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No one's denying the existence of compassion. Compassion means feeling bad for someone because you wouldn't want to be in their place, so there's nothing about it that disproves psychological egoism.
But why should I feel bad if I didn't make my partner suffer?
I cheat on my partner.
I gain pleasure.
The other person I'm with gains pleasure.
My partner does not know and therefore does not suffer.
So...what about when your partner DOES find out about your cheating, and is presumably hurt.
No one's denying the existence of compassion. Compassion means feeling bad for someone because you wouldn't want to be in their place, so there's nothing about it that disproves psychological egoism.
No, that's not what compassion means. Compassion is when you suffer based on the plight of another. When vegetarians experience heart break over factory farming it's not because they don't want to be in the animals place. Stop being so obtuse. This is not rocket science.
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But why should I feel bad if I didn't make my partner suffer?
I don't think you should feel anything nor do I think you are capable of experiencing what is being discussed here. Integrity and conviction are very personal. They are not apps you can purchase on iTunes. The decision not to cheat is no different than a decision not to be lazy at your job, or a decision not to litter when you're walking alone on the beach. It speaks to your core values, to who you are. And while you would like to box that up in societal dictation, human physiology and biochemistry won't allow such a simpleton framework.
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I cheat on my partner.
I gain pleasure.
The other person I'm with gains pleasure.
My partner does not know and therefore does not suffer.
Final tally:
People who felt pleasure 2
People who suffered 0
There's no one to feel compassion for.
It's not that hard a concept to grasp, really.
no, it's not. Your thinking is quite common. You're a cow in the herd and that's the case for many, which is, again, based on your physiology.
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Sure is easy to call my arguments "psychobabble" just because you can't provide any logical reasons why they're not valid.
I have. It's like taking candy from a baby. Soft science is bad enough, but babble from an armchair layman draws a line in the sand.
I cheat on my partner.
I gain pleasure.
The other person I'm with gains pleasure.
My partner does not know and therefore does not suffer.
Final tally:
People who felt pleasure 2
People who suffered 0
There's no one to feel compassion for.
It's not that hard a concept to grasp, really.
So you would not feel any guilt for cheating at all? You wouldn't feel untrustworthy? Looking at your partner, it wouldn't make you feel badly that you were playing her for a fool? It wouldn't eat at you to know you are taking advantage of your partners trust? It would just be all pleasure for you?
I couldn't imagine doing that and not feeling like total piece of shyt and a complete loser everytime I looked at my husbands face. When they go out of their way to do something nice for you, try to make you feel good, tell you how much they love you..etc...how could you look at that person and not feel any guilt at all?
So...what about when your partner DOES find out about your cheating, and is presumably hurt.
At what point did your cheating become "wrong?"
That's the thing about life - there are no actions that are inherently "right" or "wrong." It all depends on the context.
To give you a crass but simple example, passing gas noisily might be not be "wrong" to do if you're at home alone, but it would be most likely considered "wrong" if done around other people, especially people you don't know. Why? Because in the second case, you are hurting other people.
Same goes for cheating. It's not "wrong" if your spouse doesn't find out about it.
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Originally Posted by Braunwyn
No, that's not what compassion means. Compassion is when you suffer based on the plight of another. When vegetarians experience heart break over factory farming it's not because they don't want to be in the animals place. Stop being so obtuse. This is not rocket science.
And why do you think we suffer based on the plight of another? Because we wouldn't want to be in their place. We know that they are capable of suffering and therefore are aware that we would not someone else to treat us that way.
Why do you not feel compassion for a rock that is kicked by someone? Because you know that a rock isn't sentient and therefore cannot possibly feel pain, therefore there would be no point to thinking "what if I were in its place?"
You're right, it's not rocket science.
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no, it's not. Your thinking is quite common. You're a cow in the herd and that's the case for many, which is, again, based on your physiology.
I have. It's like taking candy from a baby. Soft science is bad enough, but babble from an armchair layman draws a line in the sand.
My argument is quite simply that life is pragmatic.
Life doesn't care if the only reason why you're helping those poor kids is to get famous, because, at the end of the day, both you and the poor kids benefit from your actions.
Life doesn't care if your shooting someone was accidental, because you thought they were a deer; the end result is that that person is dead, and your rationale will not bring them back.
Life doesn't care that the reason why you got home too late to save your wife who was bleeding because she was stabbed by a robber was because you were stuck in traffic; she's dead, get over it.
