“Liberal morality, if unsupplemented, may unfit people to be anything other than what its justifying theories suppose them to be, ones who have no interest in each others’ interests.”
The authors idea of liberal ideals is quite different from my understandings. Liberals these days are concerned about people having health care an fair pay.
In trying to overcome the attitudes and problems of tribalism and religious intolerance, dominant moralities have tended to assimilate the domains of family and friendship to the tribal, or to a source of the unfair favoring of one’s own.
What I think they're trying to say here is to not be prejudice over somebody for their religious beliefs.
Those who conscientiously care for others are not seeking primarily to further their own individual interests; their interests are intertwined with the persons they care for.
I don't know if this is necessarily true. Sometimes people will try to help others for selfish reasons.
Annette Baier considers how a feminist approach to morality diers from a Kantian one and Kant’s claim that women are incapable of being fully moral because of their reliance on emotion rather than reason.
I hear a lot of "manosphere" toxic masculinity advocates say this today. That women are too emotional to do certain tasks like fly planes and fight in the military and things. It's ridiculous.
Caring for one’s child, for instance, may well and defensibly be at the forefront of a person’s moral concerns. The ethics of care recognizes that human beings are dependent for many years of their lives, that the moral claim of those dependent on us for the care they need is pressing, and that there are highly important moral aspects in developing the relations of caring that enable human beings to live and progress.
TRIGGER WARNING: There's a popular instagram reel that's been going around about a mother who went on vacation and left her infant child in a pack n' play for ten days and of course the baby didn't make it. She was sentenced to life in prison without parole. And I feel like most people can't fathom how somebody can neglect a child like that. That woman must be seriously insane.
Now I say that the human being and in general every rational being exists as an end in itself, not merely as a means to be used by this or that will at its discretion; instead he must in all his actions, whether directed to himself or also to other rational beings, always be regarded at the same time as an end.
So I think he's trying to say here that we should bear in mind the end results of our actions.
It is then seen at once that a nature whose law it would be to destroy life itself by means of the same feeling whose destination is to impel toward the furtherance of life would contradict itself and would therefore not subsist as nature; thus that maxim could not possibly be a law of nature and, accordingly, altogether opposes the supreme principle of all duty.
For example, if you're in a situation where you're in an environment where there is limited oxygen and you're surrounded by children. I think it would be ethical to eliminate yourself so the children can survive long enough for rescue to arrive.
(1) Someone feels sick of life because of a series of troubles that has grown to the point of despair, but is still so far in possession of his reason that he can ask himself whether it would not be contrary to his duty to himself to take his own life.
This is kind of a hot take or an unpopular opinion I hold personally, but I think people should have the right to end their own life if they want. There's a lot of legal issues that arise from this, like life insurance fraud and things, but I personally just think that people should have the right to end their lives if they want.
This imperative is categorical. It has to do not with the matter of the action and what is to result from it, but with the form and the principle from which the action itself follows; and the essential good in the action consists in the disposition, let the result be what it may. This imperative may be called the imperative of morality. …
This guy's writing form is hard to understand, but what I think he's trying to say here is that you can do a good thing but with selfish or negative intentions. Like a politician or a celebrity visiting sick children in a hospital just to get a good-looking photo for themselves.
I must reflect whether the matter might be handled more prudently by proceeding on a general maxim and making it a habit to promise nothing except with the intention of keeping it.
I wish the real world worked like this. So many people demand you to make promises on so many things, but the world is complicated and bad things happen. When somebody forces you to promise something that doesn't wind up happening, it makes you look like a bad person. I hate that.
There are several significant differences between spending money on luxuries instead of using it to save lives and deliberately shooting people.
So I think this verdict is a little too harsh. My dad criticizes my sisters family because he thinks they spend frivolously on things when they don't have much money. They'll buy new pets or take their kids to get fancy hair colorings instead of trying to find a nicer place to live. But people who are destitute still deserve to have nice things. Is a poor person who buys something like a nice picture to hang on their wall guilty of committing murder for not donating that extra money they had? No I don't think so.
