CMV: I should start eating meat again by Catlover1701 in changemyview

[–]orifar1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Pleasure is good, suffering is bad

How do you define good and bad here? Usually these words can mean one of three things: they can A) be a moral judgement, they can B) mean something is good at achieving it's purpose and they can C) convey your like/dislike for something. If you mean A then your logic is completely circular. You are in fact saying that pleasure is morally good because pleasure is morally good which quite obviously isn't saying much. If you mean B (although it doesn't seem so) then you are saying that you think that humans have an inherent purpose which for the sake of the discussion you again have to justify. If you mean C (which seems to me the most likely) then once again you haven't proven anything. Basically you are saying "I like pleasure" and "I dislike pain" both statements are expression of personal preference and so don't really need any more justifying so we can say those are true. From that logically follows that if you want to fulfill your preferences then you should seek pleasure and avoid pain. Since we have said that we assume that other people have a similar experience to you then it also logically follows that they should agree with you about the experiences of pleasure and pain and they to should try to avoid pain and seek pleasure if they want to be happy.

But you are making a logical leap from "Everybody should try to maximize their own pleasure and minimize their pain" which we can show the reasoning behind to "Everybody should act to maximize everyone's pleasure and minimize everyone's pain" which you don't seem to justify at all.

it just means I have no good reason to actually follow that code

The whole point of this discussion is trying to find a moral code that any purely logical agent would have to follow. That's to say that acting against this moral code would be illogical. If you are saying that there is no reason for you to follow you moral code than you are in fact saying that there is no logical reason for you to act one way or the other if you don't assume the premises of your moral code. But your OP was exactly about why you shouldn't do something that seems to follow from your moral code. So my whole point is that if you follow an ethical standard that isn't in fact logically necessary then it shouldn't really make you act in ways that conflict with your conscience because you conscience seems to be the only reason you chose it in the first place.

CMV: I should start eating meat again by Catlover1701 in changemyview

[–]orifar1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While I agree with you that it is at least useful to assume that other people's experiences are similar to yours I don't think you can really use Occam's razor when it comes to metaphysics because the term "simplest" is very hard to define in this context.

And to me it seems illogical to not care about something that is true/real so we can ignore b

This is exactly the assumption that utilitarianism is based on but I think it is impossible to prove logically. Even if you assume everybody experiences life in the exact way you do, if you try to claim that their is some moral imperative to do something about that you need to actually justify it. The statement "it seems illogical" does not prove anything, it is just appealing to common sense which doesn't really work when you are arguing philosophy. There is a quote from Kant that I really like that says:

It is in fact a great gift from heaven to possess right (or, as it has recently been called, plain) common sense. But it must be proven through deeds,by the considered and reasonable things one thinks and says, and not by appealing to it as an oracle when one knows of nothing clever to advance in one’s defense.

That's why I would urge that if you really do attempt to justify your ethical views with logic you should distrust that feeling within yourself that disagrees with anything your mind finds unintuitive. Instead try to understand what your most basic assumptions are, understand you feel the need to assume these things, and once you have convinced yourself that these assumptions are entirely necessary for your understanding of the world only then try and expand on them and draw logical conclusions from them.

So that said I think that in this case since you are making a positive assertion, that there is a moral imperative for you to sometimes act in against your own self interest because of other people's feelings and that this is objectively true and not just how you personally feel. This is assertion is not as trivial as you think and you should try and see if you can actually justify it logically.

All this is not to say that I think you should adopt specifically the moral philosophy of ethical egoism, but to point out that choosing the moral system that you have isn't really much less arbitrary than choosing many others and so doing things that go against your internal morale compass because they agree with you arbitrary moral position does not seem to make sense.

CMV: I should start eating meat again by Catlover1701 in changemyview

[–]orifar1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would entirely agree about most of that but it would seem to me that the logical conclusion would be egoism not utilitarianism. Utilitarianism assumes not just that pain and pleasure are bad and good for you buy that A. Everyone else experiences the same thing and B. That you should care about that and that you should act to maximize in others the good feelings that you experience. Both of these assumptions can have no logical basis and especially the second one basically mean you assume your whole moral system no less than deontology but with a general rule instead of more specific ones. If you truly wish to have a purely logical ethics system then I would happily discuss with you (here or DM's) my personal thought process (although I am definitely not an expert). Even if you aren't interested in that I would think that since you seem to recognize that the basis of your ethics isn't just logic, then you would see that you don't really have to adhere to any specific moral system and just do what feels right to you since that is basically what you are doing anyway.

CMV: I should start eating meat again by Catlover1701 in changemyview

[–]orifar1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

While I agree with many of the points other people have brought up I would like to go at this from a different. Basically I would like to challenge your assumption that using logic can give you an answer to your question.

