A philosophical/ethical question...

Post Reply New Topic

I think that's a really interesting issue and one I've thought about. I think that most psychotherapy (as well as 12 step programs, though I'm not as familiar with those) is actually based on that very notion: if the therapist can get the patient to believe in something, whether it's just an abstract sense of hopefulness or something more tangible, but no more real, like a higher power, then a person can cling to that and feel a lot better.

Would I want to believe in something that I find illogical and implausible in order to feel better? I feel so awful most of the time that it seems foolish to answer no, and yet... I don't want to believe something that I know is not real. And perhaps it's moot anyway because how could I force myself to believe something I don't believe?

It's true that one can see the glass as half empty or half full, and both of those are real, accurate perceptions, and it would be better to see it as half full. That's hard to do as well, so perhaps I'm just too ornery....

ZZZZZzzzzzzztT!! AAAaaaaaaahhhhhhh!


AAAAahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

We were shown a video of this in high school, and we were told that nobody was seriously hurt in these experiments. At the time I thought it was really funny, and then I thought it was even funnier when we were told that the people weren't even being shocked. At that time, I couldn't understand why there was controversy over the ethics of this experiment. Nobody was really being shocked, so what's the big deal?

It was only years later that I realized that things would be awkward between the shockers and "victims" because of the establishment of what one group would willingly do to the other. But I still think it's a little bit funny.

Yes I can relate to this. It really sucks not to have ANY solace in this life, even if that solace comes in the form of an illusion. Nonetheless...I also have a strong aversion to ANYTHING which is not reality-based and insufficiently supported by science and reason. Even if these things come in the form of something inexpressibly painful for me. This is why I never get the christians (and certain other religious people maybe) who claim that non-believers are damned to hell. They actually believe my atheism is a choice, that it has something to do with "free will". Sorry....but it's just impossible for me to wrap my mind around the notion of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent personal god considering the sort of world we live in. They can slice anyway they want and their rationalizations for the existence of this being do little but reinforce my disbelief.


Now I know i'm likely to encounter some flak for this but we Aspies/NLD-ers and maybe others on the spec certainly SEEM like a disproportionately pessimistic and unhappy bunch.


If so.....maybe that has something to do with our supposed strengths in analytical reasoning.


I'm kidding....but not really. While I have no scientific data to support this....some groups of people certainly SEEM more pessimistic and unhappy than others.

Just an observation....I could be very wrong.

I can so relate to this. I STILL think Milgram's shocking experiment was utterly hilarious.
I remember I got plenty of funny looks in my high school psych class when I burst out laughing when we saw the video of Watson conditioning a baby to be afraid of a rabbit by having the baby correlate loud, scary noises with the rabbit... God, psychological studies are always a riot

How can you guys possibly find the Milgram Experiment funny? It basically proves that most humans are sick and would be willing to harm you with nothing more than a bit of verbal coercion. Looking around at the world, this definitely appears to be the truth. Most people are incredibly stupid and, being too lazy to think for themselves, would sooner follow sadistic instructions than stop and ponder over the ethics.

We live in a sad place where most people are essentially brainless, which makes them vulnerable to manipulation, which makes them a severe threat in the sense that these tools (I mean that in a slang way and in the more literal sense) can be wielded against anybody the wielder deems an inconvenience. In other words, we'd be much safer if these people (read: most people) were killed off. There's nothing "hilarious" about that. It's depressing to think that, in a sense, the only way to prevent Hitler-esque tactics (manipulating the masses for sinister purposes) would be to eliminate these vulnerable people--which mirrors what Hitler did, and what we'd be trying to stop in the first place. We live in a very screwed up, paradoxical world with no apparent fix.

The question is at least moderately ambiguous but the way I’m interpreting it the answer is no, it’s not morally justifiable.



No, not really.



Call me dense but for me this isn’t much of a hint.

I mostly concur with you here though I don't feel there's a correlation between intelligence (no matter how we define it) and cruelty.