If these are the facts, we cannot avoid concluding that by not giving more than we do, people in rich countries are allowing those in poor countries to suffer from absolute poverty, with consequent malnutrition, ill health and death
I made this point in an earlier annotation but I feel like it's relevant again. If we never created a monetary system, then there would be no hunger or poverty.
After buying, either directly or through their taxes, food, shelter, clothing, basic health services, and education, the absolutely affluent are still able to spend money on luxuries.
Wealthy people often can't satiate themselves by just being wealthy though. Some celebrities will act out or commit crimes to just thrill themselves. Like how Jodie Foster got in trouble with shoplifting. She may have just been thrill seeking.
Death and disease apart, absolute poverty remains a miserable condition of life, with inadequate food, shelter, clothing, sanitation, health services and education.
There's reason to believe that poor mental health conditions lead to a shorter life expectancy too. If you spend a lot of time angry or upset, it can affect your blood pressure and heart rate.
In some districts half the children born can be expected to die before their fifth birthday.
This is heartbreaking. I hate thinking about children suffering from neglect or hunger.
But most people do not do these, but take refuge in theory and think they are being philosophers and will become good in this way, behaving somewhat like patients who listen attentively to their doctors, but do none of the things they are ordered to do.
I see a bit of myself in this quote. I'm probably a temperate person. I'll mind my own business unless somebody needs help. Like the other day my neighbor's dog got out and I helped catch it and bring it home. I don't actively go around looking for dogs to catch and bring home. It's just not necessary and I have things to do.
This is confirmed by what happens in states; for legislators make the citizens good by forming habits in them, and this is the wish of every legislator, and those who do not effect it miss their mark, and it is in this that a good constitution differs from a bad one.
Yes, this is one of the reasons why we've seen a steady rise in gun violence and school shootings since 2016. Far right extremists and their obsession with guns have radicalized people and encouraged misuse and carelessness with guns.
Therefore, if there is only one final end, this will be what we are seeking, and if there are more than one, the most final of these will be what we are seeking.
This compels me to wonder what religious people think existence in heaven is like. If being a good person is just the actions you are taking to get to heaven. Then what's stopping people from practicing hedonism in heaven? Can you be kicked out of heaven for doing bad things?
Let us return again to the good we are seeking; and ask what it can be. It seems different in different actions and arts; it is different in medicine; in strategy, and in the other arts likewise.
There's a debate to be had about the way Dr. Kevorkian handled his patients. He was known as Dr. Death because he put people who were slowly and painfully dying of certain diseases to death. He would do it with sedatives and make it as painless as possible for people who just wanted to be put out of their misery. Many would argue that what he was doing was murder, but I personally think he was doing good and helping people.
The life of money-making is one undertaken under compulsion, and wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else.
This sounds counterintuitive to the thing he said earlier about the mass of mankind preferring a life suitable to beasts and the compares people in high places to Sarandapallus.
Now the mass of mankind are evidently quite slavish in their tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts, but they get some ground for their view from the fact that many of those in high places share the tastes of Sardanapallus.
This seems like Aristotle doesn't think highly of most people. Calling the everyday people "Beasts." Doesn't sound very ethical to me.
What bearing would the judgment thus passed have on the law? The answer is that it would have no direct bearing at all.
Lawmakers have tried outlawing and regulating gambling for thousands of years, and people have always found ways around it. Like playing games for food or for tools and such.
But at no point would there be any sharp break with the methods he followed in deciding whether to condemn gambling as immoral.
I'm not sure I understand this. Is the author saying that a gambler can't quit "cold turkey?" I think in most cases of addiction, the best way to stop is to just stop altogether.
How would the morality of duty view gambling thus defined?
Gambling institutions are required by law to say "please play responsibly." Because gambling addiction is so dangerous. In my mind, a responsible player will just walk into a casino with a set amount of money in hand and tell themselves they are not to spend any more than that. It would be immoral if the gambler kept playing until all the money he spent for their family's food and bills are all gone.
The morality of duty “may be compared to the rules of grammar”;
This is an interesting point, because especially in the English language there are so many gray areas. For example, it's now considered proper grammar to say "irregardless."
But when law is compared with morality, it seems to be assumed that everyone knows what the second term of the comparison embraces.
You can't properly compare law to morality. Most people today think Jim Crow laws were immoral, but they were the law at one point.