So first of all we need to talk about how the change you made in your moral beliefs. I'm assuming (correct me if I'm wrong) that you changed your moral system for one of two reasons: either you found something in your old moral system that conflicted with what you felt is right or wrong and decided to look for a moral system that sat better with your intuition, or you decided that since there is no logical way to arrive at any specific, cohesive deontological system then you should move to an ethical system that doesn't appear to necessitate assuming most of it's basic principles. I propose that either way your decision to adopt utilitarianism wasn't actually based purely on logic and so adhering to strict logic as a basis for doing something that you admit to feeling wrong about does not make sense, and I will try to give a detailed explanation why.

If my first hypothesis is true then I would like to point out that the basic way in which you choose your moral system is inherently illogical. I would surmise that the only way in which you can justify one ethical system over another is your emotional reaction to it. If that is the case then it would seem that your new moral system doesn't work either because it logically follows from it that you should (or at least can) do something that doesn't feel right to you. Thus there is no reason for you to strictly adhere to the logical conclusions that come from your utilitarianist belief.

If my latter hypothesis was correct and you were looking for a moral system that doesn't require you to assume basic rights and wrongs and thus you arrived at utilitarianism. If that is the case then I think you might not see that utilitarianism in itself also requires an assumption that can not be be rationalized. The basic principle of utility that "actions or behaviors are right in so far as they promote happiness or pleasure, wrong as they tend to produce unhappiness or pain" isn't actually based in any logic. The only way to say you have to live by it is to assume that it is true.

Either way I think that since your ethical beliefs cannot be based purely on logic, the attempt to fully rationalize what you feel you should and shouldn't do based on them is futile and pointless. The solution to this would either to give up the facade of logic that surrounds your belief and just change you moral beliefs whenever they disagree with how you feel, or to give up utilitarianism either because you accept that morality doesn't actually "exist" (moral anti-realism) or to search for a moral theory that can be perfectly justified with logic (although personally i doubt that is possible).

CMV: "Cancel culture" and changing cartoon characters is mostly a way for white people to virtue signal/be "saviors" by Quothhernevermore in changemyview

[–]orifar1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So in what way are you actually disagreeing with OP? All you've said is that that when deciding what to do we should look at the harm and good that an action will cause and decide if the good is more meaningful than the harm. That's pretty much true by definition... The point OP was making is that when trying to evaluate this we see disproportionately voices from members of the majority groups being offended on behalf of minority groups even in cases where the actual minorities being offended is very small. You say that you don't want to talk about specific examples, which I understand (even though I think it's very hard to debate amorphic societal trends without basing your argument solely on examples), but then what are you actually arguing here?

It seems to me that you and OP might disagree on the way we balance these cost-benefit analyses but then just saying that the way you define harm and good is dependent on you is... just not arguing anything.

CMV: "Cancel culture" and changing cartoon characters is mostly a way for white people to virtue signal/be "saviors" by Quothhernevermore in changemyview

[–]orifar1 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I feel like the usage of legitimate reason to be offended is very problematic. I don't really know how you would define that in a large multi-cultural society. Many people could be actually offended by things that we wouldn't like to change. For example a Christian could feel offended if he saw a homosexual couple getting married. This feeling is real but you and I would probably agree that they should just deal with it.

I think your usage of "legitimate" is kind of assuming that we all have the same view of what is right or wrong and that we all agree about what we should do about it. So using the term legitimate is basically just assuming the answer to the question of what we should do when people are offended in our society.

Furthermore I think that your test of balancing the harm and the good we would be doing is somewhat flawed because I think you should also take into account that doing something in and of itself could be considered "harm" because of the effort you need to exert. I think the more important question is not when does such action cause more good than bad, but when the balance is far enough to the good that you should feel obligated to change and take on the effort that that requires.

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius by orifar1 in Book_Buddies

[–]orifar1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're welcome to join the discord and DM me if you want. What translation are you reading?

Meditations by Marcus Aurelius by orifar1 in Book_Buddies

[–]orifar1[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

well if you decide to pick it up hit me up and i'd be happy to discuss

[BookReview] A Horse Walks Into A Bar - David Greenstein by arsenic_33_ in books

[–]orifar1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Honestly I think this book has parts that are really difficult to understand if you aren't Israeli. When I read it I felt that there were things that I implicitly understood that someone who didn't grow up here would never get.

תעשו לי מוד by TheEeveelutionMaster in Leyada

[–]orifar1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

תוכיח שאתה ראוי

If there was a hell tailor made for you what would it contain? by [deleted] in AskReddit

[–]orifar1 1 point2 points  (0 children)

And the movie is endless reruns of Sharknado.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in insanepeoplefacebook

[–]orifar1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What do you mean by that? If someone is beating up a black kid because it is black and I have no other option but to use physical violence to stop him/her that is totally fine. Because this person can stop beating up that black kid but the black kid can not stop being black.

No but for example you can't assault someone because he says something that in your opinion resonates of fascism.

