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I see it as a statement of accepting responsibility for our choices and as such make them based upon what we have verified to be true and not rely on the words of others. We can not use the excuse we blindly followed and were misled by another person.
It seems to me reducible to "If it feels good do it, if not dont" or something equally simplistic.
YES, that is exactly right!!
I have lived my entire 67 years by the philosophy, "If it feels good, do it."
Which to me is equivalent to "If it feels right, do it."
Either because of the way I was raised or because of the instinctive sense that I was born with, I know right from wrong, and I am a decent enough person to want to do what is right.
Well, not always. I recall cheating in golf a couple times by playing a ball that was just a little out-of-bounds, and I have been purposely nasty to people on rare occasions, and one time I bought a case of 24 cans of tennis balls and they gave me case of 48 and I didn't tell them, so I am not perfect. However, in each case my common sense told me I was doing something wrong, and that is why I have never forgotten these things, even after 50 years.
I have lived my entire 67 years by the philosophy, "If it feels good, do it."
Which to me is equivalent to "If it feels right, do it."
Either because of the way I was raised or because of the instinctive sense that I was born with, I know right from wrong, and I am a decent enough person to want to do what is right.
Well, not always. I recall cheating in golf a couple times by playing a ball that was just a little out-of-bounds, and I have been purposely nasty to people on rare occasions, and one time I bought a case of 24 cans of tennis balls and they gave me case of 48 and I didn't tell them, so I am not perfect. However, in each case my common sense told me I was doing something wrong, and that is why I have never forgotten these things, even after 50 years.
Darn you, I bought a case of 48 and only got 24 and ALWAYS wondered what happened.
Either because of the way I was raised or because of the instinctive sense that I was born with, I know right from wrong, and I am a decent enough person to want to do what is right.
Or.. another possibility.. you simply got lucky and this mantra you live by simply has not been challenged in a way as to sufficiently test it. Rest assured however that this is not true of everyone. There are many situations, and I exampled some already, where the right thing to do can feel very wrong due to many things from social conditioning to personal second guessing.
Many experiments have also been performed to highlight the failures of moral intuition in our species. I could endlessly list them but the most famous one in the train track disaster one. People are asked if they saw a train chundering towards 30 people and they could pull a lever to save them would they. Nearly 100% people say yes. If they are then told that pulling the lever would cause the train to change direction killing 1 single other person would they do it. They all still say yes. Ask them however if they knew pushing 1 person in front of the train themselves to save the 30 would work, would they, nearly 100% say no. Yet rationally it is still the same moral dilemma just phrased differently.
I do not want to go into the philosophical debate centered behind that one example - as normally happens when you give an example - but the point is we know very well our moral intuitions can fail us and quite often too. That is why I feel the advice in the OP is horrifically bad. It asks one to close down reason and simply follow a mantra which might not always apply.
If it always applied for you then that is great, perhaps you got lucky, but my counter advice is to ignore Mohammad's and instead consider each situation individually with all the knowledge, wisdom, intuition and precedent you can bring to bear on it.
Or.. another possibility.. you simply got lucky and this mantra you live by simply has not been challenged in a way as to sufficiently test it. Rest assured however that this is not true of everyone. There are many situations, and I exampled some already, where the right thing to do can feel very wrong due to many things from social conditioning to personal second guessing.
Many experiments have also been performed to highlight the failures of moral intuition in our species. I could endlessly list them but the most famous one in the train track disaster one. People are asked if they saw a train chundering towards 30 people and they could pull a lever to save them would they. Nearly 100% people say yes. If they are then told that pulling the lever would cause the train to change direction killing 1 single other person would they do it. They all still say yes. Ask them however if they knew pushing 1 person in front of the train themselves to save the 30 would work, would they, nearly 100% say no. Yet rationally it is still the same moral dilemma just phrased differently.
I do not want to go into the philosophical debate centered behind that one example - as normally happens when you give an example - but the point is we know very well our moral intuitions can fail us and quite often too. That is why I feel the advice in the OP is horrifically bad. It asks one to close down reason and simply follow a mantra which might not always apply.
If it always applied for you then that is great, perhaps you got lucky, but my counter advice is to ignore Mohammad's and instead consider each situation individually with all the knowledge, wisdom, intuition and precedent you can bring to bear on it.
If it always applied for you then that is great, perhaps you got lucky, but my counter advice is to ignore Mohammad's and instead consider each situation individually with all the knowledge, wisdom, intuition and precedent you can bring to bear on it.
