At last a discussion on the issue. A can of worms indeed, judging what are the consequences of an action in the long term, when of course we are all dead. Nobody can see clear to the end of the world so I guess the utilitarian would answer as far as I can see. That's how we do things in our everyday life, whether to fish or cut bait, sink or swim, have a yellow beer or a pale ale. Maybe the water is kind of choppy, but on the other hand the cupboard is empty. Possibly the better course is go go hungry for a day and come back tomorrow when the water is calmer and you are less likely to go to a watery grave. But as far as you can see the water doesn't look all that choppy, so you go out and fish because as far as you can see, you'll come home safely with a stringer full of fish,
Likewise the upstanding citizen, of course it is possible he will spend the money on booze and come to a bad end, but as far as you can see, it doesn't seem,likely, so you give him the buck.
As far as the karma (I would like to use the term points from the tv show because it seems like what I am talking about, but I am not familiar with the show, and maybe it means something else.), I would think it rings up when you complete the act, otherwise it would be like a portfolio of stocks, the results of your generosity going up and down as events unfolded. It would be like where a guy beats up another guy who ends up in the hospital and he is charged with battery, but then the other guy dies and now he is charged with murder, and sometimes the guy lingers for months, even years before he dies and then the guy is still charged with murder which seems a bit extreme to me, but I have gotten off target.
Ah, but is this upright citizen the best recipient of our buck? Doesn't that guy on the next corner look even more upright, more likely to put our buck to better use? Well what then? Are we supposed to weigh this all out, like choosing the proper stock? I think so. I think it's not enough to be generous, I think you have to be generous and smart.
If you had the stoic attitude you would not have to be smart at all, since the consequences don't matter, the act is good or bad in and of itself. If you had to set up your own stoic system I think it would behoove you to think through what things are good and what are bad. Of course you could adopt a religion or some philosophy which had it all mapped out, but, I don't know, that doesn't sit well with me, kind of like giving up your free will, which is a strange thing for me to say since I don't believe in free will. /
By the time we have a written language we have religion, so how can we say which came first, morality or religion? I would say that it's hard to believe that any society could have hung together long enough to invent a religion without having morality. What about the Greeks? They had kind of a nutty storybook religion, but I think it's generally believed that their philosophers didn't believe any of that, and when they wrote on ethics they didn't borrow on any god to back them up on it.
And now we see the ultimate in Objective Reality in Dumbo. He refuses to back down on his inauguration turnout and that thing about the three to five million illegal voters. In the case of the turnout it really doesn't matter if what he said is true or not/ In the case of the second it certainly means a lot if it is true, and there certainly should be an investigation into it.
But nobody believes either one and it's a bit of a wonder why Dumbo keeps pushing it, except I think he is used to being around yes men and to call the boss on a lie is to be subordinate,. It's one thing to back a guy who says he's going to build a wall and have the Mexicans pay for it, and another to back a guy who is wearing a red tie and insists that it is blue.
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