How is such a moral judgment related to the question whether gambling ought to be prohibited by law? The answer is, very directly.
Regulating gambling is only going to get harder these days. Now with online gambling and so many people obsessing over fantasy sports.
Gambling for high stakes becomes, in effect, a kind of fetishism. The analogy to certain deviations in the sex instinct is readily apparent and has in fact been exploited to the full in an extensive psychiatric literature on obsessive gambling.
I've never thought of it this way. Gambling addiction can be very serious. Instead of cheating on your spouse, you're kind of cheating on your entire family by misusing your family's funds.
It is obvious that men do not agree on what is perfectly good. But since meaningful judgments as to what is bad are impossible without an agreement on what is perfectly good–an agreement that plainly does not exist–it must follow that our apparent agreement on what is bad is an illusion, born perhaps of social conditioning, habituation, and shared prejudice.
This kind of scares me. This is the kind of argument I hear people make who are supporters of things like child marriage. "What you think is moral or good is an illusion!"
Both conclusions rest on the assumption that we cannot know the bad without knowing the perfectly good, or, in other words, that moral duties cannot be rationally discerned without first embracing a comprehensive morality of aspiration.
I guess this can be equated to why children can be cruel. They simply don't understand the difference between mean and nice.
This is true only in the sense that as we move up the ladder from obvious duty to highest aspiration individual differences in capacity and understanding become increasingly important. But this does not mean that the social bond is ever broken in that ascent.
I would say most often people are inclined to use and abuse others to get ahead in the world. Like how most of the worlds billionaires are slumlords or use slaves in diamond mines
But if not, Euthyphro, what is the meaning of gifts which are conferred by us upon the gods?
This goes back to my previous comments. Why do gods need anything from humans? They already have and control everything.
And sacrificing is giving to the gods, and prayer is asking of the gods?
If the gods are the creators and takers of all things both living and dead. Then what is the purpose of sacrifice? If a god wants a dead goat, then why doesn't that god just kill and take the goat itself? Why does the god need humans to stab it to death on an altar?
But where reverence is, there is fear; for he who has a feeling of reverence and shame about the commission of any action, fears and is afraid of an ill reputation.
I don't understand this. Reverence means you have deep respect and admiration for someone. Where does fear come into play?
And yet I know that you are as much wiser than I am, as you are younger.
Interesting that Socarates would say this. Most people consider time to make somebody wiser. I think it's silly when people say they are "wise beyond their years" because you can't really cheat time.
Well, but speaking of men, Euthyphro, did you ever hear any one arguing that a murderer or any sort of evil-doer ought to be let off?
This is why I argue that life imprisonment is worse than the death penalty. You're simply giving the murderer a moment of discomfort instead of a lifetime behind bars to reflect on their actions.
My father bound him hand and foot and threw him into a ditch, and then sent to Athens to ask of a diviner what he should do with him. Meanwhile he never attended to him and took no care about him, for he regarded him as a murderer; and thought that no great harm would be done even if he did die.
Yikes, that's a nasty way to go
If he have taken a false step he must be able to recover himself;
I had to read this paragraph a few times to understand it. They have a pretty progressive mindset. They're essentially saying nobody is perfect and we all have the ability to rehabilitate ourselves. Given how old this text is; and how we still have capital punishment in the United States today, it's pretty crazy to me that somebody had this mindset so long ago.
For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice
In other words, they're saying that crime does pay. If mankind never created a monetary system, we would have so few problems. Think about it. There would be no poverty, or any reason to steal. We could all have lived like native communities did, where everybody just works towards the same simple goal. Which is to live happy and healthy lives.
or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure
Again, why would the ability to turn invisible get you laid? If I were groped by an invisible force, I would be horrified. I wouldn't say "well I may as well have sex with whatever this ghostly presence is."
Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; where as soon as he arrived he seduced the queen,
This part is a little strange. I wonder why the ability to turn invisible would seduce a woman.
Now that those who practise justice do so involuntarily
Not sure what they mean by this. Could be because this was written in an ancient language; but from my understanding, people study law and the justice system voluntarily.
It is unimaginably hard to do this, to stay conscious and alive in the adult world day in and day out.
