Is it ethical for Jesus to marry at a Chick-Fil-A?

[TheNotoriousAMP]

I can understand that you are hesitant to turn to your friends/family/coworkers/acquaintances and call them vile, disgusting shitbags. Because they are your friends/family/coworkers/acquaintances, and that would be awkward. And you know what? That's fine. I don't rock the boat at my extended family gatherings, either. But eventually, discrimination against homosexuals is going to go the way of overt racism and stop being as socially acceptable as it is, and in that distant future your post is going to read like "c'mon guys, racists aren't all bad. It's not that black and white." (EDIT: haha, oh wow, pun unintentional) It's true, in that sense that Bob the Racist might make a great poker buddy or be a loving husband and father, but Bob the Racist is still a terrible fucking person by any standards of decency reasonable people uphold.

If Chick Fil-A the company actually discriminated against gay customers or gay employees than I would be perfectly in agreement with you. Because that's actually breaking the law and actively trying to harm homosexuals. In short, active discrimination. But what they do and who they donate to with their profits is their business and their business alone. I too can donate to support a cause I support. Its part of actually being a member of a democratic society (with fucked up campaign finance laws, but that's neither here nor there). If I like the environment, I can donate to the Sierra Club. If I am pro-life, I can donate to religious groups. Its part of free speech. And yes, before you mentioned the KKK in the free speech thing, they actively discriminate against folks, so they don't count as a counter example.

And I find that it sets a really goddamn poor precedent to have cities ban Chick Fil-A from opening stores in their locations, while they embrace fucking Wal-Mart. Its why I mentioned that embracing or rejecting someone or something based on one factor is a moronic idea. Because Wal-Mart, with its abusive practices towards its employees, its forcing of people to work thanksgiving and christmas and its shitty pay and throw away attitude, is in my view more discriminatory an organization than Chick Fil-A.

If Bob the racist refused to serve black people or paid his black employees less, then he's a jackass who I'd refuse to associate with. But if Bob the racist treats people the same and just happens to donate money to Rush Limbaugh, then he's just a guy who holds views (which are probably wrong) you don't. Liberals can be douches too, hell I've never seen more classist attitudes displayed than amongst some of the incredibly liberal jerks I was stuck with at Boston University. So to say someone is good or ill because of their lack of or possession of homophobia and nothing else is a stupid way to approach things. Shades of grey.

And the matter of inter-racial marriage vs gay marriage is a whole legal and social can of worms that I'd rather not open at the moment. Its a lot more complex than it seems and there's a lot of problems with equating the two legally. I can go into it in another section of the forum if someone is interested. I don't agree with the opponents, but there's a bit more logic to their opposition than the racists of the 1960's.

[DSMatticus]

If Chick Fil-A the company actually discriminated against gay customers or gay employees than I would be perfectly in agreement with you. Because that's actually breaking the law and actively trying to harm homosexuals. In short, active discrimination. But what they do and who they donate to with their profits is their business and their business alone.

Firstly; the people who warned society about the dangers of "the voting negro" were racist, evil fucks even when the law agreed with them, and they were actively trying to harm African Americans in doing so.

Secondly; you are arguing that spending millions of dollars funding a lobby whose purpose is to deny homosexuals equal rights and publicly speaking out in favor of denying homosexuals equal rights is not active discrimination because they will still hire and sell sandwiches to homosexuals. Your definition of discrimination is stupid. Take the Chick Fil-A example, and replace "discrimination against homosexuals" with "discrimination against minorities." Would you be here telling us Chick Fil-A isn't all that bad for promoting the idea that black people shouldn't be legally allowed to marry white people because... they'll still sell sandwiches to black people and they close on the Holidays?

Thirdly, somewhat of an aside; no, it is not your business and your business alone what political causes you advance with the profits from your massive corporation. The government receives its mandate from the people, not the wealthy, and the fact that the Koch brothers exist and are allowed to do what they do is a fucking travesty for democracy. Hell, it's a fucking existential crisis for democracy.

Fourthly; you are conflating legality and morality. If it were legal to shoot black people for looking at you funny, then you would still be a terrible person for doing so. In the same way (though not to the same extent) that Russia's legalized discrimination against homosexuals is both legal (by definition) and morally abhorrent.

