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I... I don't know what to think.
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http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=779324&page=1
I... I don't know what to think.
your phi professor is a moral absolutist? interesting
No moral grey area? Lol.
There isn't just one morality shared by all people... so I think it may be more accurate to say for "him" there is no moral grey area.
So how would he respond to this? Would he say that this is morally right for "donating" to the homeless, or is it morally wrong for giving false hope and essentially taking advantage of the person?
It really depends honestly. With ONLY the video to go by.. It would be a good thing. He gave the man something he thought might be worthless, maybe like $20 at best, and it wound up being a thousand dollars.
Beyond that you would have to look into it more, or follow the homeless guy to see what he does with it.
That wouldn't make this act bad per se, only that the potential motivations or outcome might be bad. You can do good things for the wrong reason just as you can do bad things for the right reasons.
This video confused me. So he basically gave a fake lottery ticket to a homeless guy and gave money to the store clerk to pay him $1000 for the fake ticket?
He gave him money, the homeless man was happy, and the man who gave it probably earned money via YouTube. In the end, we have two people who are happy and one of them, a homeless man, has a chance to use the money to better his life or waste it. That's a chance he didn't have before. Sounds like a positive thing to me. From a skeptical point of view, even if the homeless man was an actor, it makes people feel good thinking it was real.
Sounds like he would not have taken the $1000 straight up. It had to be deviced in a way he would end up accepting it.
This is definitely an example of a "moral grey" issue and would be quite a discussion in a philosophy course. If I ever take his ethics course, I'll bring this one up.
If I were homeless, I certainly wouldn't take $1000. Think about it a moment - $1000 isn't NEARLY enough to get you off the street, but it DOES make you a HUGE target to the criminals on the street with you. Giving a homeless person more than $20 is simply putting a target on their back.Quote:
Originally Posted by QuickSciFi
But back to the topic - your professor is either an idiot, or trying to make his students think by taking an untenable position. He might want you to come up with good reasons to argue why there IS a moral grey area. Some professors are the former (out and out retards), and some are like the latter (making you think and learn in order to refute an assertation). Remember that just because someone is a professor doesn't mean they're necessarily intelligent, especially if it's not a scientific field.
Clearly you've never been homeless.
It's not enough to get him a home sure.. But assuming he has some skills, and isn't' a complete drugged out/drunk waste... he could turn that 1,000 into something. He could get some clothing, a shower, a good meal. Maybe even find someone to put him up for a short while. And he'd be presentable and have a place to call home while he looks for any kind of job to help get him back on his feet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chilly Willy
Or he could use it for drugs, alcohol, hookers, any/all of the above and just waste it all away.
Either way will give him a moment of happiness as it were, but it's not impossible for him to take that money and give himself a decent chance to do better for himself.
I've not been homeless in the traditional sense, but I've had to live with my parents once, and I know EXACTLY what it takes to get out on your own without that extra support. If these people HAD that support (relatives or friends willing to take them in), they wouldn't be homeless now, would they? At the time I did it, it was about $4000 to get yourself established. It's probably higher than that now... unless you live in a filthy hovel in a crime-ridden area.Quote:
Originally Posted by QuickSciFi
Many have the support, but they are too prideful or sick to seek it out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Chilly Willy
And it would obviously take a lot more to "get out on their own", no one will argue that at all (at least no one that has any idea what they are talking about). 1k just isn't going to cut it for that, but they could, if smart, use it to jump start things and give themselves a chance. Many homeless have issues finding jobs because they are obviously homeless to anyone/everyone that looks at them. They look homeless, they smell homeless, and they have no way to present themselves otherwise. 1k can get you a fair bit if you aren't going brand new and top of the line.... a new outfit on the cheap + other amenities (toothbrush, tooth paste, mouthwash), and if lucky you could get a P.O box or similar for like a month while you stay at a shelter or some other very understanding place.
Now this person who was living on the streets scraping by just enough to not die could be presentable and clean, and provide an address for an employer so they could try and get a job.
One could argue that the simple gesture of donating $1000.00 gives hope to this homeless man. There are countless people in the world who donate their time and money to help the unfortunate. Those that argue that $1000.00 is not enough to make a difference in this man's life miss the point. To this homeless man, it isn't the fact that he recieved a donation that touched him. It is the fact that someone cared enough to approach him and give him a winning ticket. Hope is what this man clings on to every waking day of his life. It is one thing to be destitute. It is quite another thing to live a hopeless existence. And those that do, end their life.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninsega
Most of us live a cushy existence and fail to see how the money benefits this man in the short term. In the short term, he doesn't have to pan handle and worry about whether he will eat in the next 24, 48 or 72 hours. What he decides to do with this money is of no concern to you or I. In the short term, it gives this man a brief reprieve of what he's had to endure for quite some time.
