Viewing a single comment thread. View all comments

phenamen t1_iwnxi1u wrote

Reply to comment by clairelecric in Utilitarianism is the only option — but you have to take conscious experience seriously first by Squark09

It's bad for any subject, therefore it's objectively bad insofar as subjectivity exists

3

clairelecric t1_iwoajb4 wrote

That doesn't follow logically at all. For instance, it is mostly bad from the perspective of said subject, but maybe not from a different perspective. Also, suffering can be an important signal to ourselves that something is amiss. So you might say "but then we try to solve the suffering so then we prove that suffering is bad because we want to get rid of it". Well, you could argue that, but you could also argue that without the suffering we wouldn't change for the better. The suffering is a means to an end. Without it we wouldn't know there was some kind of (subjective) problem.

1

phenamen t1_iwoilxr wrote

You're absolutely right about the counterargument that I'm going to make but I don't think that your rebuttal is sound. How else can we understand "change for the better" except as creating personal habits or relationships which more consistently produce happiness than suffering?

1

clairelecric t1_iwoy9fz wrote

Surely you see that many of our ideas of better or worse are constructions? For the person seeking enlightenment going into refuge and isolation is better. For someone else it might be getting more friends. For another it's faith in God.

Let's say there's an alien species looking at us and considering us detrimental to the planet and potentially our solar system. Let's say they look at our self destruction with joy and a sense of justice. Does that possibility not prove there is no objective bad?

1