3 ms·

> Once you feel that you have to moralize and keep people from doing things that you think are bad for them, where do you stop? Never. Why would one stop? It

> Once you feel that you have to moralize and keep people from doing things that you think are bad for them, where do you stop? Never. Why would one stop? It is a good thing to stop people from doing bad things. It's not a moralization that drugs are bad for you. It's an objective medical fact of injuries to the body, psyche, collateral damage to bystanders etc. Not to forget, acting morally is also a good thing. It seems to be a popular idea that acting morally should be avoided, and I disagree.

LesZedCB 12y ago
No it's a good thing to allow people to make their own choices about how they live and how they treat themselves. Not allowing that is unethical.
lost_my_pwd 12y ago
> Never. Why would one stop? It is a good thing to stop people from doing bad things. > It's not a moralization that drugs are bad for you. It's an objective medical fact of injuries to the body, psyche, collateral damage to bystanders etc. Overeating, sitting at a desk all day, consuming alcohol, smoking, tanning, etc. all can negatively impact an individual's health. Should those activities, and many more, also be banned? Acting morally is an important thing, yes, but the problem is that there is no one definition of morality. How should we all behave? By your standards? By mine? The superset of everyone's personal concept of morality would allow and prohibit pretty much everything all at once. One reasonable(?) baseline for morality could be the golden rule: don't do things that will hurt others or prevent others from freely living their life — i.e. don't murder, injure or enslave others, steal, etc. Or... don't be a dick. The world is not black and white; it's black and grey.
zo1 12y ago
>"It is a good thing to stop people from doing bad things." Vague statement. You're talking about stopping people from doing what you (or others, all besides the person in question) have decided is a "bad" thing. You fail to realize that you are working off different definitions of "good" and "bad". Those are value judgements, and by definition almost always subjective. E.g. The OP you are responding to probably has a definition of "good" and "bad" that takes into account victimless crimes, thus precluding all the "bad" from actually being "bad" if it is self-inflicted. Whereas, it seems you have a definition of "bad" that blanketly covers anything detrimental to an individual, self-inflicted or otherwise. It's no wonder that the one group criticizes the other for slippery slopes and "where will you stop". Because you've drawn arbitrary lines, leading right back to the idea of subjective value judgements regarding "bad". Personally, I hate arbitrary lines and definitions. Irreducible first-principles should be used to derive more complex ideas and constructs; and that is imperative if we are ever to have a truly fair and free society.

LesZedCB 12y ago

No it's a good thing to allow people to make their own choices about how they live and how they treat themselves. Not allowing that is unethical.

lost_my_pwd 12y ago

> Never. Why would one stop? It is a good thing to stop people from doing bad things. > It's not a moralization that drugs are bad for you. It's an objective medical fact of injuries to the body, psyche, collateral damage to bystanders etc. Overeating, sitting at a desk all day, consuming alcohol, smoking, tanning, etc. all can negatively impact an individual's health. Should those activities, and many more, also be banned? Acting morally is an important thing, yes, but the problem is that there is no one definition of morality. How should we all behave? By your standards? By mine? The superset of everyone's personal concept of morality would allow and prohibit pretty much everything all at once. One reasonable(?) baseline for morality could be the golden rule: don't do things that will hurt others or prevent others from freely living their life — i.e. don't murder, injure or enslave others, steal, etc. Or... don't be a dick. The world is not black and white; it's black and grey.

zo1 12y ago

>"It is a good thing to stop people from doing bad things." Vague statement. You're talking about stopping people from doing what you (or others, all besides the person in question) have decided is a "bad" thing. You fail to realize that you are working off different definitions of "good" and "bad". Those are value judgements, and by definition almost always subjective. E.g. The OP you are responding to probably has a definition of "good" and "bad" that takes into account victimless crimes, thus precluding all the "bad" from actually being "bad" if it is self-inflicted. Whereas, it seems you have a definition of "bad" that blanketly covers anything detrimental to an individual, self-inflicted or otherwise. It's no wonder that the one group criticizes the other for slippery slopes and "where will you stop". Because you've drawn arbitrary lines, leading right back to the idea of subjective value judgements regarding "bad". Personally, I hate arbitrary lines and definitions. Irreducible first-principles should be used to derive more complex ideas and constructs; and that is imperative if we are ever to have a truly fair and free society.