The question of the videographer's motives is quite humourous. Rahat stumbled into fame by performing various magic acts in the public sphere. It's only recently that his popularity has skyrocketed. If you are subscribed to his channel, you will see that that this is not the first time he has donated to the poor. Sure it's quite easy to criticize his motives by simply saying that he is profiting from the video by filming the good deed. But the reality is that there are alot of people on youtube who are earning alot more money and not donating a damn cent to help those less fortunate.
Let me take the time to reframe the question about morality: On our way to work or school, many of us may walk past the same homeless person everyday. We do so without glancing in their direction. They are simply part of the landscape. How many of us actually take the time to stop and at least say hello to the person? Sometimes a chat is all that a person needs to restore their hope in humanity and their dignity.
The color of morality is entirely in the eye of the beholder. But many people see it in only black and white.
In my personal experience many philosophy professors are self-righteous idiots. But then some are also acting out and are actually nice.
Is... is he a Jedi?Quote:
Originally Posted by Ninsega
I know there are good ones out there somewhere but the ones I've met have been completely full of themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by MaxWar
Self-fulfilling prophecy?
EDIT: Wrong term. What would be the best way to describe philosophy professors that are full of themselves, if the very thing they are teaching is to not be full of themselves?
Hypocrite.
self reighteous hypocritical wanker with sith overtones ? ;)
There are no "moral gray areas". Killing is wrong, stealing is wrong, adultery is wrong, etc,etc........people who wish to convince you that there are moral gray areas usually want you or others to do something wrong / evil / bad to suit their own objectives. Go fight a war....even though the wars fake, built on lies, and those are civilians you're killing.......because we want to spread "freedom".
Edit: Even though what this man did was nice.......he still lies and mislead this homeless man. Which is wrong. Lying / misleading is wrong. No gray area.
Sadly, a large proportion of the homeless are very mentally ill, and an attempt at a conversation is not likely to be a positive experience.Quote:
Originally Posted by SEGA.GENESIS1989
So your 90 year old grandmother is dying of cancer and gives you a birthday present that you don't care for. "Sorry Granny, this sucks." :?Quote:
Originally Posted by TheEdge
This thread confirms what I already knew, everybody here thinks that skeptic philosophy is the only "smart" philosophy. So Hume won over Kant and Plato after all of the horrible intellectual beatings he took with his relativism and skepticism.
Philosophy from Plato to Aristotle and almost all other major writers, is dominated by capital T truth thinkers, or "absolutists" as the skeptic post-post modern mind would call them. Most of them would not only call the current popular "philosophy" idiotic, they would prove it with volumes of writings explaining exactly why this prevalent view is poorly thought out and unsupportable. Actually, most of them already did just that but most modern "thinkers" will ever bother to read their works.
Problem with the view of absolutism is all you need to do is find one person that doesn't share your moral view and it can no longer be viewed as an absolute or a (T)ruth.Quote:
Originally Posted by sheath
They can argue for THEIR truth, and their own personal absolutism, but it is impossible to impost all but the most basic of absolutes on people as a whole. Even if you cut out those with massive mental health problems you still have a dizzying array of morality differences.
Of course they could argue (and likely would) that the other moralities that come in conflict with their philosophies are incorrect/false/etc, but then you get into the muddy areas like religion, political affiliation, and sports teams.
I really capital T truth believe that I am going to regret discussing this topic on Sega-16. ;)Quote:
Originally Posted by EclecticGroove
Okay, so here is my arm chair modern version of classical and early modern philosophy 101. The issue that post-post modern world views (plural) have with the idea of moral absolutes is always (absolutely) hinged on one view being imposed on another. While top down hierarchy throughout human history has made such a mistake possible, imposed morality has never been an actual or functional reality. It has always been artificial, requiring power, artificial authority, arms, resources and every other form of human energy to maintain.
Now, what I see as capital T truth is only what other people would reasonably arrive at on their own. More specifically, reasonable people would say the same thing when given the same facts and experience. This is of course assuming said people want to know the truth of the matter in the first place. For multiple people to arrive at this Truth there must be some sort of foundational agreement. They must agree on basic tenets, such as what is beneficial, wanting things to improve or grow and not the opposite.
Some people enjoy causing everybody else to suffer, or confusing others, or they may just like to argue the opposite view no matter what because it makes them feel powerful. Some people are just neurotic and narcissistic and very clearly (capital T Truth) want nothing to do with what is beneficial to others, or what improves circumstances for everybody including themselves. Blending their lack of any moral compass with the topic of Morality proper actually is idiotic, because they are antithetical.
