What’s wrong with hurting people? Also, what’s wrong with not caring about suffering in others?
If nobody teaches you these things are naughty, how is one supposed to know?
Don’t need to learn: it’s hardwired.
If you can’t, something really is wrong.
So there. 
It’s because of bloody sweet baby Jeebus, for heaven’s sakes! You, you know NOTHING!
Where I come from, painting yourself blue and carving up lesser beings (being Englishers, of course) is the mark of greatness, to be emulated and worshipped.
Yeah, but they don’t count.
Nor do you.
Or you.
Or any of you other unwashed heathens.
We’re talking about people here, after all. Jeesh.
Cardboard doesn’t exist. If you use the peer reviewed scientific definition of cardboard as an indistructable diamond alloy, this is clear.
A belief in cardboard is a meme propagated by evolution to allow organisms to use the calories in breakfast cereals which are packed in ‘cardboard’ boxes.
Yes. Relevance? And KingZog, there’s no need to pout. Your parody wasn’t even funny because it was insufficiently analogous to what I have been arguing (you mapped the wrong concepts to each other). If you like I could help improve it for you.
Yeah but she has a cute pout. At the beginning, anyway.
Yes. [/quote]
Why?
Because it existed in the past, exists now, and looks set to exist some time into the future? To exist in an absolute sense cardboard would have to exist through time, otherwise you would need to say that it existed, is existing, or will exist. Is that correct?
Whereas a moral sense (compassion if you will) and a surprisingly similar set of moral codes based on that sense has existed across cultures in the past, exists now and looks set to exist some time into the future. This is because compassion (or an instinct to teach compassion like you say) is hard wired into our genes and genes, like cardboard, certainly exist in an absolute sense.
And so you “don’t” believe it exists in an absolute sense, but is rather the product of something we made up?
And this makes sense how exactly?
Yes. [/quote]
Why?
Because it existed in the past, exists now, and looks set to exist some time into the future? To exist in an absolute sense cardboard would have to exist through time, otherwise you would need to say that it existed, is existing, or will exist. Is that correct?[/quote]
No. To exist in the absolute sense simply means that something has to meet the criteria for existence.
You’re confusing the existential concept of absolute existence with the ethical concept of absolute morals. You’re committing the fallacy of equivocation. The term ‘absolute’ does not have the same nuance of meaning in existential discourse as it does in ethical discourse.
An instinct to teach something like compassion may exist in the absolute sense, but this does not mean that an absolute morality of compassion exists. An absolute morality of compassion would mean a morality of compassion which existed independently of human reasoning (and human existence), and was at all times universally imperative.
I didn’t say it doesn’t exist in an absolute sense. I’m objecting to the idea that absolute morals exist. Clearly they don’t. We make them up as we go along. That’s why something can be entirely moral today, but next week it could be utterly immoral. It’s all about what we choose to believe at any one point in time. There’s no right, wrong, ethical, unethical, moral, immoral, it’s all just electricity and chemicals and that’s it.
imdb.com/title/tt0095159/quotes
Otto West: Don’t call me stupid.
Wanda: Oh, right! To call you stupid would be an insult to stupid people! I’ve known sheep that could outwit you. I’ve worn dresses with higher IQs. But you think you’re an intellectual, don’t you, ape?
Otto West: Apes don’t read philosophy.
Wanda: Yes they do, Otto. They just don’t understand it. Now let me correct you on a couple of things, OK? Aristotle was not Belgian. The central message of Buddhism is not “Every man for himself.” And the London Underground is not a political movement. Those are all mistakes, Otto. I looked them up.
That’s exactly what it means. An instinct to teach compassion is different from, say, an instinct to teach evil. You can’t say the instinct to teach something exists absolutely, and in the same breath say that the thing that is instinctively taught does not exist absolutely.
That is not what I am saying. Please understand the distinction between the existential use of ‘absolute’ and the ethical use of ‘absolute’ as it pertains to morality (specifically ‘absolute morality’). Absolute morality does not mean that morality ‘absolutely exists’. An absolute morality would mean a morality which existed independently of human reasoning (and human existence), and was at all times universally imperative. See this primer on moral absolutism.
I don’t give a rat’s fart about the fancy philosophical mumbo jumbo.
A compassionate instinct exists in human beings and is corner stone of any ethical system. It exists as part of our genetic endowment, and as absolutely, as concretely, as card board. It doesn’t exist, independently of human beings, as a codified set of laws detailing with perfect precision the exact course of action to be taken in any particular situation. That would be impossible and isn’t what I’m saying anyway. I never said anything about an absolute morality. What I said was that compassion exists absolutely.
The compasionate instinct exists, initially, as a responsiveness to human warmth. By allowing himself to be treated with warmth and kindness, by appreciating kindness, a child learns to be warm and kind.
That is all there is to it, essentially.
I’ve often wondered if the more philosophical ‘mumbo jumbo’ you know, the less you actually know about morality, like you’re learning about the incompleteness of the system or something.
It would certainly explain a lot of very intellectual politicians seem like wafflers when it comes to moral issues and a lot of very dumb ones end up being proved mostly corrrect.
It’s frightening, really.
Actually I did, two posts ago, but I got tricked into it.
Somebody here must know what the hell I’m saying.
Sandy?
You are usually good at this…
…No.
Yes. Absolutely. Humans are not evolved enough to grasp it…so we flail about trying to describe it.
It does…but not in all. Which is why Fortigurn’s argument rings false.
[quote]
Somebody here must know what the hell I’m saying. [/quote]
I get your meaning…and I’m not Sandy…or whoever.
Compassion exists absolutely except for where it is absent. It’s absence is not related to electrical misfirings or chemical overloads or deficiencies. That Absolute we cannot define as we are confined by the potential experiential entity that we are in this awareness of our own existence. Those limitations are the downfall. I state “potential” in that all experiences even where they precisely the same for each, would be perceived differently.
Literally…quite fooked.
make sense?
Thanks. I’m glad.
Then the ancient Hebrews had a distorted sense of morality. Whether those “youths” are 5 years old or 50 years old, punishing them by sending bears to maul them for calling a guy baldy is an act of evil. So, God is evil.
Ah, so that makes it less evil then? Women in Saudi Arabia know that sleeping with men outside of marriage can get them stoned to death, but some do it anyways. Is it morally correct to kill women for sleeping around because they had full knowledge of the punishment beforehand?
Youths aren’t put in juvenile detention centers for calling someone baldy, so your analogy is false. Don’t know how it plays out in Australia, but the only kids I knew who went to juve were criminals.
Oh and by the way, I like how you said “punished the youths” to minimize the emotional impact of the actual translation, which states that God sent bears to maul the youths. Quite an evil creature, that God.