Is it really so bad to give in to hatred and black and white morality?

[Forgettable]

Because the human brain is programmed to use mental shortcuts. It makes surviving much easier. It's a survival tactic to label other people as "evil" or "bad" because then you don't consider them human, or as much of a human, anymore. With that train of thought, you can do anything to them - Kill them, steal from them, or any other thing that promotes your survival over theirs.

Not saying this is "moral" or "right," rather it's just the way the human brain has evolved to survive.

[unbound]

It's so much easier and gratifying to succumb to or give in to deep-rooted hate, irrational thinking, and black and white thinking.

That's it right there. It is so much easier to deal with simplistic black and white thinking. It takes time, effort, and thought to understand what is actually going on, and so much easier to simply create a straw man and knock it down instead.

"Explanations exist; they have existed for all time; there is always a well-known solution to every human problem—neat, plausible, and wrong. The ancients, in the case at bar, laid the blame upon the gods: sometimes they were remote and surly, and sometimes they were kind. In the Middle Ages lesser powers took a hand in the matter, and so one reads of works of art inspired by Our Lady, by the Blessed Saints, by the souls of the departed, and even by the devil." - H. L. Mencken, Prejudices: Second Series

As for the idea that "...the perceived bad people in life might not be so bad realistically...", that ends up being a bit of a misconception. Bad people are indeed bad. Good people are indeed good. But there is no such thing as a good person that is near angelic in all respects, nor is there such a bad person that is near devilish in all respects. To think that for a person to be bad requires them to be evil in all ways will set you up for just as much of a disappointment as when you find out that even the really good people have their flaws.

But, when we talk about bad people, they don't need to be flawed in every conceivable way. The person who rapes children is still a bad person even if they are kind to their neighbors and volunteers at a local shelter...their good deeds do not balance out such extreme evil inflicted on others.

Ultimately, if you want to understand more of the reality around you, you are going to have to spend a lot of time reading and interacting. It is true that you will never get to all of the truth, but understanding 95% of what is going on gets you plenty of understanding of reality. To state that you will never get to the truth because you can never understand 100% of it is just another form of black and white thinking.

[Mihalik]

Moral relativism is a disease.

Debatable. The last time we tried moral absolutes we got fun things like the inquisition, religious wars, "benevolent" colonialism, gay bashing and other fun stuff like that.

Moral relativism has its place.

[Kumorii]

Yes, yes it is. Though I don't feel any connection in that it feels good to hate someone... usually being angry and full of hate is something I dislike.

[Shadowferal]

I struggle with the fact that I know logically black and white morality does not exist because humans are complicated and there are reasons for everything in life that can't just be chalked up as "evil" from an intellectual POV.

If morality didn't exist...then this thread has no reason to exist either.

But the problem is when put under pressure and stress, I feel it's just so difficult to maintain this line of rational thinking. It's so much easier and gratifying to succumb to or give in to deep-rooted hate, irrational thinking, and black and white thinking. For example, it's super frustrating to think that the perceived bad people in life might not be so bad realistically, but it's super satisfying to pin all blame and misfortune on them (even if it makes no sense) under bad times.

I prefer a life-death scenario...it takes morality out of the question.

[Endus]

For me, the absolute cornerstones of morality are:

A. Every single action can be separated into either Good or Bad components. There are no Grey actions, because that is just failing to collect enough facts about that specific action. Just because you are unable to determine if something is more Good or Bad, doesn't mean that it cannot be objectively determined.

B. Bad and/or Evil is about intentionally causing harm to innocent consciousnesses. Be it physical or emotional pain or hardship. Good is about doing the opposite.

C. The Good doesn't wash away the Bad, nor the other way round. (Yes I know Stannis said that in aSoIaF, but I didn't take it from there originally).

If you brutally torture an orphan because it is the only way to feed a million other starving orphans, it is not a morally grey act. You are an evil person trying to do a good thing. Own up to it and don't be a pussy.

This has absolutely fuck-all to do with moral relativism.

However, to raise a few points;

Regarding A.; is eating a sandwich a morally Good or Evil act? You said all actions are one or the other, right? Also, the separation out into components argues for a utilitarian "does this do more Good than Evil" tabulation approach, which you decry at the end.

B. is problematic; where does negligence fall? Apathetic disconcern for the needs of others? You're presuming "hot" malice for evil to exist, which is silly. You also add in "harm to innocent consciousnesses", which suggests you think torturing murderers to death for fun is totes okay. Which is horrible.

C., again, is argued against by A. They're not consistent with each other.

