https://medium.com/@AmericanPublicU/drowning-child-scenario-exposes-moral-hypocrisy-part-i-4b308e36b1d5

https://medium.com/@AmericanPublicU/drowning-child-scenario-exposes-moral-hypocrisy-part-ii-257e1e9e5475

i cant function anymore the knowledege that my life is obnjectively worst for everyone else because i consume so many resources fucks with my head i dont wan tto spend my entire life slaving for moral purposes but i know its right i dont know what to do i think im having some kind of mental breakdown

  • Interloper [none/use name]
    ·
    2 years ago

    i dont understand this weird debate bro 'thought experiment' and i don't get why the author thinks it's so airtight. of course it's a highly unreasonable position to say that you should be donating all money and spending all free time saving children around the world. this is moronic and bad thinking.

    a much more measured and reasonable claim would be to point out the hypocrisy in all the counter arguments (as in the second article) for people who do NOTHING to help children but espouse these values. but for the rest of us we fall somewhere in the middle. we DO donate to unhoused people, charities or political and social causes. we DO work in our community to better people's lives. we DO save children when we are passing by and they are in need of help. we do all kinds of things on a day to day basis to better other people's lives and existences. but to say that it's all or nothing is absolutely wrong and can't be taken seriously as a reasonable or even serious argument.

    you do what you can, with what you have, when you can. to ask anybody to donate their life to saving other people is ridiculous and the argument can easily be turned in on itself if you consider that a person who takes this burden upon themselves will be crushed to the soul by the burden, which therefore necessitates other people easing the burden. which is the whole fucking point. we're a collective. we don't make collective and systemic problems individuals' problems to solve alone. that is pure insanity. we come together to spread the weight of the burden and make each other's lives better. so that we don't have to spend all fucking day and all of our money and effort and time and resources into saving random children around the world.

    this thought experiment doesn't seem airtight to me at all. it's like a 14 year old who took a philosophy class and thinks they can own everyone with their superior logic. it's stupid. the answer is obvious and has been the same for as long as humans have existed and had the ability to do literally anything: we are stronger as a collective and we stand on the shoulders of those before us.

    edit: sorry, i realized this may have come off as kinda hostile and i definitely didn't mean that at op. i just feel frustrated at the sentiment of the articles because it basically feels like what all theory and no praxis does to a mfer.