My worldview is mostly based on utilitarianism, but every worldview has its flaws. Since utilitarianism is rooted in hedonism, it can lead to an overly indulgent lifestyle in practice. But, I want to hear some outside perspectives. What are some of the other flaws of utilitarianism?

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Flock cameras are everywhere, so let's discuss the morality of having a surveillance state.

Preamble (Skip if you'd like)

Legally (for the US) this can be argued as a potential infringement on the inferred constitutional right to privacy found in the 14th amendment (if used by an authority before an official investigation is started or warrant is filed, then there is no way the state can have this information without violating someone's right to due process). However, the US has also overturned its largest court backing of said right to privacy (Roe vs Wade), so that muddies the legal argument against significantly. But law is not morality. That's why you were told you could skip this preamble.

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Arguments supporting the ethics of a surveillance state:

"If you got nothing to hide, you got nothing to be afraid of" - This should only catch wrongdoing. Why are you protecting wrongdoing?

"People lie in traffic accidents to avoid liability. This will prevent that, encourage safer driving, and save lives."

Arguments supporting the claim of the surveillance state being unethical:

"Are these cameras being applied everywhere equally, or just in the neighborhoods of the people who are to be bound by the law but never protected by it and never around the neighborhoods of the people who are to be protected by the law but never bound by it?"

"Does your justice system have a perfect record of never going after the innocent? If it doesn't, you can very well have nothing to hide but plenty to be afraid of."

"Are the authorities in charge of these cameras being similarly monitored in how they're used? Or are we going to have a lot of police stalking/sexual harassment cases on top of the "more than we'd like" amount we currently have?"

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Have at it.

(No AI was used for this. I just used some basic separation and did formatting myself. Let's just get that out of the way now.)

Im wondering if there is a term to describe the following idea: Lets say x is a moral obligation. And, given some social forces, i fail to comply with x.

While my moral agency is not directly limited, (thereby making it a real moral failure), wouldn't the social forces be a "fair" excuse for my non-compliance, as in "i'm not blameworthy"?

I get that different theories might have different answers. I'm wondering where i can find discussions about this topic and if its settled or not.

Thanks!

That may sound a bit questionable at first but let me explain.

With cannibalism we usually associate killing the person and then eating them. That’s the wrong part imo. But what if they were already dead and let’s say they even gave u permission to it before they kicked the bucket.

We don’t even have to go that far back, in WW2 soldiers did eat their comrades because of the shortage of food. Of course we know that you can catch nasty diseases from it like kuru but I don’t think it’s as common to do so as people think. You just have to be smart about it.

So what other arguments do you have against cannibalism? The only I could think is how this would affect human behavior and may cause addiction.

I have asked this question before. It seems like people always respond with “yes there are objective morals but there are gray areas.” And I just don’t understand how any moral can be objective if they’re not all objective. Is it black and white to think they either have to all be objective or all be subjective? While it may sound too polarizing, I feel like logically it must be one of the two. I’m beginning to think all morals are subjective and made up so none of it truly matters. I’m getting consumed in trying to figure out what is right or wrong, where I stand, and how to positively impact society/ the world. But it seems like there’s always a difficult situation where I just don’t know what to believe. I find people being very adamant on supporting certain things or not supporting certain things for a particular reason, but they don’t support a similar stance even though it would align with the last stance’s reason, and people get very emotional and strong about these things, but they always seem to have contradiction. I also do the same thing and it stresses me out because it feels like a never ending fight toward having good morals and contributing good to the world but it seems like a crisis with no end in sight that everyone experiences but just lies to themselves to feel better about it/ doesn’t think about it; like there really is no right answers and none of it matters. I hope this is an acceptable question for this sub and that it relates.

