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Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

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Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#171

Post by ordinary »

humanrebar wrote: post #134
notdonspaulding wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So given all that, it's tautological from Biblical > principles that violent people are not followers of > Christ. Then, given that all wars are inherently violent, is it your opinion that all wars are unjust? Would you also consider that every human life that is ended prematurely by another "murder" (capital punishment, war, abortion)?

I have opinions, of course, but I aspire to have them grounded in scripture. However, you asked, so I'll try to share my take on violence and sin. Keep in mind that I'm not an expert theologian. I'm willing to be wrong on these points if someone can show me how I'm missing some detail or theme in the teaching of the Bible. Also, since the importance of sin is in the intention behind the thoughts and actions and not i…

First of all, thank you for your contributions to this thread. They've been very interesting.

I noticed a couple of points in this post that I would like some clarification on, if you have the time and inclination.

Christians are supposed to submit to their government, even oppressive ones. There are quite a few references for this (b) (c). Finding more examples isn't difficult if you want more.

Where does this sentiment come from, considering that Christianity was illegal in the Roman empire at the time? To an extent, I can understand requiring submission to persecution for reasons unrelated to the faith, but it seems strange to me that early Christians would be required to submit to a government that is persecuting those that attempt to obey God, for attempting to obey God.

They either already know they're not following God or don't care (which is basically the same thing).

Is it really impossible to be 'good' if you don't follow God, according to scripture? Is an atheist sinful by definition?

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#172

Post by tremon »

irishcoffee wrote: post #111
[deleted] wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Apparently you've never been beat up, kicked, hospitalized, in Baltimore, spit on, while smothering your 17-month old daughter from harm. Activism isn't passive. Hence the term.

I'm confused. Is that an inclusive (AND) list or alternative (OR)?

I have been beaten up, but I've never been to Baltimore. Am I on that list?

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#173

Post by lazaroclapp »

Retra wrote: post #123
panic wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"There should always be something higher than your ideals and goals" is a contradiction; if there were something higher, it'd become your ideal or goal. It's only a contradiction if you're aware of what that higher something is. Part of humility is realizing there are things you don't know. Your ideals and goals are imperfect, and will change over your lifetime. Why didn't you choose the "highest" ideals to begin wit…

You can't make decisions based on information you don't have. An unknown ideal is not "higher" -- it's unknown -- as in, you don't actually know that it's "higher," and you couldn't do anything about it even if it were. You certainly can't believe in the unknown. "Pursuit of the unknown" is not itself an unknown ideal. You should look for new information. That's not a mystery, that's an ideal you can have right now.…

> You can't make decisions based on information you don't have.

You can't. But you can make decisions based on the information that your information is incomplete. A sort of 'bias towards inaction' in those cases in which the action would be irreversible.

Consider the death penalty. You may think that's morally right to apply the death penalty to, say, mass murderers. You may also, without contradiction, decide that this should never be done in practice. The reasoning being that it would require infallibility on the part of the persons deciding to apply such punishment.

So you don't even say "the highest moral imperative is that thou shall not kill". There might very well be cases where the best moral decision would be to kill someone under some 'higher' ideal you know nothing of. But you can still simply say "I do not trust my moral judgement to the point were I'd take another's life because of such judgement, no matter how righteous my judgement feels to me".

Of course, you are also unlike to trust any other person to make such determinations, either. How to try and dissuade others from taking actions that you don't consider acceptable, without resorting to actions for which you know you are not qualified to make the moral call, is a whole other matter.

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#174

Post by tremon »

stcredzero wrote: post #129
CamperBob2 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, do you have an objective source of morality for us to refer to?

Most human beings and human societies agree on the same general points of morality. - Killing -- Try really, really hard not to do this! - Lying -- Please try really, really hard not to do this! Or there's George Carlin's formulation: "Really try hard to not be a jerk!" I think everyone has a pretty good idea of what this means, and most people agree on the broad outlines. The devil is in the details, of course. Then…

There may be a moral concensus on lying, but that's probably more because the word itself has a negative connotation, not the act. The lies that are permitted are called "white lies" or "plausible deniability" (insert many other forms of political speech here).

As another example (from what I've understood about some Asian cultures), "no" is considered rude in some cultures. It's quite acceptable in those cultures to end a business conversation with "I'll get back to you on that" and then never do. They wouldn't even consider it lying, they would consider it "the right thing to do".

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#176

Post by mercer »

knieveltech wrote: post #137
danharaj wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lastly: From the tenor of your comment, it would seem that my writings have touched a nerve. Let's establish one thing first, and it's that I'm not a teenager and therefore my command of language is such that I have some degree of control over the tone I convey in writing. It does not take a struck nerve to litter someone's writing with fucks and write pointedly. Your writing style is as artificial as mine and I fi…

This comment and the one prior add quite a bit to the dialogue. These downvotes are unfortunate.

While I haven't made up my mind on this issue entirely, I am often one of the people downvoting these kinds of comments, or even flagging them if they're more extreme.

The reason for this is that I've become increasingly convinced that the health of a community, especially one that relies on a relatively poor medium (text comments), is very dependent on the civility of said community.

I'm a bit surprised to find myself believing this, as only a few years ago I would've argued that civility often gets in the way of the facts, that it obfuscates 'true' discussion and exchange of information, and 'enlightenment'.