But if Bob the racist treats people the same and just happens to donate money to Rush Limbaugh, then he's just a guy who holds views (which are probably wrong) you don't. Liberals can be douches too

Protip: Do not conflate "deliberately and knowingly funds causes which support the disenfranchisement of African Americans because he is a racist and wants to disenfranchise African Americans" with "being a douche." I really shouldn't even have to explain this. I really shouldn't. What the hell is wrong with you? Teabagging people in videogames makes you a bit of a douche. Supporting the disenfranchisement of minorities makes you a fucking monster!

Edit: I have to admit, NotoriousAmp has made the point about politics-based games being dangerous very compellingly. He is, after all, legitimately defending the ethical character (ethics, not legality, despite his confusion) of people lobbying to deprive certain groups equal rights under the law. The fact is that certain forms of evil fuckery are socially acceptable, and if you portray these people and causes as the evil they are even people who disagree with those causes will be uncomfortable. Because to them, the sorts of evil fucks you're talking about are their friends and family and neighbors, and they apparently have trouble acknowledging that even people who go out and murder someone once a month still spend almost all of their time being ordinary people.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

Protip: Do not conflate "deliberately and knowingly funds causes which support the disenfranchisement of African Americans because he is a racist and wants to disenfranchise African Americans" with "being a douche." I really shouldn't even have to explain this. I really shouldn't. What the hell is wrong with you? Teabagging people in videogames makes you a bit of a douche. Supporting the disenfranchisement of minorities makes you a fucking monster!

In response to your question of "what the hell is wrong with me": answer 1- poor word choice and 2-"I actually spend time with people who hold differing viewpoints than my own". Grew up in the midwest and south, lived in the northeast. Enough to know that every fucking body discriminates against people and just because one person happens to discriminate against a certain group doesn't make him any worse or better than anyone else. Hell, I've seen more Rush Limbaugh listeners volunteer at food banks and donate money to disaster relief than Maddow fans. Over time I guess you just learn to separate people's beliefs from their practices.

Its why I specifically mentioned classism, for example. Or Wal Mart, which horrifically abuses the poor. The reason I defend Chick Fil-A, is because it treats its employees and customers right. And between giving people sane hours, letting them spend time with their families, usually paying them better than the norm, giving money towards college education, and being one of the rare fast food companies with a strong ethos of promoting people up the ranks and a corp which fucks their employees and everyone, but doesn't donate to anti gay marriage causes, guess which fucking side I choose? That isn't goddamn charity folks, its actually treating their people like human beings. Now, if this were Ben and Jerry's vs Chick Fil-A, then yeah, tables turned, because Ben and Jerry's treats their people even better.

The sad thing in all of this is I probably share the same beliefs as most people here. But I also believe strongly in keeping a sense of relativism going. One belief alone does not make someone immoral. Not giving a fuck about "fly over country", actively discriminating against the poor and all that other limousine liberal shit is just as discriminatory as being against gay marriage, its just hidden a bit better. And before you rush off branding people monsters, try and think as to why people actually believe in the shit they do. The same thing can be seen on the abortion issue. The same impulse that pushes people to be anti abortion is the one that pushes them to donate to charities for the poor and to volunteer their time. Now, if we're talking about the hard core "church of money" evangelical who wouldn't piss on someone if they were burning, than fuck them. But I guess growing up in mixed environments seems to make me a bit more forgiving towards some things, given the presence of other traits.

So yeah, being homophobic is fucking stupid. I agree with you there. But I'm willing to forgive donating to a cause or voting for a candidate if there's something to counterbalance it. As mentioned above, if they actively fucked over people in day to day life, than yeah, jump down with both feet. But I'm not going to brand people because of one issue.

Edit: Please have some sense of a scale of morality. Supporting murder cancels out everything else. And, in my experience, I see a lot fewer people willing to go against laws preventing discrimination in the work place than just gay marriage. Most of the people who you are talking about, the folks who may donate to focus on the family, do draw a line between not giving someone the right to marry and allowing folks to fire people based on sexuality or allowing people to bully gay teens without punishment. For religious people (like myself and the people I grew up around), you don't fuck with human dignity. Someone might not agree with someone getting the same rights as straight married couples, but you still treat them like a goddamn human being. Hell, most people support civil unions anyway, its calling it marriage where you open up a can of worms. In Missouri, for example, its 52/36/12 oppose, support, don't know regarding marriage, but on the other hand 64% of people want to legally recognize (aka the benefits of marriage) same sex unions. When we talk about most people who are against gay marriage, we're not talking about Uganda.

