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Comment by emptysongglass | Hacker News Reader

This is really silly and largely a result of our Western desire to turn everything into an impartial science when the experience of life is anything but.

Ethics are not arbitrary. If you do violence to me, that causes me suffering. If you have sex with my husband or my wife without my consent, that's gonna cause me suffering. Both of these things are also highly likely to cause you suffering because most people who are not sociopaths do not enjoy the direct experience of causing someone suffering and suffer guilt for bad actions.

The cycle of suffering is universal to all living things. There's absolutely nothing arbitrary about it.

Don't do things that are shitty to other people does not need a postmodern deconstruction to be understood.

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Well those are very simple scenarios, but very quickly you get to a place where things are not so clear. For example, as soon as you need to compare two sufferings, you find trouble: is it ethical to kill before being killed? is it the same to have your neighbour suffer vs. someone whose suffering is far away and you don't perceive? It it better to have a child suffer, an adult, or an old man? Two people suffering less vs. one people more? Future people vs. current people? What's the relationship of not being alive / not being born / dying, to the avoidance of suffering?

Different people have different ethical opinions, so it is not so clear cut.

You're wrapping yourself up in mental games here, exactly what I was criticizing. The majority of people the vast majority of time are not encountering trolley problems. Start with the basics of not choosing to inflict what is harmful to others you encounter in your life.

As an example, surely you are aware about the ongoing discussions about whether abortion is ethical? Do you think people are just playing mental games for fun when they discuss that? Do you really think that it is not two different ethical systems clashing?

No I don't think people are playing mental games for fun. I think debates like these are not centered on the individual and their own responsibility to their and another's suffering.

In the case of abortion it's still the case that the mother is engaged in her own inquiry of harm. Notice how I've not brought myself into the picture.

That doesn't mean it can't be a complex inquiry but it is still her own inquiry and it is firmly rooted in suffering.

You have completely ignored the babies suffering here.

Until you can recognize in cases of abortion there are two parties with different interests we cannot make progress. (we probably cannot even after understanding that, but maybe we can be civil)

But basing your ethics on suffering rather than say some other model of virtue is arbitrary.

It's not arbitrary because suffering is universal and unwanted by those who experience it.

But that doesn’t make it a universal basis for ethics.

If you can come up with a better basis than that experienced by all living organisms, the floor is open for you to make your pitch.

> Both of these things are also highly likely to cause you suffering because most people who are not sociopaths do not enjoy the direct experience of causing someone suffering and suffer guilt for bad actions.

Why would someone having sex with your wife cause them suffering?

From all the gunshot wounds?

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