I changed my view because I started noticing that even in 'rich' face-to-face interactions, once a certain 'detached' civility is abandoned, the more intense language almost inevitably leads at least one of the parties involved to become more emotionally invested in the conversation, and this in turn pulls a 'discussion/conversation' into the direction of an 'argument/fight'.

This is not always a problem in rich media. In the same way that a parent getting angry can sometimes be more effective than a parent logically dishing out an appropriate punishment, I've experienced plenty of situations where the visible emotions of someone I disagreed with were necessary to make me pause and reconsider my point of view (because I respected said person and/or clearly they didn't hold their beliefs lightly).

But the 'poorer' a medium, and the weaker the bonds of a community, the more important civility is. Because it's really easy to get exceptionally pissed off, misinterpret, project, or escalate things in reaction to a piece of text linked to a pseudonym.

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#177

Post by rustynails »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #139
stcredzero wrote: post #95

I find that the most anti-intellectualism, cheap-shot emotional abuse, and stereotyping on the Internet is motivated by moral sentiments through online pseudo "activists" who are really working out their anger and self-esteem issues under the supposed imprimatur of one cause or another. This goes for select subsets of both ends of the political spectrum, and select subgroups on both sides of any hot-button issue. Att…

"The Toxoplasma Of Rage", an excellent essay[0] by Scott Alexander, points out that sadly there are only two choices for activists today - behave nicely, gather universal agreement to their cause and then get completely ignored, or draw attention to their cause by being so hated by everyone, that half of the audience starts working against the cause just in spite. [0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxopl…

I know what you're saying but it isn't true. Let's look at 2 examples, the LGBT community and Feminism.

LGBT celebrates its differences. It welcomes everyone. It is open minded and tolerant.

Feminism bullies, ridicules, excludes, creates us/them divides and is continually hypocritical.

You could not have 2 more different different approaches. You don't need to be a bully. You don't need to threaten or ridicule or divide.

A few (repeated examples) to highlight my point. Matt Taylor bullied by large numbers of feminists for wearing a shirt designed by a woman, showing women wearing bikinis. Do women wear bikinis? Yes. Yet, he was mercilessly attacked by at least 10,000 radicals.

Domestic violence. It's repeatedly reported as a man thing (note: someone close to me was stabbed by his wife while she was high on drugs - but it wasn't domestic violence.. As the media says, that's only a man thing). Also note the absence of mental abuse that goes almost ignored.

Code.org who didn't bother to put a link to encourage boys, but explicitly put one to encourage girls on their main page. This was no accident - they have a quota to meet, apparently at any cost. Mind you, this could equally be attributed to political correctness.

I greatly respect how the LGBT community has embraced most people to support their cause without alienating anyone or demanding ridiculous quotas. I am totally gay friendly. Yet, I strongly oppose feminism. I believe in equality, but not equality for one gender or skin colour or sexual orientation.

I respect movements that embrace differences rather than reject them. Bullying is not required.

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#178

Post by tremon »

argonaut wrote: post #63
TeMPOraL wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What do you do with people who do not agree with this norm? Are you justified in using force against them? 'Eliezer once wrote a pretty neat sci-fi story dealing with exactly that issue. I highly recommend it; it gives a pretty nice workout for one's moral intuitions. http://lesswrong.com/lw/y4/three_worlds_collide_08/ > There are plenty of implications for startups too, many of whom would not exist without a diffe…

I don't think it describes Uber's business model at all. Talking to non-tech people, Uber is immensely popular. If anything, it describes the taxi business model.

It describes the free-agent taxi model, which is not the business model in most (large) cities where they've been succesful.

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#179

Post by tremon »

danharaj wrote: post #76
michael_fine wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, pure self-interest would probably fall outside of morality, but one could make an argument that many conscriped ISIS fighters, US soldiers, and perhaps US leaders are acting out of self-interest.

Self-interest is not a well defined concept. The notion of self is not somehow objective or immutable. Describing someone's self-interest is just another framework for describing the same underlying system that morality and all that is trying to describe. There is a bit of circularity when one tries to make self-interest an essential feature of brains: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_egoism#Circulari... I…

Why was this down-voted? The parent makes an excellent point that self-interest relies on a moral judgement about who the "self" is.

Re: Most violence in the world is motivated by moral sentiments

#180

Post by venomsnake »

rustynails wrote: post #177
TeMPOraL wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Toxoplasma Of Rage", an excellent essay[0] by Scott Alexander, points out that sadly there are only two choices for activists today - behave nicely, gather universal agreement to their cause and then get completely ignored, or draw attention to their cause by being so hated by everyone, that half of the audience starts working against the cause just in spite. [0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxopl…

I know what you're saying but it isn't true. Let's look at 2 examples, the LGBT community and Feminism. LGBT celebrates its differences. It welcomes everyone. It is open minded and tolerant. Feminism bullies, ridicules, excludes, creates us/them divides and is continually hypocritical. You could not have 2 more different different approaches. You don't need to be a bully. You don't need to threaten or ridicule or div…

I have a gay friend activist that claims that there are no bisexual people and that gay republicans are in perpetual state of self hatred. LGBT has ita hardline factions too.
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