I'm wondering if you or anyone else has seen Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's documentary (and/or read the book of the same title) "Worse than War".

I think his explorations into the concept of "overkill" are particularily relevant to what we're discussing here:


http://www.pbs.org/wnet/worse-than-war/ ... e-film/17/


PBS has aired it over the past week and I don't think Goldhagen would dispute anything you said here save possibly my own aforementioned disagreement. I myself have never really bought the whole "just following orders" excuse. That's not to say I don't believe most SS men (for one example) tortured and murdered because they feared the obvious consequences of refusing to do so. I also realize that they were heavily indoctrinated and probably truly believed their victims were subhumans who threatened the well-being of the "Aryan race".

Nevertheless and notwithstanding.....I think many more people than we realize are just dyed-in-the-wool sadists who, in "normal" society, grudgingly restrain their sadistic impulses OUT OF FEAR. That is....they fear the possible legal, personal and physical consequences of acting sadistically in "civilized" society. This is what differentiates them from defacto psychopaths who DON'T seem to fear consequences and often enough, become serial killers, rapists, etc.....Many studies have shown that psychopaths simply don't process fear like non-psychopaths do. Consider the legal and relatively socially-acceptable (meaning anything other than murder, serious physical torture, physical assault and rape) behavior of many people in our society. I think we quite a bit of sadism on display in our sporting events, movies, music, schools, workplaces, "reality" TV shows, video games, internet forums, etc.....

So I believe that all it takes for many NON-psychopaths with sadistic inclinations to act upon these propensities is an officially-sanctioned, or in some cases, merely peer-approved, reason. I frankly don't think many even need to view their vicitims as threatening or "subhuman" so long as they know their actions won't involve any negative consequences.


So it really doesn't seem to matter if a person meets the diagnostic criteria for anti-social personality disorder or some other diagnostic label associated with psychopathy. Rather...I believe you will see many non-psychopaths behaving exactly like psychopaths often do so long as they know (or at least strongly believe) there will be no consequences for their actions. And many of these non-psychopaths will probably gain just as much pleasure from their sadistic actions as genuine psychopaths like Ted Bundy and Lawrence Bittaker gained apparently gained from their own.


Many human beings just enjoy being cruel for cruelty's sake. I learned that a long time ago in elementary school. Sadism and cruelty of any kind digusts me to no end and my own misanthropy is entirely motivated by it. Sadism is just an unfortunately common perversion of the self-deification/affirmation/validation/actualization drive present in us all.

When I read first time about Milgram's Experiment, I wanted to repeat it or do sth similar

When someone's mother is pregnant with them there is a reasonable possibility of predicting whether their life will be difficult in terms of finances, hunger, or parental love. Also, the birth of a person into a life where they are likely to be happy does not guarantee or cause another person to be more likely to have an unhappy life.

Because empathy is something I had to develop along the way. When I was in high school, I laughed when I first learned about this experiment, and everyone thought I was nuts. Even bad news would not register with me in the "normal" way. While growing up, I had problems with understanding what it's like to be another person or how I am affecting how they feel, or so I have been told on multiple occasions. I still have a kind of streak for sick humor where I probably would find it funny if non injurious electric shocks were given.

This leaves me with more questions:

How is killing this person going to make these people happy? Who is this individual? Did they do something to the other people? Are they a fascist dictator? Exactly how do we define happiness, here? How can we be sure that these people will be happy as a result of murdering this person? Why is torture necessary> Are these hundreds of people worth saving if they honestly need to see someone being tortured and murdered to be genuinely happy? What is the price of happiness? Is this the only option? Etc etc etc....

How can you not find the milgram experiment absolutely f@*king hilarious !

Seriously...I cant believe people actually think people as a collective whole lean. They don’t …

That’s why history repeats it’s self ,over, and over ,and over…So few people can contextualize the present world we live in. what makes people think those same people can contextualize the past world history.

They cant !

Now what I’m about to say isn’t funny.

