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Acting in self-interest at the expense of others is generally considered evil.
Altruistic acts are generally considered good.
But, that being said, where one draws the line does vary from person to person. Some people are perfectly willing to trade the lives of an 'innocent'(non-related to the issue bystander) for their own, or their child's, or their clan's, or their country's.
"Caring for your child isn't love, it's bias."
(I don't remember where I heard that, sorry)
I wouldn't fault the vampire for wanting to live, all the same, I would do my level best to kill it as a threat to my family. In the same vein, I wouldn't fault a bear or cougar for going after my kid while we are hiking, but fault or no, I wouldn't hesitate to shoot it in that situation.
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Acting in self-interest at the expense of others is generally considered evil.
Altruistic acts are generally considered good.
But, that being said, where one draws the line does vary from person to person. Some people are perfectly willing to trade the lives of an 'innocent'(non-related to the issue bystander) for their own, or their child's, or their clan's, or their country's.
"Caring for your child isn't love, it's bias."
(I don't remember where I heard that, sorry)I wouldn't fault the vampire for wanting to live, all the same, I would do my level best to kill it as a threat to my family. In the same vein, I wouldn't fault a bear or cougar for going after my kid while we are hiking, but fault or no, I wouldn't hesitate to shoot it in that situation.
Nothing makes me happier than someone saying "I don't necessarily agree with you, but I understand your position".
I think there's a fundamental disconnect in that we do not live in a universe where good and evil are objective notions, but Golarion does.
Now whether the naive notion of "good" as "that which is desirable" lines up with the cosmic energy notion of "Good" is another question entirely.
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I think this thread is rapidly approaching the point at which it needs to be closed
Also I don't think "deathism" is real and nobody in here is being a death fetishist, and that's a deeply weird thing to call anyone who isn't like, an actual fash
Also I don't think "deathism" is real
I mean, if anybody wants to deny that death is inevitable and something that will eventually happen to all forms of life, and this is just a natural thing that you're gonna have to deal with, to them I say "good luck with that."
Philosophically I'm struggling with whether I'm the same person as I was 10 years ago, 1 year ago, 1 hour ago, 10 minutes ago, or 10 seconds ago.
I think there's a fundamental disconnect in that we do not live in a universe where good and evil are objective notions, but Golarion does.
Whether or not good/evil are objective values in the real world is precisely what is in contention here but I appreciate your perspective as a moral relativist.
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I mean, if you're going to argue that "good" and "evil" are objective notions to that I say "good luck with that."
The meaning of words isn't even an objective thing (meaning is created via intersubjective consensus within a given linguistic subcommunity) so I'm not sure how anything can be objective.
Also I don't think "deathism" is real and nobody in here is being a death fetishist, and that's a deeply weird thing to call anyone who isn't like, an actual fash
Not sure what fascism as a political ideology has to do with metaphysics but what I meant would probably be better categorized as naturalistic nihilism/fatalism or reductive materialism.
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I think if Good and Evil DO exist on some fundamental, factual, and measurable level in meatspace then we are all quite literally doomed and none of us is actually capable of being good at all, as a species at least. I just see them as valuation labels to define/highlight opposition to another thing and the use of it is always hypocritical and flawed at the very least.
On the other hand, I try not to think about the inevitable heat death of the universe because more than anything else, the thought of "nothing" strikes me as the most unnatural and anti-wholesome thing imaginable even while I do not personally believe in Good/Evil in the real world.
I mean, if you're going to argue that "good" and "evil" are objective notions to that I say "good luck with that."
Absolutely the correct stance - this is, and will probably always be, an open area of debate as to whether or not morality exists in an objective, subjective, or even realist way. However, it's important to note, that just because we don't know the answer or haven't come to one that there IS no answer. I made an earlier point about how a lack of knowledge does not mean that there isn't a fact to the matter one way or the other.
The meaning of words isn't even an objective thing (meaning is created via intersubjective consensus within a given linguistic subcommunity) so I'm not sure how anything can be objective.
So now we have to be careful how we use the words objective and subjective if we're talking about epistemology and how we 'know' things. If I have an intention, that intentions reality just is a matter of fact. So for example, if I'm thinking about a hamburger or imagining a hamburger it's just a fact about reality - and I know that because I experience it directly. Now, as a practical matter, it's going to be difficult to prove that to someone else objectively - because I cannot prove my subjective experience to someone else. So if by 'objective' you mean that there is a fact to the matter or a truth to the matter I would say lots of things are objectively true - mostly your conscious experience of mental states, qualia, intentions, etc.
So even if we don't mean the same thing when we use a word we do in fact mean SOMETHING when we use a word.
I think if Good and Evil DO exist on some fundamental, factual, and measurable level in meatspace...
I don't think something needs to be 'measurable' or in 'meatspace' to exist. That harkens us back to the hard problem of consciousness, qualia, and intentionality. My subjective experience of say, seeing a red apple, is not actually IN the red apple. And while we can measure the wave length that generates redness, our subjective experience of redness is not identical to the wavelength.
See: Mary's Room or Howard Robinson at CEU for more on Jackson's argument about qualia, (interestingly Robinson developed his own qualia based argument against physicalism completely seperate from Jackson at about roughly the same time, though his had to do with deafness).
Total aside: PossibleCabbage has the best handle and matching avatar image on this site.
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