First, for all intents and purposes, I might as well be the God. I mean, the existence of my own consciousness is the only thing in the entire universe that I can objectively know for sure, so what ever morality I subscribe to has to come from myself. Though I don't literally think that I am the only conscious observer this universe has, just that I am the only one I can be sure exists.

Simple question;

Do you really think you're the only person that exists? We're not talking about "prove without making reasonable assumptions", which nihilism would demand, just whether you believe it to be true in practice.

If not, this derail into hypothetical nihilist philosophy is a distraction, and has fuck-all to do with your personal moral theory.

If so, why would morality exist at all? You've just argued there aren't any other consciousnesses, they're all figments of your imagination, so why should it matter if you start torturing, cooking, and eating the babies that you're just imagining?

There is no point in recognizing every view point as equally valid. That is absurd.

Literally not what moral relativism is about.

It would help if you understood what a thing was before calling it a "disease".

When you pick every component action of an act apart down to the smallest level, you can absolutely say if an individual action is good or bad. Anyone that claims that when observed alone, the act of torturing an innocent person could just as well be a good act, is an idiot, and their viewpoint can safely be dismissed.

If this were true, some philosopher would have developed a moral theory predicated upon it, and it would have been found to be objectively true.

That's not the case. Because it isn't. You literally can't boil every action down that simplistically.

As I opened this post with, let's say I make myself a BLT sandwich. Is eating it a Good or Bad act? Assume it's just a normal BLT, on stuff I acquired at a normal store, in a normal life. Note that I expect your answer to be universally true, here, of any hypothetical "me" in this circumstance. I also won't accept "it's not an issue of morality at all", because that's A> not true, and B> you yourself said "all actions", and this is an action. If you're gonna admit nuance and shades of gray here, then you're admitting your hypothesis thus far is incorrect.

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Subscribing to moral relativism is admitting that you don't trust yourself to uphold morals.

Again, literally and definitively not what moral relativism is about.

Learn what terms are about before crusading against them. Seriously.

[Orange Joe]

you seem to get it but I'm gonna ask you then:

like some guy makes an accident that troubles you. And it's legitimately an accident and he didn't mean to do it but it causes you a lot of hurt. Instead of seeing it this way and forgiving, isn't it more easy to just call him evil and hate him?

That's one tame example

No not really. It's much easier to just forgive and forget.

[Freighter]

Moral relativism is a disease.

Pretty sure people on this forum engages in some form of moral relativism all the time. Just look at the discussions pertaining to exercising authority that has appeared in several threads, especially about more authoritarian countries. People assert the way the west do things is the right way and that the people in (insert country) are being oppressed, another person points out that they themselves don't think they are being oppressed but because those people from west thinks people should live under their (western) ideas of freedom, then the government is oppressing the people if they don't allow the same freedoms as people in the west have and are pretty much dictators and evil.

Like, people went ballistic at me when I explained how defamation works(Truth is not a defense against it here) in South Korea, to protect people and tried to refer to US law as the right one. When it's a matter of different values and as such one can't be right, which one is right depends on which values you have.

[Orby]

Only Siths deal in absolutes :P

[PC2]

I struggle with the fact that I know logically black and white morality does not exist because humans are complicated and there are reasons for everything in life that can't just be chalked up as "evil" from an intellectual POV.

But the problem is when put under pressure and stress, I feel it's just so difficult to maintain this line of rational thinking. It's so much easier and gratifying to succumb to or give in to deep-rooted hate, irrational thinking, and black and white thinking. For example, it's super frustrating to think that the perceived bad people in life might not be so bad realistically, but it's super satisfying to pin all blame and misfortune on them (even if it makes no sense) under bad times.

For "evil" one important thing to realize is that evil is caused by a lack of knowledge, both personally and collectively. People generally don't try to be evil but humans will be forever ignorant and so we can't say that anyone will ever be 100% immune to being evil no matter how much wisdom they have at a given time.

Don't worry about "evil people" and "evil groups" though because that often leads people into conspiracy theories, typically about how a small evil group of people are the cause of society's ills (Jews, bourgeoisie, etc). Instead the cause of your ills are a combination of parochial problems which are inherited from one generation to the next as well as the new types of problems that are created by technological change and side effects.

but it's super satisfying to pin all blame and misfortune on them

If you don't like someone or a group then it should be because they have a bad idea that's not as good as your good idea. Instead of being angry or attacking the person, attack their idea and show them how implementing your idea makes more sense. If you are just against 'person x' or 'group x' then you'll never make progress since the evolution of ideas is truly what rules the world/history.

