, and therefore morally bad, in many a way. But for this to even make sense there needs to be implicitly given such a thing as the just, or justice, as a moral good via which lack of justice gets appraised. And the very occurrence of such a moral good then necessitates that not all conceivable preferences are to be deemed morally good.

As to conformity to the real world being to the liking of some but not others, more generally expressed, if “conformity to what is real” were to be itself deemed a moral good - compare this to the general appraisal of truth (i.e. conformity to what is real) being morally good and falsity being morally bad - then desire to act in discord to what is real would by default be morally bad in some existential way. It would then seem practical that, for example, those who are generally truthful (morally good) would want to safeguard against those are generally false (morally bad) via some form of restrictions so as to maintain a generally morally good society.

One can of course deem this perspective regarding conformity to the real speculative, but the notion of there in fact being such a thing as the morally good (via which addressed givens can be appraised as such) to me necessitates that the realization of all preferences cannot be morally good.

From where I stand, the world you mention in which all preferences get realized without any negative consequences cannot be a morally good world if such a thing as the morally good is deemed to occur. This for the aforementioned reasons as well as the following:

As I previously expressed, intent upon the morally good necessarily restricts one's freedoms to engage in that which is morally bad. Hence, the ability to act unimpeded with a unrestricted freedom in what one does thereby negates the existential occurrence of any moral good to begin with, rather than being any kind of moral good in itself.

In sum, the morally good (if at all premised) requires that one's fundamental wants be satisfied through some restricted way(s), rather than via any whim one might have.

all conceivable evils get accommodated and realized as intended without any negative repercussions - — javra

False.. The stipulation was that (from OP and even last post):

The best kind of existence would be one, perhaps, that is suited to each individual tastes/preferences without infringing on other people's tastes/preferences. That would mean by necessity everyone would have to enjoy their favored existence without infringing on other people's favored existence (if this existence was trying to be moral and it was agreed that enjoying one's own preferences was deemed as moral). — schopenhauer1

Everything else you wrote basically is refuted by understanding what I just bolded (WITHOUT INFRINGING ON OTHER PEOPLE'S FAVORED EXISTENCE). An impossibility (a conundrum if you will) doesn't mean thus, "not moral". For example, an existence without any harm might be the most moral, but if we judge it probabilistically as near to impossible, that doesn't negate its truth.

Let the academic philosophers make your argument for you ( or with you) and force your respondents to deal with them. — Joshs

Here's one from Julio Cabrera, Brazilian philosopher:

Cabrera develops an ethical theory, negative ethics, that is informed by this phenomenological analysis. He argues that there has been an unwarranted prejudice in ethics against non-being, a view he calls "affirmativity". Because affirmative views take being as good, they always view things that threaten this hegemony as bad; particularly things like abstention from procreation or suicide. Cabrera criticizes affirmative ethics for asking how people should live without asking the radical question of whether people should live tout court. He argues that, because of the structural negativity of being, there is a fundamental "moral disqualification" of human beings due to the impossibility of nonharming and nonmanipulating others. Nonharming and nonmanipulating others is called by him the "Minimal Ethical Articulation" ("MEA"; previously translated into English as "Fundamental Ethical Articulation" and "FEA"). The MEA is violated by our structural "moral impediment", by the worldly discomforts – notably pain and discouragement – imposed on us that prevent us from acting ethically. Cabrera argues that an affirmative morality is a self-contradiction because it accepts the MEA and conceives a human existence that precludes the possibility of not-harming or not-manipulating others. Thus he believes that affirmative societies, through their politics, require the common suspension of the MEA to even function. — Julio Cabrera Wikipedia Article

OK, I see what you mean. But this in itself restricts one's otherwise freedoms of preferences to that which is deemed morally good. Thinking of those (too many for my tastes) who get their best pleasures from putting others down.

From the OP:

With the idea of only SOME people's preferences satisfied, and those preferences entailing the infringement of other people's preferences, this makes this existence morally disqualifying. — schopenhauer1

Here, reaching out toward often unpopular metaphysics, were Absolute Good to be actualized, it would then be equivalent to a universally actualized Nirvana as pure nondualistic being for the Buddhist - or to a universally actualized oneness with "the One" from the Neo-Platonism view.

That would make our existence in current form not absolutely good, but either moving toward this state of existential being or against it. And this would nevertheless be an aspect of the existence we're in. Such an outlook would then not make "this existence morally disqualifying".

My best appraisal, at any rate.