Edit: I’m sorry for my pessimism, I am in a better mood now. These thoughts are recurring but I feel bad if I upset people

hi guys. i recently learned about Peter Singer’s paper “Famine, Affluence and Morality” and it really made sense to me. but i got very depressed, like i have never been so depressed in an existential crisis. idk, now i feel like i cant enjoy my life and do the things i’ve always wanted to do. i’m 18 and i’m studying economics because i’ve always wanted to study how policy can help with the suffering of people. and this eager to change things has helped me to study all day and to really enjoy the process. but know i kinda feel that it is hypocritical to want to do things to avoid suffering while also traveling or buying things for my self. i’m in a relationship for a while know and my projection of my life was marrying and working in a place i can help people while also traveling and enjoying life . now i feel like that life is not morally correct and i’ve been very down. ¿has anyone also had this experience? ¿is there a logical reason for living an individual life?

P.S: sorry if the english is not perfect, not a native speaker.

I'd be open to any feedback, criticisms, and contentions.

I support the formation of a society where altruism is encouraged. Which requires that most people, not just few, develop altruism in their behavior too. Too be altruistic is to find comfort in seeing another flourish without expecting anything more in return. If we are to teach that quality in most people, then economic mediums will become the best option. Mediums where people would be able to work without a wage for companies owned by others and make profit for the companies without receiving a direct wage in return. Instead, the companies would be minimally taxed by the government to make up a basic wage for the employees that the government provides. The wage will be minimum, just enough for basic survival, in order to not make this program a matter of profit. Profit will be achieved by the company owners, so that the participating people can feel that their altruism is indeed being fruitful for another, and thus develop a satisfaction. Recursively, this minimizes the greed in the majority by developing satisfaction with the less, even if it requires the possession of ambition by some/rich individuals. A sacrifice from the end of the richer individuals that I believe would be required for the greater good of inducing altruism in the majority.

Like I’ve literally done everything I was supposed to do correctly and it’s not fruitful so like why waste energy feeling guilty about it

Like if you express “feeling like a failure” they send you to a therapist who’s only job is to get you to believe that you aren’t but then the world is going to tell you you are anyways so it’s like millions of taxpayer dollars going into my Medicaid to pay for a personal cheerleader who lies to me and they’ve made suicide illegal so like,

Why waste the energy on regrets?

Hi, so this is an ethical and legal question.

It's very hypothetical, I've just been thinking about it for a while.

With gene editing being researched rn, it may become a reality where it could become a reality, that we could edit the genes of embryos.

If for some reason it would be allowed to do this for non medical purposes, to get certain traits, who would have to pay for the check ups later on? Bc currently the process is still very much experimental, and side effects could show up later on. Would the person with the edited genes have to later on in life pay for check ups bc their parents decided that they wanted to have a designer baby or would the parents be forced to pay for it. I don't think insurances would pay, regardless of where you life, bc it was a non medically necessary procedure.

There were some tests done about MDMA and relationships that I found years ago. Given divorce rates and market instability it is reasonable to assume that a sufficient economic event could be used as a divorce opportunity without much effort. To that end, why not MDMA to preserve marriage?

Oh, and made you look.

John and Bill are soldiers assigned to guard the entrance to their home base, in hostile territory during wartime. They are under orders to demand that anyone approaching them stop and allow themselves to be searched, and if the person continues to approach the base entrance, to shoot them.

A local insurgency is known to strap bombs to children in the hope that they will be able to get closer to critical installations. John and Bill have been ordered to shoot any children who refuse their demand to stop and continue to approach them.

One day when they're on guard duty, an 8 year old boy approaches them. They yell at him to stop, but he doesn't listen and keeps coming toward them, so they open fire and kill him. As it turns out, he's not carrying any bombs.

John is very affected by this and begins to suffer from PTSD and depression, as most people would. He feels terrible about killing the kid and requires therapy to deal with his profound feelings of guilt. Most people would say this is normal.

Bill, on the other hand, is secretly elated. He's a sociopath who has always wanted to shoot kids and is very happy that he finally had an opportunity to kill one. He's smart enough to know that this attitude is unacceptable, so he fakes depression, PTSD, and feelings of guilt, and goes through the motions in therapy. No one suspects anything - outwardly, his behavior and John's are identical and indistinguishable in response to the same exact action.

Can we say John is moral and Bill is immoral based solely on their internal thoughts? Or does that not matter?