This is why I am repeating the "shades of grey" thing here. Bad people are bad people and as I've mentioned repeatedly, I do draw a line. But if you actually dig a little bit into what people actually believe, a good chunk of them actually have a lot of nuance about it all and its usually a small part of the issue that causes a hang up. Most anti abortion folks don't want to see women die instead of having an abortion. A lot of anti gay marriage folks are fine seeing same sex couples having the same rights, its just calling it marriage that causes the problem. They're not right, and I disagree soundly with them, but they're not necessarily immoral or monsters either. They're people.

[DSMatticus]

Enough to know that every fucking body discriminates against people and just because one person happens to discriminate against a certain group doesn't make him any worse or better than anyone else.

What the fuck? Again, take the stupid shit you are saying, and apply it to someone who thinks black people should not vote. Your arguments defend the ethical character of this person because... reasons. Stop it. Put down the shovel. There is nothing good down at the bottom of that hole.

Hell, I've seen more Rush Limbaugh listeners volunteer at food banks and donate money to disaster relief than Maddow fans. Over time I guess you just learn to separate people's beliefs from their practices.

Its why I specifically mentioned classism, for example

What the fuck, man? Question time: what is the term class warfare used to disparage? What organizations use the term? If you answered "them dirty liberals promoting efforts to combat growing income inequality," and "Fox News," DING DING DING. You're right! Now how do you rectify that with the stupid things you are saying about liberals being classist douches or whatever? Seriously. What the fuck. The actual political divide on the issue of classism is basically the opposite of what you are saying it is. I'm not trying to pretend everyone who identifies as a liberal is a saint, but you apparently get your ideas about liberal stereotypes from your conservative friends, and those ideas are the opposite of reality. Oops.

AND FOR FUCK SAKES BEING AGAINST GAY MARRIAGE IS NOT MORALLY COMPARABLE TO SUPPORTING MURDER

Read that again. Murdering someone once a month makes you a terrible fucking person by virtually universal standards, but even someone who murders someone once a month spends 353 days a year not murdering anyone. The point is not that being against gay marriage = murder, the point is that even if your friend is a fucking serial killer he can spend 353 days doing nothing but volunteer work for disabled puppies. You are caught up defending the ethics of Chick Fil-A's management because, in spite of being openly and blatantly discriminatory against certain groups, it does other things which are not only not terrible, but are charitable beyond necessity. And you know what? So does the hypothetical serial killer. Ethics does not work like that. Bad acts are not balanced by good acts like they are in videogames; stabbing orphans to death is just bad, and so long as you are doing it and plan to continue doing it you are a bad person. Fighting against equal rights is just bad, and so long as you are doing it and plan to continue doing it you are a bad person.

[Chamomile]

DSM, your entire position is just untenable. I mean, morality is relative. You can believe it if you want to and it'll be internally consistent. But it's not reasonable. Your position appears to be that any wrongdoing immediately makes you the bad guys, no matter how much good you do. But where the Hell do you draw the line on that? If I tell the occasional lie while also performing life-saving surgery in third world countries on a daily basis, are you going to try and claim that I'm a liar and thus a bad person? What's the threshold on a bad act where you magically become an evil monster forever no matter how many lives you save, people you help, or situations you improve? If having one, single vice is enough to condemn someone completely even in light of them doing more good than harm for more people than not, then you aren't being reasonable, you are blanket condemning anyone who acts on even one belief that is different from yours. It's a perspective without any room for compromise, and which is therefore decisively averse to things like "negotiation" and "democracy" and other notions that are modern rather than medieval.

[rasmuswagner]

And the matter of inter-racial marriage vs gay marriage is a whole legal and social can of worms that I'd rather not open at the moment. Its a lot more complex than it seems and there's a lot of problems with equating the two legally. I can go into it in another section of the forum if someone is interested. I don't agree with the opponents, but there's a bit more logic to their opposition than the racists of the 1960's.

