I really need to be doing things...

[avevale_intelligencer]

...but I can't let this go. Someone (whom I won't name because I don't know if they want their LJ and FB identities linked) just quoted on Facebook:

"Morality is doing what is right no matter what you are told. Religon is doing whatever you are told no matter what is right."

As an example of the statement that sounds good without at any point touching on truth, I don't think that can be bettered, and it shows up how insidiously persuasive a nice jingly Wildean paradox can be--I almost found myself nodding sagely at it for a second. But good grief, morality is *all about* what we're told--morality is tribal. And as for the stupid, facile old canard about religion being mindless obedience, I don't even need to bother refuting that, do I? I'm sure I've done it before, anyway, and I haven't got the spare computer time right now.

So, let's compose some nice jingly Wildean paradoxes.

"Bacon and eggs are tasty without being healthy. Muesli is healthy without being tasty."

See how it works? You have a try. See how convincing you can make any old rubbish just by balancing two phrases one against the other.

I'll check back tonight. I may award points.

Comments

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I think we care should about animals/people in proportion to how much they're able to suffer, and to appreciate being alive.

So moral status based on central nervous system development as a rule of thumb. Okay. This seems reasonable. Indeed more reasonable than treating chimpanzees as though they had the mental capacity of slugs.

And I agree that it makes more sense to spend our time and energy where the improvement in happiness will be greater, and thus wild animals interactions with each other should be beyond the scope of this inquiry at this time.

I think where I depart from utilitarianism is that there are some things I think are not okay even if they would lead to a net improvement in happiness. Murdering one person with a particularly fortunate (or unfortunate) tissue type in order to provide replacement organs for two people (or ten people) who will die without them, for example. I just can't make my gut happy with that. Greatest-good-of-the-greatest-number-wise it seems to make sense, but...no.

So the fetuses thing for me--well, of course in one's own personal decisions one can put oneself at any disadvantage one likes--but in practice in society this works out to either we force pregnant women to carry unwanted fetuses to term to produce unwanted babies or we don't. And I can't get past the unfairness of enslaving women, (and only women) to save fetuses, and only fetuses (we don't enslave people to be hooked up to Uncle Walter to act as Uncle Walter's kidneys, even if Uncle Walter will die without it), to say but so many more people will be alive, and some of them will be happy--let's do it.

(For that matter there is the issue of who gets tapped to support the unwanted babies; they will be something like 25% of the birth cohort, at least in the US.)

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

I just can't make my gut happy with that. Greatest-good-of-the-greatest-number-wise it seems to make sense, but...no.

It doesn't make sense to me in Utilitarian terms either, primarily because of the fear it will cause among the general population that they or someone they love will be singled out to provide tissue for others. Also because the survival rates for people with organ transplants aren't great and because it would be unecessary if we simply moved to an opt-out system for organ donation rather than the current opt-in one.

I don't think there's any clear cut Utilitarian answer to what the legal status of abortion should be (other than really obvious things like 'it should be legal if the mother's life is at risk').