(These are purely fictional examples obviously)
Likewise, it doesn't matter if you cheated on someone or not as long as they do not know about it, because in the end, no one has suffered. You can say that cheating is dangerous because of STDs, pregnancy etc., but those are very easy to avoid, and this argument extends beyond cheating with strangers, to cheating with people you know as well.
Look, we can keep shooting metaphors on each other or you can start trying to prove me wrong logically.
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Originally Posted by *Sixy*
So you would not feel any guilt for cheating at all? You wouldn't feel untrustworthy? Looking at your partner, it wouldn't make you feel badly that you were playing her for a fool? It wouldn't eat at you to know you are taking advantage of your partners trust? It would just be all pleasure for you?
I couldn't imagine doing that and not feeling like total piece of shyt and a complete loser everytime I looked at my husbands face. When they go out of their way to do something nice for you, try to make you feel good, tell you how much they love you..etc...how could you look at that person and not feel any guilt at all?
You are definitely built from a different mold.
Why would I feel guilty? I wouldn't have hurt my partner. I wouldn't have stopped loving them or loved them less.
Why do you have to equate having sex with love? I could have sex with all the women on this planet and only love one of them.
Sex is only a physical act, you are the one who can choose to give it a deeper meaning.
In fact, you could easily love more than one person, in which case you might want to consider whom you love more and want to spend most of your time with, but that's not always possible either, and I don't really want to go off topic.
The bottom line is, I would only feel guilty about hurting another person (because I wouldn't want to be hurt by someone else). Things like trust and loyalty are abstract concepts created by us humans. They mean nothing in the broader context of life.
Why do you have to equate having sex with love? I could have sex with all the women on this planet and only love one of them.
Sex is only a physical act, you are the one who can choose to give it a deeper meaning.
I agree with that. Sex is a physical act and it's people who want to get over emotional about it.It's over romanticized. I agree with you there.
I notice that he didn't answer my question about "when" it becomes wrong to cheat if your partner finds out and is hurt.
I did answer your question, but apparently you were too focused on automatically denying everything I wrote to notice.
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Originally Posted by KathrynAragon
Guess what - for lots of emotionally healthy people, sex is a potent mixture of the physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual.
For me, it's emptiest form is when it's reduced to merely a physical act. Not satisfying in the long run whatsoever.
Same goes for me, actually. I don't like to have sex with someone I'm not in love with.
But a lot of people are different. And besides, it doesn't have to be satisfying in the long run, just for a little while, once or twice.
Guess what - for lots of emotionally healthy people, sex is a potent mixture of the physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual.
For me, it's emptiest form is when it's reduced to merely a physical act. Not satisfying in the long run whatsoever.
We'll agree to disagree. It's just physical. There is no mental, spiritual or emotional factor for me when it comes to having sex. Getting the rocks off and it's simple as that.
I certainly don't feel that way. Cheating is a lot like all those things- stealing, abusive, humiliating, embarrassing. It's all the same- an abuse of trust.
But it seems cheating is always the deal breaker. Suppose you are a Millionaire and your spouse comes in an says either : Honey we're broke or Honey I cheated on you. Which is more likely to make you divorce that person?
Right, because you're bound to get an STD if you cheat on your partner.
it's not really up to you decide what's a reasonable risk for someone else. Reasonable to you is not reasonable to a lot of people. There are also stds like herpes which are fairly common (i have it), and while not a dramatic life changer it's still not something anyone wants to wake up with and deal with it. especially an innocent party.
but that's all besides the point. the worst thing you're doing by cheating is cheating her out of a relationship she believes she's having.
to give an example:
say you buy a knock off brand shirt for the price of the brand. The salesman lied through his teeth, and you not being smarter for it, believed him and coughed up the cash. Is that morally ok because you don't know you've been tricked?
Even if she doesn't find out explicit you're cheating and doesn't get an std, there can be negative repercussions that are very subtle but do appear. like a change of attitude of you to her, less time between you and her, less money for you and her, and a profound loss of respect for her that you now have.
back to my example, that shirt could easily wear away much faster than it should have. You might not realize why, but it's still a negative consequence of that initial lie.
I understand people are people and we are gonna do wrong things all the time. But it's best to be honest with ourselves when we're doing wrong and when we're doing right so we do more right than wrong.
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