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Originally Posted by Lucem Ferre
Then he could kill himself, it's not my burden to carry.
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That's not at all the question.
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Not really. His suffering already existed and you didn't cause it.
This is an event you have the ability to prevent where people are completely dependent on you. The other situation he's not. Unless we're talking assisted suicide or euthanasia.
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Yes really. In the trolly scenario you also don't directly cause the deaths of the larger number of people. You fail to act in a way that would interfere and save them which requires actively killing someone else. But the circumstance which was going to kill them already existed, and not by your hand, just like the homeless guy's suffering.
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Yeah, but I never said I was a utilitarian. That's just what you used to describe me.
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The arguments you are using are basic utilitarian arguments that have been around for centuries, whether you're aware of that or not.
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All of those things account for causing suffering and happiness.
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Not necessarily, no.
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Even then, that's kind of a lie. You were saying that morality is cultural.
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I say biology equips us with a basic capacity for morality which is then shaped specifically by culture. That doesn't contradict anything I've said here.
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No, you were over simplifying things to fit the narrative that my views are overly simple and rejecting any possible nuance I throw at it.
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you yourself declared your views as simple when you said it all boils down to what harms/helps.