31–40 of 65 posts
For a lot of people doing something good (giving to charity, writing a post condemning racism, saying a morning prayer) grants an indulgence to be nasty for the rest of the day.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fairy tales, urban legends, myths and stories have been used to teach morality and ethics probably since humans were capable of abstract thought and language. Fantasy fiction is just a commercialized version of the same. To me there's little difference between finding moral lessons in the Beatitudes versus the Jedi Code, which some people do.
Steven Pinker also makes an interesting case that widespread reading of fiction has made people in general more empathetic as they put themselves into a greater variety of shoes.
He taught ethics at a couple colleges in California. He evidently thought that it would be ethical, in his properly educated professional opinion, to attempt to murder people with different political views. Over multiple days and locations, he bashed a half dozen people in the head with a heavy metal bicycle lock.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/26/eric-clanto...
Missed the prime example: Eric Clanton He taught ethics at a couple colleges in California. He evidently thought that it would be ethical, in his properly educated professional opinion, to attempt to murder people with different political views. Over multiple days and locations, he bashed a half dozen people in the head with a heavy metal bicycle lock. https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/may/26/eric-clanto...
And physicists presumably aren't better at riding bicycles or playing basketball than non-physicists.
Morality isn't supposed to be an intellectual edifice from which experts expound rational arguments. It's a living practice. It's unsurprising to me that the people who devote their lives to making useful distinctions between words, or cooking up situations with babies and trains, aren't as moral as we might think. There's a reason Jesus was more influential than Socrates.
Thanks. There was a thread on HN yesterday about the benefits of a college education. There was a subthread arguing that without going to a formal college process of study of topics such as ethics and philosophy, a person could not hope to become a moral person, and therefore, the implication goes, college is not only necessary but fundamental to a moral society, and also obviously graduates are more moral and ethica…
I apparently missed the thread yesterday, but I doubt anyone seriously suggested that formal college classes were a requirement for moral behavior. If they did, they're fools.
Higher education, philosophy, and ethics classes are beneficial because they put the student in an environment where they can be exposed to a variety of ideas, in an efficient manner. But, you cannot make a horse drink even if you lead them to the water, and they'll find something to drink some of the time even if you don't hold the harness.
And physicists presumably aren't better at riding bicycles or playing basketball than non-physicists.
Doesn't really apply because you need a good physical condition to be better at sports (besides knowing how the sports work), an ethicist doesn't need anything to be more ethical.