It really isn't any different. Other than a few tiny software corrections, gay marriage doesn't have any weird legal consequences, or any social consequences other than "haters gonna hate". Now, genderqueer and polyamorous people, those present some issues that need work, but I challenge you to name just one of those complexities that come with gay marriage.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

Class Warfare and murder.

I'm not saying bad acts are balanced out by good acts. I'm not saying real life works on a magical video game morality system. What I am saying is that there is a grade to bad acts and everybody is on that grade. So, for example, lets go back to Chick Fil-A. Donating money to organizations that are against gay marriage is bad. But its not murder people bad. On a corporate scale, its actually pretty minor. So compared to other corporations, Chick Fil-A is kinda decent. Is one of their decisions morally bad? Yes, but its not on such a scale that it tarnishes everything else. Its like major and minor sins and Christianity. They're all bad, but certain are so bad that it completely tarnishes everything else. So I'm fine with calling Chick Fil-A an ethical corporation, because they treat their employees excellently and give back to the community. They have an ethical flaw, but its not so huge that it makes them evil. If they were suddenly throwing money behind rolling back anti discrimination laws in the work place, or treating their employees differently, then it becomes a major flaw. But for the moment, its a relatively (for a corporation) minor sin.

Equating a serial killer to someone who, if it wasn't called marriage, would be fine with it, is fucking stupid because of the above. Ethics scale. First and foremost, because there's more to equality than just the title of marriage and as I mentioned, most of these folks are fine with it. So ethically speaking, its not like these people want to see Jim Crow for homosexuals. One aspect of them is unethical to a degree, but on the whole they are ethical people. The issue is important to me too, but even then you do have to have some sense of relativism here. Not wanting civil unions to be called marriages is not equivalent to supporting murder or wanting to see blacks enslaved. Its why I'm okay with calling a lot of the people I know ethical, despite the fact they may be against gay marriage. They treat everyone day to day equally and in general are good people. They have a flaw (gasp, who doesn't) in that they may be behind the times on the issue of gay marriage, but they're not condoning violence or firing someone either. In short, all things considered its a pretty minor flaw.

As for the class warfare thing, its not a fox news thing. Its something I saw in Boston all the time. People who would gladly vote for Obama and then probably wouldn't have pissed on someone if they were on fire. Folks who mocked those who couldn't afford the right clothes, who thought anyone from the South was a stupid redneck and refused to even talk to them. Shit like that. I'm old school, almost Eugene Debbs level, progressive. I was using it as an example, a lot of liberals I know don't do that, but there were enough to point out that discrimination isn't limited to one group. Classism and educationalism are quite real, both amongst the left and the right. The tea party is a classic example of both.

So here's the thing, and I hope I've gotten this across. Ethics is a matter of scale and you can't counterbalance heinous acts with good deeds. At a certain point, you cross that line and have gone over the edge. But for most people, the type of beliefs held are relatively minor flaws amongst people who are otherwise fine. Its not enough to damn them, its enough to irritate you at times, but not make them monsters.

It really isn't any different. Other than a few tiny software corrections, gay marriage doesn't have any weird legal consequences, or any social consequences other than "haters gonna hate". Now, genderqueer and polyamorous people, those present some issues that need work, but I challenge you to name just one of those complexities that come with gay marriage.

The societal question is whether or not tax breaks which are intended for the procreation of children (which is what the legal benefits of marriage are intended to encourage) should be given to people who aren't able to do so. While the advent of in vitro fertilization has for the most part removed this issue with lesbian couples, its still a legal problem with same sex male couples.

Polyamourism actually is a simpler case, because almost always we are talking about polygyny, which still fits the bill. Namely, even if the man is pursuing as lovers men or women, the actual marriage itself is religiously enacted combining of man+woman with the purpose of a legal framework to hand down property and family name. Its why, even in cultures where homosexuality was encouraged as superior to heterosexuality, for romantic relationships, the basic marriage structure is fundamentally the same basically wherever you go.

