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I am curious of others' attitudes. Do you feel we have a moral duty to help other human beings? I'm not speaking of our children, but other individuals. If so, who should we help and in what circumstance? Should we help other people's children? Our family? Our friends? Our coworkers? Acquaintances? Significant others? Ex-lovers? Strangers? Why should we help them? I'm leaving this question purposely vague to invite discussion.
I am curious of others' attitudes. Do you feel we have a moral duty to help other human beings? I'm not speaking of our children, but other individuals. If so, who should we help and in what circumstance? Should we help other people's children? Our family? Our friends? Our coworkers? Acquaintances? Significant others? Ex-lovers? Strangers? Why should we help them? I'm leaving this question purposely vague to invite discussion.
From an evolution point of view we tend to help those with whom we share DNA. Why because passing your sibling DNA is better than passing none of your own DNA. That is why socialism only works in very smalll groups where people share DNA and values.
However, this now contradicts some areas of the world where foreign DNA is favored over shared DNA. So who knows.
From an evolution point of view we tend to help those with whom we share DNA. Why because passing your sibling DNA is better than passing none of your own DNA. That is why socialism only works in very smalll groups where people share DNA and values.
However, this now contradicts some areas of the world where foreign DNA is favored over shared DNA. So who knows.
From that evolutionary survival standpoint, it can be shown that in communal species (and Homo sapiens is communal despite evidence to the contrary) being helpful to others in the group (even to distant relatives...the whole group IS related to some degree) is beneficial to the whole. To a point...continuing to pour effort into an unproductive individual can be a waste of energy that could be put to better use. Draining the tub faster than it can fill. But that becomes something other than a moral decision unless you consider that the development of morals is also a beneficial adaptation. Then you'd have to start asking whether morality/ethics are direct results of evolution or pleasant, non-essential side effects of it.
Last edited by Parnassia; 10-07-2019 at 01:03 PM..
That is one of the most complicated questions on Earth. That's the sort of thing the human brain thinks is easy, because our brains are good at just kind of skipping over the details to get to the end goal. It would cause any super computer to start smoking, then burst into flames from the power surge needed to answer that though, if it could try and really understood what it was trying to answer.
Yes I believe we do and have always done so. I have helped strangers. But it becomes a gray area because some people will take advantage of others and refuse to work or make their own way in the world. It goes without saying that people who are severely disabled, old, etc certainly deserve financial help from the government. We have given rides, done errands, etc for people in this situation.
Imagine a graph where the X axis is, from left to right, low sacrifice to high sacrifice. The Y axis is, from bottom to top, low urgency need to high urgency need.
Situations that fall into the lower right quadrant (high sacrifice - low urgency), you're less morally obliged to help, regardless of who the person is. Situations that fall into the upper left quadrant (low sacrifice - high urgency), you're more morally obliged to help, same caveat.
High urgency - high sacrifice is the quadrant that'd be interesting to debate. (Low urgency - low sacrifice tends to be managed adequately by politeness conventions, I think.)
So, there are two tiny people who live in your brain. One if them is named Philis and the other is named Gertrude.
Gertrude is actually a man, and he's been getting picked on for his name since forever, so he grew up into a large body-builder. He hasn't fought since existing high school...but he used to get into lots of fistfights. He has a loving family and he cares for nothing but them and people and beings he knows. He's a very loyal friend. He's a construction worker. He puts his heart into everything he does, and would go to the ends of the Earth for his friends, but he doesn't even think about the world beyond his local life.
Philis retired about a decade agoand has spent much of her time since researching and chatting on internet forums. She does tons of research and considers herself quite an intellectual.
Gertrude believes the purpose of life is to support one's family and just kind of live life as well as you can while it lasts. He doesn't care about anything beyond that.
