Logic is a incomplete mental discipline and can only be helpful in artificially axiomatic and simplified situations.
All formal logic is circular. The premise(s) must be an axiom beyond question. So you need knowledge to get knowledge. This is why moral claims like “it’s bad to murder” are beyond logical examination. Any attempt will require an argument like “murder does harm” which relies on the moral claim that “it’s bad to harm”, and round and round we go.
Logic is a word game. Every semantic argument proves that controlling a definition can change the conclusion. A sort of alchemy where language shaped reality rather than being a description of it. As if you could drive home in the word car.
The Vulcan, making all decisions with logic alone would be paralyzed and helpless.
While what you wrote is very intelligent sounding, “doing harm is bad” isnt a moral statement. Harm by definition is bad outside of any system of morality. You can break down any situation into a set of logical proposals, but not without consequences. How much of an autist the gentleman in the picture is being is really what prevents him from clearly seeing the shittiness of his decision. Calling your hysterical wife that youre leaving after 15 years slave to the sunk cost fallacy isnt logic. It’s being a terrible person.
A decision can be objectively moral and the outcome can be objectively positive, and yet the enacting of the “correct” decision can still be done in such a way as to maximize harm, rather than minimize.
The person you respond to says that calling the wife a slave to the sunk cost fallacy is cruel, and that is correct. You shouldn’t measure only the logical, correct, desirable outcome, but also the compassion and humanity with which you attempt to realize that outcome.
Logic is a incomplete mental discipline and can only be helpful in artificially axiomatic and simplified situations.
All formal logic is circular. The premise(s) must be an axiom beyond question. So you need knowledge to get knowledge. This is why moral claims like “it’s bad to murder” are beyond logical examination. Any attempt will require an argument like “murder does harm” which relies on the moral claim that “it’s bad to harm”, and round and round we go.
Logic is a word game. Every semantic argument proves that controlling a definition can change the conclusion. A sort of alchemy where language shaped reality rather than being a description of it. As if you could drive home in the word car.
The Vulcan, making all decisions with logic alone would be paralyzed and helpless.
While what you wrote is very intelligent sounding, “doing harm is bad” isnt a moral statement. Harm by definition is bad outside of any system of morality. You can break down any situation into a set of logical proposals, but not without consequences. How much of an autist the gentleman in the picture is being is really what prevents him from clearly seeing the shittiness of his decision. Calling your hysterical wife that youre leaving after 15 years slave to the sunk cost fallacy isnt logic. It’s being a terrible person.
What if doing a little harm today leads to more good tomorrow (so, a net positive amount of good)? And in a year? And in two centuries?
A decision can be objectively moral and the outcome can be objectively positive, and yet the enacting of the “correct” decision can still be done in such a way as to maximize harm, rather than minimize.
The person you respond to says that calling the wife a slave to the sunk cost fallacy is cruel, and that is correct. You shouldn’t measure only the logical, correct, desirable outcome, but also the compassion and humanity with which you attempt to realize that outcome.
All this for a comic which is boomer “wife bad.”
I think that’s more, ‘edgy’ incel humour, than your standard boomer contempt-of-partner knee slapper.
The easiest way to tell your making a semantic argument is when you literally use the phrase “by definition”.
Your