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Cake day: June 25th, 2023

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  • You have failed to show that it is an ideology. You have explained that you disagree with it, but that’s not the same thing.

    It’s an empirical fact that living beings don’t like being hurt. Therefore, it avoiding hurt is good. That’s not an ideology, it’s reasoning based on observable facts. An ideological position would be “we need to hurt living beings to further our interests”. The ideological position involves those interests.

    Seeing all living beings as equal (e.g. in terms of prioritising not harming them, just as I would prefer not to be harmed or to harm myself) is about not having an interest, and therefore is clearly not ideological. It’s also objectively true, because in terms of cosmological time, the consequences of all living beings become equal.


  • Will me being infantile stop humans from hurting each other? If not, why would I be motivated to change?

    Will me growing up (to stop being infantile) get in the way of my refraining from hurting others? If yes, why would I be motivated to change?

    In my infantile state, I can clearly see that - even in a complex world - harming other living beings is wrong. I don’t like being harmed, so why would they like being harmed?

     

    Maybe you need ideology to simplify the world. But that doesn’t mean that I require it. That’s part of the complex world you assert we live in, yes?


  • It is an objective fact that a harmful act harms someone. That one observer likes that outcome does not alter the objective moral weight of the act. Harmful acts are objectively wrong, regardless of preference.

    From a basic empirical observation of the effects of harm, one can arrive at a moral system based on objective reasoning. In this way, ideology can be avoided.











  • If your happiness comes first then it is because you are special. Which means that everybody is special.

     

    Now at that time King Pasenadi of Kosala was upstairs in the royal longhouse together with Queen Mallikā.

    Then the king said to the queen, “Mallikā, is there anyone more dear to you than yourself?”

    “No, great king, there isn’t. But is there anyone more dear to you than yourself?”

    “For me also, Mallikā, there’s no-one.”

    Then King Pasenadi of Kosala came downstairs from the stilt longhouse, went to the Buddha, bowed, sat down to one side, and told him what had happened.

    Then, understanding this matter, on that occasion the Buddha recited this verse:

    “Having explored every quarter with the mind, one finds no-one dearer than oneself. Likewise for others, each holds themselves dear; so one who cares for their own welfare would harm no other.”

    https://suttacentral.net/sn3.8/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=plain&reference=none&notes=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin