4 ms·
> The party line is: “Making criminals suffer is, in itself, always bad. The only available moral justification is deterrence: The suffering you save must excee
by kajaktum 3y ago
> The party line is: “Making criminals suffer is, in itself, always bad. The only available moral justification is deterrence: The suffering you save must exceed the suffering you inflict.”
Huh? What if the local minima of inflicting some suffering to the perpetrator will lead to a better local maxima?
I don't know why the author seems to think that being a consequentialist or utilitirianism somehow precludes certain solutions/methods? The only truth is this: That actions have consequence, we live in a universe with cause and effect (even if some of that cause is random). If this is false then there is absolutely zero reason to have morality. The only "right" morality is to have one that attempts to map itself closest to reality (the propensity for man to believe in irrational things is also one such reality). A morality that demands certain methods without the ability to change in real time is just dogma.
This is why it is so confusing why people oppose Sam Harris so much. A world in which everyone thinks like him is not so much different than now. We would still have left/right wing debates and all that. The only difference is that belief no longer gets a pass. You can't say "doing X is right because it says so". When someone says "bro, believe me, we need to do this particular thing every other day or else we would suffer tremendously" then people would rightly question their belief. The calculus of "missing 1 prayer and suffer hell for ETERNITY" and living in modernity is entirely absurd. If you have such world view, then slaughtering apostate is entirely justified, because in your belief, apostates would have suffered in hell for ETERNITY. So the equation tips heavily towards doing whatever is necessary to prevent this.
- barrysteve 3y agoI don't understand your logic. >Right morality maps itself to reality... buuuut man believing irrational things is also 'one such' reality. These statements either contradict, or open up too many possibilities. If irrational man is one reality, then what's the real reality, the second, true reality? If you're going to sacrifice giving belief 'a pass', then it's really hard to draw a firm dividing line on whom-gets-a-pass and whom doesn't. I'd always lean towards giving irrational people mercy. Tying mercy solely to rationality and logic can become too reductive for humans to lead good lives. And who defines what reality is? Sam Harris? Sabine Hossenfelder? Steve from Accounting?
- thghtihadanacct 3y agoI would lean on getting irrational people out of harming other peoples way. Its all cakes and cookies (from steve in accounting) until it aint
- kajaktum 3y ago>Right morality maps itself to reality... buuuut man believing irrational things is also 'one such' reality How so? The fact that man believes in irrational things is a reality...How is that controversial? It is real that most of my family actually believes in a physical hell. Yes, in their mind, they actually believe that a fiery hall of flame actually exists somewhere and people will suffer in eternity, for ever and ever and ever and ever, with increasingly harsher suffering until...well, there's no until, it just goes on and on. What modern western people refuses to accept is that people actually do believe this things. Its not just a coping mechanism for retribution or something crap like that. When people tell you, "we believe in X because Y says so". They actually do believe in that. They think that there's an actual Y that comes down to Earth and wrote those Xs. And the fact that apes are prone to believe such a thing is also a reality. That is not to say that what they believe is real, just that their tendency is real. And this kind of belief have consequence. If they actually think that Y wrote down those Xs, and given that Y is omnipotent, well surely Xs is some divine scripture that we must follow? A universe in which the scripture says that one should enter a house with the left foot vs the right foot is an entirely difference universe. If such benign belief could yield so much difference, why wouldn't everything else? Saying that, I can completely willing to accept that human (or apes) need to have _some_ belief. That evolution have crafted us to rely on some belief that is believed at some societal level to operate and function. I am willing to accept that yet that doesn't mean that any of the beliefs are right. >And who defines what reality is? Sam Harris? Sabine Hossenfelder? Steve from Accounting? No one, reality is just whatever is.
- barrysteve 3y agoOh you're describing an experience and calling it reality....zzzz... I get why your logic is so muddled. Good luck!