Ah, so your axiom is that life is good. A pretty neat axiom, but still an axiom. Still an arbitrary choice you made of what to value, heavily informed by your home culture and your instincts.
I have three ethical axioms:
Feeling good is good
Feeling bad is bad
I do not respect limits imposed upon My perceptions by the laws of physics
When My hand is cut, I feel pain. I feel it because My nerves send the information that damage is happening to My brain. When Hypothetical Harry’s hand is cut, he feels pain, but I do not. I don’t feel pain because there are no nerves connecting his hand to My brain. That’s a limit imposed upon My perceptions by the laws of physics. Since I don’t respect those, I ought to treat his hand being cut the same as My hand being cut. This is the philosophical foundation of My approach to empathy and kindness.
I’m not sure that life is good, but I feel that I’m part of life and that life is part of me. I suppose it’s a natural instinct somehow… So I feel like something is better than nothing…
I know I’m atypical on that aspect, but I feel it much more deeply than most of my friends when I see somebody else getting bad. I cant claim some philosophical basis to it, it’s just there, for me…
Ah, so your axiom is that life is good. A pretty neat axiom, but still an axiom. Still an arbitrary choice you made of what to value, heavily informed by your home culture and your instincts.
I have three ethical axioms:
When My hand is cut, I feel pain. I feel it because My nerves send the information that damage is happening to My brain. When Hypothetical Harry’s hand is cut, he feels pain, but I do not. I don’t feel pain because there are no nerves connecting his hand to My brain. That’s a limit imposed upon My perceptions by the laws of physics. Since I don’t respect those, I ought to treat his hand being cut the same as My hand being cut. This is the philosophical foundation of My approach to empathy and kindness.
I’m not sure that life is good, but I feel that I’m part of life and that life is part of me. I suppose it’s a natural instinct somehow… So I feel like something is better than nothing…
I know I’m atypical on that aspect, but I feel it much more deeply than most of my friends when I see somebody else getting bad. I cant claim some philosophical basis to it, it’s just there, for me…