Comment by [deleted] on 25/01/2020 at 16:31 UTC

22 upvotes, 3 direct replies (showing 3)

View submission: Reductio: if we consider merely affecting the environment to be morally wrong, we face the conclusion that our existence is evil. This indicates we have made a mistake...

Your entire premise is based on a false dichotomy. Any affect on the environment as a whole? If you push a seed that has fallen from a tree into the soil with just a finger, your premise would describe you as evil. When you take this approach you're rationalizing the extreme views that are against the idea as a whole.

The issue isn't having an affect on "the environment" as a whole. The issue is a complete lack of stewardship over the environment while it's being exploited economically. The extraction of wealth and sustainability for short term gains while ignoring any fallout, is where we start seeing a lack of morality.

When you're going to claim something is evil, it does help to actually define the word then, and I'm personally fond of this definition:

• **“In my work with the defendants (at the Nuremberg Trials 1945-1949)***
• **I was searching for the nature of evil and I now think I have come close to defining it. A lack of empathy. It’s the one characteristic that connects all the***
• **defendants, a genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow men.***

• **Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy.”***

• *Quotation:** **Captain G. M. Gilbert, the Army psychologist assigned to**
• *watching the defendants at the Nuremberg trials**

Replies

Comment by Gravity_Beetle at 26/01/2020 at 06:57 UTC

3 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Did you read the article? The author’s whole point is that we *shouldn’t* blame ourselves for merely existing / having any affect on the environment.

Comment by selfware at 25/01/2020 at 17:14 UTC*

5 upvotes, 1 direct replies

Lack of empathy, it's hard to grasp and accept that some people are straight up devoid of basic human decency, it's easy to see, it's hard to act and stand up to, because these people are in fact quite opposed to anything that could benefit anyone but themselves and therefore act in bad faith most of the time.

There is this saying that I quite often see, that says something along those lines;

Justice can be used for bad, just like it can be used for good, it all depends on individual circumstances.

The conflict traingle anyone?

We can't force people to be just, but we can create a social framework that makes it easier for everyone to be just, instead of you know, going the other way round.

Comment by Minuted at 25/01/2020 at 17:44 UTC

1 upvotes, 1 direct replies

When you're going to claim something is evil, it does help to actually define the word

Does it? I think we all know what someone means when they say evil or bad, or morally wrong, even if we might disagree with whether actions are bad or good.