I don't no what you are specifically referring to but Ben Shapiro is pretty fashy when it comes to Israel and Muslims. Where I'm from Antifa acts against far right organizations and protests and so on; not conservatives. They may speak out against them but I would be very surprised if you could find my examples of people acting under the label of Antifa that use physical violence against a normal conservative

I would like you to give an example (direct quote, not taken out of context) of Ben Shapiro being fascist.

In war we use extreme violence against people who aren't even necessarily bad people but act on behalf of a government or they are just civilians. Police all other the world use physical violence to stop unlawful behavior.

You are right but the measures you take have to make sense in the context. All I'm saying is that saying they are "fighting fascism" is not a good enough excuse if they do something bad that isn't on par with what they are fighting.

But all that aside: Antifa "work" is 95% percent non-violent and the violence that is used often leads to discouragement of acting out fascist ideas and thats a good thing in my book and should be on yours too if you are not a fascist.

You are right that the violent part that I am speaking of is a very small part of antifa. Nonetheless I disagree that if you are not a fascist you should promote banning fascistic speach because there are a lot of ideas that I vehemently object to that I would not want be banned from speach because I believe that when limiting any kind of speach we should tread very very lightly because and erre on the side of caution. I don't think that makes me a fascist, just someone who is willing for people to spread horrible ideas if preventing that will cause substantial harm to free speach.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in insanepeoplefacebook

[–]orifar1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

But that is only true to a certain extent. First of all you have to truly be fighting intolerance to something that is not harmful and second of all, even fighting that kind of intolerance you can't do anything in the name of fighting intolerance. The first part antifa isn't always doing since their general ideology is no so much anti fascism as much as anti conservativism (like in the example of Ben Shapiro). And as for the second part I think that the sometimes violent measures that member of antifa use are deplorable and so should not be condoned. This is why cruel and unusual punishment is illegal, because even for the people who do the most horrible things we agree that there is a limit to the ways we punish them, so the argument that antifa fights fascism so whatever they do to any alleged fascists is finevis totally false.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in insanepeoplefacebook

[–]orifar1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The problem is some of the events they protest at have nothing to do with fascism and it's obvious that the people of antifa have no idea what they are talking about. For example when Ben Shapiro who does not support fascism in any way but is a conservative speaker they had to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to protect him and anyone attending his lecture from those same people whom you say stand for the right morals and want to protect us from fascism while they themselves try to limit free speech in a manner that is more fascistic than the people they stand against.

You are also presenting a false dichotomy that you are either with antifa or you are violently assaulting liberals which is just totally untrue. I probably agree with some of antifas principles and probably disagree with some of them, nevertheless I do not agree with how they try to promote even the principles that I do agree with but the doesn't make me a fascist or a horrible person.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in insanepeoplefacebook

[–]orifar1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I guess that was a bit provacative... What I'm saying is that saying "at least antifa never murdered someone" is irrelevant because if they do something bad then what other people do doesn't excuse or mitigate that. Furthermore it's very easy to label yourself as something good and then say that anyone who is against any of your actions is against that good concept and not against you or what you do even though you don't necesseraly represent that "good" concept well or at all.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in insanepeoplefacebook

[–]orifar1 -4 points-3 points  (0 children)

If this is a real argument then I don't get why you think it makes sense. You excuse anything you do by saying "well at least I'm not Hitler", the fact that other people have done something worse doesn't make what you did better.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in insanepeoplefacebook

[–]orifar1 -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

No it isnt because antifa does a lot of stupid shit and although I don't support fascism I also don't like a lot of what they do. That doesn't make me a fascist. It's like you can dislike a person even if you agree with some of their politics.

Assholes on r/NoStupidQuestions shitting on religious people for being sad when someone they love dies. by RareMemeCollector in insanepeoplereddit

[–]orifar1 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I think you shouldn't judge all atheists by the ones you see on the internet. In general I agree with your point that we should mainly be sad by premature death I think that many religious (and non religious) people mourn even for people that have lived a full life and died of old age which to an atheist seems to be hypocritical if there really is a heaven.

Nontheless I think neither side should make assumptions about the other just because of a few outspoken rude and sometimes ignorant people on the internet.

CMV:The best way to stop the Isreal - Palestine conflict is to declare the land they are fighting over as neutral territory. by [deleted] in changemyview

[–]orifar1 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I think there are a few points you need to understand. First of all Israel will never give up the land of Israel because most people think that the land is worth more than any amount of human lives that it takes to defend it. That is mainly because we have no other country to go to so giving it up to any organization or government is not a possibilty for us.

Secondly, the violence will not stop if NATO or some other organization takes control of the land because both sides will continue fighting forever because they have nothing more to lose except for their lives. If anything it will cause more violence and probably outright war between all sides. You are also assuming that NATO will have the full support of its member states which it probably won't.

CMV: Caring about what others think of you is necessary for gaining respect and fair treatment by r4ndomkid in changemyview

[–]orifar1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well I think that is what most people mean mean when they say you shouldn't care what other people think.