I already explained that in post #14 and clarified it in post #24 which you just quoted but clearly did not actually read.
If there is a specific point in those posts you want clarified then ask, but the question above is merely inviting me to reiterate what I already said.
I already explained that in post #14 and clarified it in post #24 which you just quoted but clearly did not actually read.
If there is a specific point in those posts you want clarified then ask, but the question above is merely inviting me to reiterate what I already said.
If that is what makes you feel good.
Basically I see no difference between what hiker said and what you are saying. It still comes down to choosing what one sees as the best result. Perhaps you and hiker consider different things as best, but it is still a search for the best as one to be the best.
The same as what Muhammad said, which essentially is "Not accept anything, without doing your own search" Use your own efforts to verify and not accept anything simply because somebody said to. We each carry the personal responsibility to look for a reason and seek the best choice..
Yeah the throw away comments used to beef out posts do nothing for me, sorry. I have explained my position. Asking me to reiterate it with a throw away vague question is unhelpful. If you want a specific part of my position clarified I am more than willing to do so if you ask. The question you did ask however is not answerable in any way different from you asking "Could you repeat all that please?".
Quote:
Originally Posted by Woodrow LI
Basically I see no difference between what hiker said and what you are saying.
Perhaps a simpler distillation of it to appeal to the shorter attention span would help. The main crux of my issue with it is that the right thing to do does not always feel right or good, and the wrong thing to do sometimes does. I gave examples. Read them this time.
So the advice in the OP is a one size fits all catch all mantra which is not just useless but in some cases can be positively false and harmful in others.
Rather than simply going with the gut therefore on what "feels" right, I suggest people apply a little more. Such as actual reason rather than just emotional intuition. Maybe coupled with things like wisdom, advice from others, precedent of other similar situations and much much more. And one should be prepared to do the right thing despite emotional intuition rebelling against you, and fail to do the wrong thing in the face of its appeals to the contrary.
Yeah the throw away comments used to beef out posts do nothing for me, sorry. I have explained my position. Asking me to reiterate it with a throw away vague question is unhelpful. If you want a specific part of my position clarified I am more than willing to do so if you ask. The question you did ask however is not answerable in any way different from you asking "Could you repeat all that please?".
Perhaps a simpler distillation of it to appeal to the shorter attention span would help. The main crux of my issue with it is that the right thing to do does not always feel right or good, and the wrong thing to do sometimes does. I gave examples. Read them this time.
So the advice in the OP is a one size fits all catch all mantra which is not just useless but in some cases can be positively false and harmful in others.
Rather than simply going with the gut therefore on what "feels" right, I suggest people apply a little more. Such as actual reason rather than just emotional intuition. Maybe coupled with things like wisdom, advice from others, precedent of other similar situations and much much more. And one should be prepared to do the right thing despite emotional intuition rebelling against you, and fail to do the wrong thing in the face of its appeals to the contrary.
To the ancients the heart was not just the center of emotion, it was also the center of Logic and reasoning. At the time Muhammad was speaking He and his peers would have seen heart as relating to reason. You seem to be assuming that what feels best is simply an emotional feeling based upon personal likes or a warm fuzzy feeling.Sometimes what the heart dictates to be best is very painful.
In other words when you do what is best, the overall feeling you have is one of good, even if it was painful to do. When you do right you feel good about doing so even if it pains having done it.
I still see both you and hiker as saying basically the same things, except you are projecting hiker as relating only to the emotional aspect. I may be relating an erroneous aspect to hiker. But I see him as saying that for him to do what he feels is right makes him feel good. I see you as saying the same only with different words.
we know very well our moral intuitions can fail us and quite often too. That is why I feel the advice in the OP is horrifically bad.
You seem to feel very strongly about this, Nozz.
In the past, have you trusted your instincts and made some bad decisions, or has someone else done something that hurt you and kept insisting they were right?
As for myself, I have sometimes done nothing instead of doing what was right.
At the Univ. of Florida in 1965, the best eating place off-campus was the College Inn, which refused to serve black people. I went there to eat even though I did not agree with that policy. One day they had a demonstration - all people who believed they should allow black people to eat there should go there for dinner.
I recall driving by and seeing the line stretching around the block, but I didn't have the decency to join in, and I have regretted it.
As I recall, the College Inn changed their policy after the demonstration.
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