This is true. This is why so many books have been written about the mental benefits of Buddhism and why it's healthy to meditate and bring your mind into "the now." This helps people who struggle with mental trauma from terrible things that have happened to them in the past to focus on the present and improving their current life.
Because here’s something else that’s weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship.
Penn Jillette is a famous atheist that has been preaching his distaste for religion and the bible in particular for decades. I'm a fan of his, personally. He made an interesting point that you can't deny the fact that there could be a god, but god might be Zeus and he might not like that you worship false idols like Jesus or Moses. That's why it's best to live your life believing in things you can physically see and feel and learn.
And look at how repulsive most of them are, and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line. And look at how deeply and personally unfair this is.
I see a little bit of myself in this. Especially when I'm driving. I'm mostly concerned about my own safety and my own time and destination. I will mentally insult other people. I will think of things like "god this dumbfk is moving slower than st" When in reality, they may just not be as skilled of a driver or have some sort of disability that causes them to drive slower, and it's no fault of their own.
The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing is gonna come in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don’t make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I’m gonna be pissed and miserable every time I have to shop. Because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me.
I remember when Matthew Mcconaughey was on Stephen Colbert's show a few years ago promoting his autobiography called "Green Lights." He was explaining the meaning behind the title, saying that everybody loves green lights. The green lights signify the allowance to go forward, and proceed. But Stephen had an interesting point saying that red lights are important too. Red lights allow you to slow down and stop and reflect on things. Sometimes we get so caught up in the hustle and bustle of life that we forget to allow ourselves some breathing time and time for reflection.
But anyway, you finally get to the checkout line’s front, and you pay for your food, and you get told to “Have a nice day” in a voice that is the absolute voice of death.
This line is funny. I always feel sorry for people in retail or service jobs where they have to put on a phony smile and ask you how your day was. This is especially bad when I'm getting a haircut and the barber is trying to make meaningless small talk to try to be friendly in hopes to get a bigger tip, when deep down you know that they could not care less about what you do for work, or what you're studying in school. Even though I honestly consider myself a people-person, in my own idea of a perfect world there would be no meaningless small talk.
This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.
I remember learning years ago that most people who commit suicide do not leave notes. This may be because they see existence as being futile in such a way that there is no need for them to express themselves in a note before they take their own life. It's a sad thing to think about
As I’m sure you guys know by now, it is extremely difficult to stay alert and attentive, instead of getting hypnotized by the constant monologue inside your own head (may be happening right now).
Sometimes I have to re-read things. Including in this article. Because eyes will skim and go over the words but my mind will drift into something else. Like the music that's playing in this Starbucks I'm sitting in or other peoples conversations.
Probably the most dangerous thing about an academic education–least in my own case–is that it enables my tendency to over-intellectualize stuff, to get lost in abstract argument inside my head, instead of simply paying attention to what is going on right in front of me, paying attention to what is going on inside me.
It drives my friends crazy that in my attention-deficit mind I will start thinking of some trivial things like "man it's cold in here. Do they have the air conditioning on? I wonder how much their energy bill is. Mine was pretty cheap last month, but that was because the weather was nicer." Then my mind will wake up and I'll think "Uh oh, this person is talking to me, I have no idea what they just said for the past minute or so" and I'll say something like "Yeah he also played in that movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall" and my friends will say "Dammit Mike B, we literally just said that a minute ago." But I had no idea because I was zoning out and getting lost in my own unimportant thoughts.
everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe; the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely think about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness because it’s so socially repulsive.
We did an exercise in my "Models of Effective Helping" class yesterday where we were given a list of about 12 people and the list had their ages and a brief description of who they are. We had to choose as a group eight people from the list to go on a life raft and the rest of them would die. You could also choose to save yourself as one of the eight. There was a heated debate over whether its ethical or proper to choose to save yourself over somebody else. I couldn't fathom the thought of me choosing for somebody to die over myself, but the majority of the class agreed to save themselves and kill somebody else. What I thought was even more shocking was that a few of the people on the list were teenagers and people were trying to justify killing them over themselves. What I learned is that there are many people who truly believe that they are the center of the universe, and it may just be human nature to think so.