Philis, on the other hand, has taken on a view of life that's more like...people are basically just all copies of each other. There are trivial differences like different memories and opinions and personalities, but the important stuff is all the same. Therefore, if you believe you should experience positive situations, it would be not just irrational, but delusional to believe anyone else shouldn't...because you'd essentially be wishing harm upon yourself. Her view is that the purpose of life is to maximize positive emotion for all life and minimize negative emotion for all life. She has all sorts of ideas for how to do this, ranging from just blowing up the universe, to forcing everyone into tiny rooms in which they're immobilized and force-fed happy drugs forever and never allowed to move ever again but nonetheless exist in eternal euphoria...or the considerably more traditional methods of just engaging in humanitarian actions. She doesn't have many friends, and those she does have don't really need her for much...just the occasional bit of emotional support or advice or watching the relative's kids and such. Her mind is more set on assisting the entirety of Earth. She perceives individual needs as more or less inconsequential compared to the success greater whole. She eventually realizes that not just humans need help. Animals do to...and not just individual animals too, but all species. She figures out ways to assist whole species, donating to companies that are inventing artificial meat products to reduce animal suffering and protesting factory farms.
Gertrude, on the other hand, has never donated to anything. He has taken in several stray cats and a couple dogs he's found though. They become his friends, in a way, in addition to his pets.
Philis would never take in a stray animal. She does, however, catch stray cats when she finds them and sends them off to be neutered or spaded. She sees this as the most human route. Philis thinks Gertrude taking in stray cats is a waste of time. She notes that we eat organisms as mentally complex as cats frequently. She thinks if Gertrude really wanted to help animals he'd be donating to companies inventing artificial meat products like she is.
Gertrude just thinks, "But Fluffy sure appreciates it, and so does Spot, and Ruffles."
And Gertrude does absolutely nothing to assist the planet, but he has a very fulfilling life, and Philis constantly strives to assist the planet, and all her efforts end up being for naught when the company building artificial meat products goes bankrupt anyway, but people behaving similar to her eventually invent a delicious artificial steak product, so in a very abstract way Philis's efforts did pay off because if nobody behaved like she did that delicious artificial steak product would be less likely to have been designed.
One day they met and got into a discussion that swiftly became an argument.
Gertrude said, "I'd rather be me than you. Your life sounds dull. You spend all day researching. Go have fun."
Philis says, "I don't matter. In the words of the Vulcans, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
And some would say Phillis's whole life was a failure, particularly because next year a rogue neutron star would blow up the Earth anyway, but some would still say her life was a success, because in an abstract way she did, kind of improve things, because even though her actions had no direct effect on anything, there was a high chance Earth wouldn't have been blown up by a neutron star and her actions would have, and if other people wouldn't have attempted similar empathetic acts as Philis due to concerns about risks making their attempts in vain nothing positive would ever be accomplished.
And Philis would say Gertrude's whole life was a failure, because he never accomplished anything meaningful or long term. He just took in a bunch of stray animals and helped his buddies.
And they're still arguing inside your brain to this day, with Gertrude insisting, "I am important! My family is important! My friends are important! My cats are important," and Philis saying, "No you're not. You can only be important if you focus on the greater good...and cats have a way of tormenting other animals. Yours do a lot of that. You feeding your cats causes extensive harm to the world around you. They don't even eat their prey most of the time. They just torment them until they died. We probably should euthanize all cats."
You're probably smarter than both of them so you make the decision about where to spend your energies.
Just read a paper about how helping others actually makes you feel good (lights up blah blah in your brain bc of neurotransmitter hooha xyz).
So it seems we're wired for it. Or at least wired to enjoy the experience.
Like my mom is wired to help everyone but then out-do Sally Field in the achingly distressing scene of being martyred and put upon.
Been a long day. Sorry for the curt reply.
For me it's simple. If I can help (in a way that does not hurt or enable the other person), I ask myself if I were in their shoes...what would I want? How would I feel?
Makes things easy.
"Do you feel -we- have a moral duty..."
i feel i have one.
you might too.
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