Posts by BenWilson
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Also, while I've only just scanned the proceeding of the society to this point, it might help to consider that saying something motivates us to make moral judgements isn't the same as saying that's what they mean in a logical or semantic way. The psychology of ethics is different to the philosophy.
It's certainly different. But the psychology could be profoundly revealing if you think (as I do) that most ethical philosophy is just a way of rationalizing prejudice, hardly an improvement on just having prejudice in the first place. It's just sophisticated prejudice. 'Constructive' ethical philosophy anyway. Destructive approaches are usually not wrong, they just don't have any answers.
understanding how people feel and caring about it are two different things.
For sure, although I think empathy, in the sense of seeing things from another's point of view, is involved in both of them. Unless you insist that empathy means both knowing and caring. But you can still do harm even if you know and care. You might have a silly idea about the right course of action, despite knowing entirely how affected parties feel, and caring a great deal about it.
I know I'm being pedantic, but I'm trying to make my point that finding a moral principle that tallies with one's own moral intuitions carries no guarantee that it either tallies with everyone else's, or that it works well practically. It may seem hard to imagine how anyone with a strong sense of empathy could commit wrong acts, until you consider how many people in history did indeed seem to, but either through misplacing their empathy, or mishandling events, they committed extremely harmful acts that they could have avoided if they hadn't been following their empathy.
I'm not saying empathy is bad. Quite the opposite, it's a good thing to have most of the time. I'm just saying it's not enough.
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I was thinking a bushy beard, and a funny looking dagger, which could also be useful as a deterrent.
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What a bizarre and fascinating place. I'd be inclined to wear a disguise to avoid all the beggars, and negative attention generally. Nothing too silly, just some local stuff that doesn't scream out foreigner.
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What a lovely thought.
;-) I'm just bitter-ending against any remnants of an idea that empathy could be a sufficient guide to morality. Straw man anyway I know.
It is often said that criminals can make excellent cops and vice versa, on account of how much time they spend in each other's minds. So empathy isn't only a force for good.
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I may be wrong, but I'd guess it's got a genetic component, and evolution has put non-empathic people in there for a reason, too. There are a lot of social functions which seem to give low empaths an advantage. I'm thinking warrior types work better that way. But again, whilst having no empathy might be an advantage it also may not be decisive. There are ways to suppress such feelings, and maybe in some circumstances empathy could even make you a better killer, if it gives you the ability to guess what your victim is thinking and thus likely to do.
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Aha, soz then. So you were getting me more than I thought. In that case, yes I entirely agree that even bothering with morals at all could have root cause in empathy. Or you could even consider empathy to be instinctive morality.
Hume was great, I agree, although I find Popper's response to his Problem of Induction quite strong.
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Reading further, that indeed is some interesting shit. Perhaps I'm being an arse, but the idea of sampling around for ideas of moral behaviour is something I first remember coming across in first year, in a description of some pre-Socratic philosopher, who toured the ancient Mediterranean inquiring into their morals and beliefs, and was very surprised to find how much different they were, for which he gave numerous examples. So like I say, a lot of ideas are older than you think.
But surveying a systematic cross-section of philosophical questions and analysing the demography of the answers? That's a cool idea. As <pre-Socratic guy> said, the answers vary hugely depending where the people come from.
There's obvious overlap with psychology and various other disciplines in there, but this is totally inevitable in any interesting questions in philosophy. If they ever actually discover anything (and that is becoming rarer all the time), then it rapidly becomes a science. Philosophy as the holes in science? I don't know. "What is Philosophy?" is that question you spend a lifetime answering, many have.
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It doesn't lack empathy if you feel it yourself, but do it anyway. Which is just to say that empathy is not a good guide. If you want to define empathy more carefully, sure. Beware the long dark path from which the word 'Empathy' may emerge unrecognizable, though.
Empathy means seeing or feeling it from the other person's side. Which I think is important, but not enough. The other person's point of view may be totally wrong. You may be unable to see it that way. Or you may be deluded into thinking you have. Or, having seen it correctly, you still disagree, and think their point of view is lacks empathy.
If what I'm saying overlaps with Experimental Philosophy, it's an accident. Actually my thoughts on this are most inspired by what I've read about Zen Buddhism, but that's just my mind working in it's own weird way. But thx for the link, it seems quite interesting, I agree.
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And you just know it was invented by a man
Come on now, you know testing is part of development. I'm sure there were a lot of women who worked hard perfecting this device. About as hard as the aforementioned husbands.
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Those are the fashions of the future. You laugh now, oldtimers....
I was wondering how this thread could be Godwinned. In this case, it seems that Godwin himself is to blame, just for having a theory. I blame Hitler for Godwin, and all that mention Godwin are just like Hitler.
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