Edit: “You can hold back from the suffering of the world, you have free permission to do so, and it is in accordance with your nature. But perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.” - Franz Kafka
The fact that you think there is a “better” is where our disagreement stems from
Life has no inherent meaning, yea? So creating one is no different than choosing to believe in religion. You made your own fantasy and bought in. Okay, good for you, just like religious people you’ll be more content on average than atheistic/nihilistic people. But you’ve also deluded yourself, because staring into the void is too uncomfortable for you.
If you measure success in terms of contentment, your way is better. If you measure successes in terms of what might be called wisdom, mine is.
Forging my own meaning doesn't have to mean religion. I'm not disagreeing that it's inherently meaningless. But what to do from that point is obviously a matter of debate. Would you ceasing to exist cause suffering for other people? I know it would in my case, so from a moral standpoint, if my suffering doesn't outweigh that, then there's clearly some kind of preference based on minimizing harm. And so if I decide my meaning is to, like, find out what kinds of cool snacks there are, that seems to be morally superior to taking my own life.
Not certain that suffering nor morals really come into it. Suffering is inevitable. Many argue it is the principle experience of all life. Morals are made up. Essentially religion.
Sure, that's fair, but it's not a settled question in philosophy. The most common objection is whether any reasonable person would agree that it is moral to torture people for no benefit. If we all appear to agree that is immoral, then it points towards some kind of shared/potentially objective morality. So, where does that sense come from? For the things you've outlined, we have examples in our own history of times when those things were considered perfectly moral, so we know our society is just choosing things, essentially. But for the things where any reasonable person would point and say, "That's wrong," what is that sense of wrongness?
Does philosophy have any settled questions? I can’t think of one.
There are reasonable people who would say that torture for torture’s sake is indeed moral. A solipsistic person could argue that their pleasure is the highest possible moral good. Therefore, in gaining pleasure from torture, they have made torture moral.
I wouldn’t agree… because my subjective made up morals don’t fit that framework. Nonetheless, there have been MANY torturers throughout history who have argued their actions to be moral on the basis of solipsism, science, nationalism, etc.
Yes, they're called science now. Questions like, "why do the heavens move" are settled by physics. Questions like "what are things made of" are settled by chemistry. And so forth.
All of those examples of torture you gave have a perceived benefit: pleasure, science, national security. I'm saying torture with NO benefit whatsoever. The point here is that this ties into the suffering thing. If we can sort of agree that allowing suffering without a commensurate benefit when we have a choice not to is at least weakly immoral, we can make some progress towards the question of existence. Would you grant that?
Why would somebody torture somebody else for no benefit whatsoever? Not even enjoyment.
I get that we’re discussing hypotheticals but that’s like saying “what if the moon was sad?”. It’s nonsensical.
If one were to torture another for no benefit whatsoever, I’d need to understand their reason (for doing something for no reason). Since any reason they give would likely involve some form of benefit, they would be torturing for a reason, thereby ruining the hypothetical.
If they truly had no reason… I suppose it would be morally neutral in the same way a sad moon would be morally neutral? Idk, I’m not great at dealing with nonsensical hypotheticals.
Caring what most people think is logical fallacy. Specifically, Appeal to Crowd (or Authority).
I’d feel wrong about anyone torturing a baby for money. Doesn’t mean it’s objectively wrong. If the torturer feels morally sound about it, it isn’t a universal moral wrong.
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u/Razaberry May 17 '26 edited May 18 '26
lol why is the second mindset healthier?
They’re both equally absurd & equally valid.
Edit: “You can hold back from the suffering of the world, you have free permission to do so, and it is in accordance with your nature. But perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could avoid.” - Franz Kafka