You don’t think even a vague boundary can be found? To me it seems pretty self-evident by looking at extremes; e.g., torturing puppies all day is obviously worse than playing with puppies all day.
Animal testing.
And even enjoying torturing puppies all day is merely considered “more evil” because it’s a predictor of psychopathy.
So I think maybe I leapt into this exchange uncarefully, without being clear about what I was defending. I am defending the meaningfulness & utility of a distinction between good & evil actions (not states of affairs). Note that a distinction does not require a sharp dividing line (yellow is not the same as red, but the transition is not sudden).
I also foresee a potential disagreement about meta-ethics, but that is just me “extrapolating the trend of the conversation.”
Anyway, getting back to good vs evil: I am not especially strict about my use of the word “evil” but I generally use it to describe actions that (a) do a lot of harm without any comparably large benefit, AND (b) proceed from a desire to harm sentient creatures.
Seen in this light it is obvious why torturing puppies is evil, playing with them is good, and testing products on them is ethically debatable (but not evil, because of the lack of desire to harm). None of this is particularly earth-shattering as philosophical doctrine.
And even enjoying torturing puppies all day is merely considered “more evil” because it’s a predictor of psychopathy.
Not if you think animals’ interests count morally, which I do explicitly, and virtually everybody does implicitly.
I think your philosophy is probably fairly normal, it’s just any attempt to simplify such things looks like an open challenge to point out corner cases. Don’t take it too seriously.
Also I’m not fully convinced on whether animals’ interests count morally, even though they do practically by virtue of triggering my empathy. Aside from spiders. Those can just burn. (Which is an indicator that animals only count to me because they trigger my empathy, not because I care)
Animal testing.
And even enjoying torturing puppies all day is merely considered “more evil” because it’s a predictor of psychopathy.
So I think maybe I leapt into this exchange uncarefully, without being clear about what I was defending. I am defending the meaningfulness & utility of a distinction between good & evil actions (not states of affairs). Note that a distinction does not require a sharp dividing line (yellow is not the same as red, but the transition is not sudden).
I also foresee a potential disagreement about meta-ethics, but that is just me “extrapolating the trend of the conversation.”
Anyway, getting back to good vs evil: I am not especially strict about my use of the word “evil” but I generally use it to describe actions that (a) do a lot of harm without any comparably large benefit, AND (b) proceed from a desire to harm sentient creatures.
Seen in this light it is obvious why torturing puppies is evil, playing with them is good, and testing products on them is ethically debatable (but not evil, because of the lack of desire to harm). None of this is particularly earth-shattering as philosophical doctrine.
Not if you think animals’ interests count morally, which I do explicitly, and virtually everybody does implicitly.
I think your philosophy is probably fairly normal, it’s just any attempt to simplify such things looks like an open challenge to point out corner cases. Don’t take it too seriously.
Also I’m not fully convinced on whether animals’ interests count morally, even though they do practically by virtue of triggering my empathy. Aside from spiders. Those can just burn. (Which is an indicator that animals only count to me because they trigger my empathy, not because I care)
But.. but.. they just want to give you a hug.