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Suffering is better than nothing to measure morality. Higher suffering implies more helplessness to avoid it. Lower suffering implies you have the freedom to fi
by averagewall 9y ago
Suffering is better than nothing to measure morality. Higher suffering implies more helplessness to avoid it. Lower suffering implies you have the freedom to fight less.
Yes, if the balance of power suddenly changes, the morality can too. See the firebombing of Dresden, for instance. To maintain morality, you'd have to quickly scale back your attacks to match your newfound power instead of killing everyone because now you can.
- golergka 9y ago> Suffering is better than nothing to measure morality. You seem to imply that "something is better than nothing". I don't agree: IMO, it's much more useful to honestly say that you don't know something than to cling to a bad substitute for knowledge. Also, "nothing" is not the only alternative here. Humanity has been figuring out ethics for a long time; there are plenty of alternative measures. Can we start with mens rea, for example?