That is already too many words for the average Sega-16 thread to not take something out of context, run it to the absurd, and claim moral superiority while claiming there is no such thing in existence. :/
So what happens when reasonable people disagree on what the capital T truth actually is? Even if, hypothetically, we all agree to one moral basis, it does not follow that we will agree on their application. Hegel famously argued that Kant's categorical imperative implies that charity is immoral.
I think the problem is caused by people thinking they have arrived at the capital T truth in an absolute sense. That they can handle it and manipulate it with their words, on any subject, ought to inspire extreme humility and silence rather than excessive argument. Humans being humans, we get caught up with ourselves and ideas that we think are right, and that is when imposition comes into play. The first sign that one person has not arrived at the fullest possible understanding of any given topic is another human's continued inquiry. Obstinate opposition, or argument for the sake of argument, is something else entirely and ought to be disguarded by anybody who actually wants to improve their understanding and practice on the matter.Quote:
Originally Posted by j_factor
Your post makes me think of people who don't flush the urinal in a public restroom. They're worried about getting germs, but they're also leaving a big pot of fermenting piss to stink up the place and give bacteria somewhere to grow. In short they're putting their own personal cleanliness above the cleanliness of everyone.Quote:
Originally Posted by sheath
Is what they're doing wrong? I would say yes. It isn't because personal cleanliness is less valuable than, what I will call, "social" cleanliness, but because they sacrificed the group for their own personal gain they have diminished the well being of the group. The group that they are a part of. Ultimately they have defeated their own efforts because when germs spread because of the stinking piss pot caused by their selfishness they will be affected by it as well.
This isn't wrong because the person was a selfish ass and stunk up the bathroom. It's wrong because the decision they made benefiting themselves was negated by the damage done to the whole.
That's how I look at morality in a nut shell. You could also say this is how karma works.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sheath
Therein lies the rub however... the world never has, and likely never will be in a situation where such a theory can be tested. You can produce some tests and create an artificial environment that ascribes to whatever your theory is, but you are influencing it by your own beliefs and thoughts right from the start.
Who to say if all reasonable people, when raised in the same set of arbitrary circumstances, would arrive at the same (T)ruth? You can argue either way, but the fact is... no one knows, because it's never been a situation that has happened. Even within a similar society, and subsets of that society, you have those with differing sets of morality and truisms.
That is why the relativism of morality has become the predominant viewpoint, because it's the only one that can functionally be called workable. Our very existence is entirely too experience/viewpoint specific to ever have a single moral (T)ruth that is usable for anything.
Only the most base biologic truths are universal. Everything else is a social construct mixed with a great deal of (as of yet) not understood complicated physiological interactions.
It's a great topic, and very interesting one... but the (T)ruth referenced to is one that has never existed, and has no way to be referenced because of it. It's very much like a religious debate in that way... you can argue for it, but there's no way to really give any evidence of it, only alluding to it at best.
Claiming that there is no capital T truth is an absolute, one that can be handily proven wrong in most topics including ethics and morality. ;)
More specifically, a logical discussion can and has existed for all of human history regarding morality in particular but also every other possible topic. If things were otherwise, as the skeptics and relativists demand (not suggest), we would have no use for language at all. Even two people who start out on opposite sides of an argument can come to an agreement if they will agree on a few basic tenets for a logical foundation first. In such a conversation one may well choose to only seek what is true for the circumstances being discussed. Another may well do the same while looking forward, that is thinking for the future, at the greater more universal truth that applies to more than just one situation.
At no point in the pursuit of understanding what is universally applicable or beneficial or life-promoting does one become obligated to argue with somebody who believes there is no such thing and refuses to accept even basic tenets for a discussion. In my time I have not run into someone who would actively stop me from doing what is right or mutually beneficial. Someday that may happen, those people are usually going to try to take something from me anyway and I feel fully right in being prepared to fight them. Until then, and after that specific circumstance created by a limited world view, I can and have looked for and discussed what is universally acceptable, beneficial or otherwise "good" in any circumstance or conversation and I don't intend to stop.
The basis of civiliation is lying. We train kids from the youngest ages to lie. The higher level the interaction, the greater the lies. That's where conflicts arise - when the lies break down. At lower levels of interactions, you wind up with fights. At the level of nations, you wind up with wars. That's why politicians tend to be the biggest and best liers you'll ever come across.Quote:
Originally Posted by j_factor
For those interesting the following three videos are a follow up with respect to the original video that was discussed in this thread.
This was posted on April 20th 2014 on his personal channel:
This next video was posted on May 4th 2014 on his personal channel:
This last video was posted on his main channel: