This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
You are coming to this from utilitarian standpoint and here I'd have to agree with you, support of euthanasia is perfectly fine in that horrible worldview. The only obstacle here is something like parasitic relationship that some utilitarians have toward deontological moral systems such as Christianity - where they keep some of the deontological axioms, and then slap them onto their version of utilitarianism in order to prevent themselves going full retard, also resolving some unpleasant cognitive dissonances. Something like Adding Up to Normality where "eating babies" is for some reason axiomatically bad without further explanation. I could have argued with you on your grounds, the usual angle would be mentioning let's say mentally handicapped people who share most characteristics with seniors you mentioned and then some - and then go with that. But I won't, as I think the whole premise of utilitarianism is wrong.
What we see is real-time dissolution of these unspoken axioms as more and more people are raised outside of traditional morals, and who find these axioms less relevant. So we now perfectly accept that it is okay for young mother to kill her own baby in her womb just to improve her career prospects. Nothing to see here, in fact let's throw a party. We now accept that euthanasia is perfectly good option for 29 years old with depression to end her life. Yay, heroic doctors just eliminated bunch of negative utils from the universe, where is the champagne? I tend to think that this is the feature and not a bug of utilitarianism in its pure form. Euthanasia is just another of those lines, those "normality" axioms under attack. And you are just "not persuaded" and refuse irrational religious moral arguments that "life is sacred". Okay. Just beware, because in couple of decades somebody else may not be "persuaded" that things like "free choice" is sacred - it basically stems from some religious "bullshit" about how we were all created as morally equal or some such nonsense - and then they will just euthanize people for greater good.
So yes, I would argue that life is sacred and that euthanasia is wrong based on virtue ethics principles. You will remain unpersuaded I guess, but then you neither persuaded me that euthanasia is such a terrific thing and we should all jump on that bandwagon. Mostly because I do not submit to your utilitarian moral reasoning with your sacred utils.
More options
Context Copy link