[Mayhem]

For "evil" one important thing to realize is that evil is caused by a lack of knowledge

A lack of knowledge never stopped you from trying to explain stuff though.

[Big Thanks]

Good and Bad is relative to the situation.

[ErrandRunner]

Moral relativism is a disease.

Truth is ugly after all.

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As I opened this post with, let's say I make myself a BLT sandwich. Is eating it a Good or Bad act? Assume it's just a normal BLT, on stuff I acquired at a normal store, in a normal life. Note that I expect your answer to be universally true, here, of any hypothetical "me" in this circumstance. I also won't accept "it's not an issue of morality at all", because that's A> not true, and B> you yourself said "all actions", and this is an action. If you're gonna admit nuance and shades of gray here, then you're admitting your hypothesis thus far is incorrect.

It can be argued that eating the BLT sandwich is bad because it reinforces one to think eating meat is not harmful to animals when really it is.

[Muzjhath]

It can be argued that eating the BLT sandwich is bad because it reinforces one to think eating meat is not harmful to animals when really it is.

It can also be argued that it's good to eat meat. Since if we didn't eat meat it's likely that a lot of animals we keep around for meat would be extinct now. So us humans eating meat gives life to animals so we can later eat them.

[PC2]

A lack of knowledge never stopped you from trying to explain stuff though.

I never said I was knowledge-able and I wouldn't even care if I was the least knowledge-able person and the biggest dumb-ass out of all 7.8 billion people on the planet. I have the financial freedom that a lot of self-proclaimed 'geniuses' don't have and that leads me to believe that a lot of them prioritize prestige as opposed to more tangible results.

Anyways back the original point, the notion of "evil" doesn't really exist in a traditional sense and so people should stop labeling people as evil except in light of them having an absence of moral knowledge. So for example even felons in prison aren't really evil but they simply have a blind spot where they think it's possible to justify the initiation of violence or violate the consent of another person.

[Mayhem]

Anyways back the original point, the notion of "evil" doesn't really exist in a traditional positivistic sense and so people should stop labeling people as evil except in light of them having an absence of moral knowledge. So for example even felons in prison aren't really evil for the most part but they simply have a blind spot where they think it's possible to justify the initiation of violence or forcefully violate the consent of another person.

Yeah, if your explanation of why evil can't exist is because people are able to justify their actions then you're right, evil doesn't exist, though then, nothing exists.

[PC2]

Yeah, if your explanation of why evil can't exist is because people are able to justify their actions then you're right, evil doesn't exist, though then, nothing exists.

Nothing ultimate exist such as an ultimate justification or ultimate moral rules. So it's not that nothing exist and nothing is true, it's that as people we'll only ever be able to know a tiny fraction of them, and for any given issue it may take a very long time to transition from "two people have different taste preferences" to "one or both people eventually arrived at a single consensus" by realizing that no two ideas or physical things like two food dishes are 100% equal in their quality and utility.

ultimate moral rules

I said there was no ultimate moral rules but I have to admit for some things like rape I can't currently think of a single exception that wouldn't make it ultimately true. Though even here there could be some weird exception that nobody has thought up yet.

[Doctor Amadeus]

No. Hating People for how they were born is wrong. Hating people for making stupid choice to hate people for how they were born is the correct coarse of action in my experience.

What flavor ice cream is best isn’t black and white.

However right and wrong is.

[Big Thanks]

Nothing ultimate exist such as an ultimate justification or ultimate moral rules. So it's not that nothing exist and nothing is true, it's that as people we'll only ever be able to know a tiny fraction of them, and for any given issue it may take a very long time to transition from "two people have different taste preferences" to "one or both people eventually arrived at a single consensus" by realizing that no two ideas or physical things like two food dishes are 100% equal in their quality and utility.



I said there was no ultimate moral rules but I have to admit for some things like rape I can't currently think of a single exception that wouldn't make it ultimately true. Though even here there could be some weird exception that nobody has thought up yet.

For your rape example: A robber points you a gun and tells you to have sex with a random person for him to watch (your rape is not evil)

But anyways (uff that was a depressing conversation)

IMO Evil exists...because circumstances exist.
We may be missing several circunstances in real life because we dont see the whole picture always...but there are things that are pure evil

Like torturing a bird when you have a comfortable life yourself and dont need to eat it. Why are you torturing him?
etc

[Mayhem]

For your rape example: A robber points you a gun and tells you to have sex with a random person for him to watch (your rape is not evil)

That would make rape still evil, it's just not you who's the evil one in this example but the robber telling you to do the raping or be killed.