I give it 150 years or less before another egotistical ass clown with some bright polished shiny medals in a kaki uniform, becomes a leader and decides to villainies’ some minority group of people, convince or forces the proletariats and bourgeois classes to efficiently and mechanically exterminate this minority, and causes some type of world conflict.

The atrocities that occurred during WW2 in the hands of the Nazis was only just over 60 years ago… 60 years in relative terms to the age of the earth is like a Pico second in time to the earth, and just a blink in time to the time of existence of homo sapiens.

We as a species has not hyper evolved in terms of our intuitive and innate natures. We as humans still have the primitive sub cortical structures of our brains that most less minded beast have. And those substructures still have immense command over our sub conscious and conscious states of our mind.

We as humans typically don’t realize our primitive natures because of the distractive nature of out technologies and our denial of our true standing in the universe, earth and mammalian worlds… Many people think we as humans should be able to think past and control our innate and intuitive natures with our white mattered and evolved cortexes. That is nothing but a delusional fallacy of ideology.

It’s like trying to force a group of rabbits to stop f %*king each other… You cant!

The milgram experiment is just proof of our still primitive natures… The alpha male or being still has control and power over the underlings just like any other species of animal. We still fight wars over women, recourses, and mark our territories etc… If all hell broke loose and an Armageddon like scenario occurs. The primordial nature will expose it’s self just like any other animal in a similar situation…

( lord of the flies)

Religion teaches that humanity is the center of the universe. The truth is we are absolutely insignificant to the universe and earth , and only significant to our selves… Even if all humanity where to be wiped off the earth. The earth will still have its place in time and space…

Last edited by Ardent_Eccentric on 17 Apr 2010, 7:16 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I have to say that we can talk here about if... then... I'd... I'll... if... if... if... - but none of us were in this situation. It's hardcore and person does totally other things than supposed. People in stress become sb else, really!

Many people say If I could kill sb without punishment, I'd do this! But if they got a gun and were told Do it!, most of them would give up*. It's sth like sexual fantasies - people dream, but they don't make it real, don't want it really.


* I said above that I wanted to repeat similar experiment... who's gonna join me and check this out? Ofc without any harm

It is very simple. People are ends in themselves, not the means to the ends of others.

ruveyn

HA HA... I'm all for it!

I have a Ukrainian friend who has a old soviet army officer uniform… we could use the uniform for the authority figure in the experiment… That would be funny and cool ….

The story I found to be moving, but I dont really see any literal parallel to reality, nor any purpose in the hypothetical question. Except as a thought experiment with some result, which would be im not sure what. To make me make this reply i guess. Im debating whether to say this because it really doesnt mean anything because the set up is in no way remotely practical, nor does it appear to provide any sort of principle as the mechanism of its function. But in theory if all the factors could be weighed and evaluated, it could be worth it. Not for 100 under any circumstance, but if it is a greater ultimate ratio. The factors would be, do these others deserve their happiness? Does their happiness produce something useful or progressive? And does the suffering eventually lead to numbing of the senses and less suffering? I honestly dont know why i went there because the idea has no connection to reality, and is nonsensical on so many levels. And I want to make it clear I absolutely abhor the idea that anyone would be made to suffer in this way, but I am compelled by pragmatic forces to address that technically as an equation could that be better than the world as it is with so much suffering anyway? Alas logic really doesn't apply though as this is in no way a logical idea based in reality.

Furthermore how do we define happiness? For me i am incapable of certain 'shades' of happiness i see reflected in others, the non-autistic for example, and certain individuals more than others. Occasionally I feel envious of these, but for the most part I see simple bliss as indicative of a simple and narrow frame of mind, which i am by comparison grateful to have what i feel is a wider view of things. Though it my cost me ever knowing simple bliss, or only incredibly rarely approaching never, i feel the trade off is i have a richer and more comprehensive capacity to appreciate certain aspects of the world around me.

So since we cant really define happiness, how could we say what these people feel is really a kind of happiness we would want? Much happiness I believe is defined by its contrast to states of suffering, so if one is not made to suffer what could really be their quality of happiness?