Its why people react so strongly to a civil union being called a marriage, even though they are fine with it if it was just called a civil union. While modern marriage has gone through this weird phase where the inheritance part became less important, it still remains a primarily religious institution which has been super imposed on modern secular society. Its why, quite frankly, I would prefer to see all marriages done by the state to be requalified as civil unions, with the title of marriage reserved purely for the religious ceremony. Legally, its a lot closer to what the current situation actually is. That and it basically solves the matter. You do it and even the south swings slightly towards "for" and not "against".

I do agree that genderqueer is always going to be tough and its probably going to take the longest time to settle.

[DSMatticus]

DSM, your entire position is just untenable. I mean, morality is relative. You can believe it if you want to and it'll be internally consistent. But it's not reasonable. Your position appears to be that any wrongdoing immediately makes you the bad guys, no matter how much good you do.

Then here's the hard question: how many lives does a doctor have to save each month before it is ethically acceptable for him to indulge in murdering one prostitute a month? What do you have to offer the world to make it acceptable to stand up and call for the disenfranchisement of African Americans? What kind and quantity of good acts are required?

Bad acts are not balanced by good acts. They are balanced by remorse, a good faith effort to make things right, and a commitment to stop. Philanthropy, while respectable on its own, is not a substitute. I'm 90% sure you don't think so either, even if "jeez, DSM, it sounds so harsh when you say it!" is getting in the way here.

I tell the occasional lie while also performing life-saving surgery in third world countries on a daily basis, are you going to try and claim that I'm a liar and thus a bad person?

I think you're mistaken in thinking that honesty is 'right' for its own sake. There is absolutely nothing wrong with lying in and of itself. If, on the other hand, you are lying about cheating on your wife, then yes, you should know that there is no number of life-saving surgeries that will make you above ethical condemnation for doing so.

Morality (as most of the world practices it) is not a fucking scale. It's a complicated system of obligations and dues. You are expected to meet them. Exceeding them is noble, but it's not an OR operator and you don't get to make up for deficiencies by padding other areas. The only thing that makes it ethically permissible to discriminate against homosexuals is to promise to stop discriminating against homosexuals and then carry through on that promise. No amount of life saving will make it ethically permissible for you to keep doing the bad thing you are doing, even if life saving is noble itself.

[Chamomile]

DSM, your entire position is just untenable. I mean, morality is relative. You can believe it if you want to and it'll be internally consistent. But it's not reasonable. Your position appears to be that any wrongdoing immediately makes you the bad guys, no matter how much good you do.

Then here's the hard question: how many lives does a doctor have to save each month before it is ethically acceptable for him to indulge in murdering one prostitute a month?

You're right, that is hard, but not in the way you think it is. It's hard because quantifying the fear felt by the surviving prostitutes as compared to the relief felt by those who are threatened with injuries that would otherwise be fatal if not for a life-saving surgeon is hard. If we assume they are equal (although they are probably not), then the answer is one life saved for one life taken makes it a wash. You're a very strange person but whatever. As it happens, it doesn't shake out that way in real life because prostitutes are likely to be measurably more terrified than people who may be injured are relieved, but if you step up the life-saving surgeries enough, you will eventually hit the point where we're better off having you around. Also, for purposes of determining if the surgeon-murderer himself is moral, this all assumes that you are performing the life-saving surgeries out of a genuine ethical concern for the fatally wounded, and would go on performing them regardless of how many people would condemn you for the prostitute murders if you stopped. This is a bizarre conclusion because you have dreamed up an extremely bizarre person who is both sociopathic enough to murder prostitutes without ever realizing that he's destroying real human beings and also empathetic enough to save people's lives out of the goodness of his heart, but whatever.

And being a good person on balance when you stand up and call for the disenfranchisement of African Americans is not actually too hard. Because all you're doing is expressing a desire to see bigoted laws enacted. You aren't actually taking significant steps towards enacting them. The amount of wrong committed is actually one step below what Chick Fil-A was doing in the first place, because you aren't even giving money to anyone to make it happen. You're just informing people that it would make you happy if it did. I guess we could split hairs over whether it's worse to ask for a larger rights violation without doing anything about it than to pay money in support of a smaller rights violation, but the point is that balancing out the expression of bigotry without backing it up with significant action is seriously something you can balance out by being a generally polite and reasonable person.

Morality (as most of the world practices it) is not a fucking scale. It's a complicated system of obligations and dues.

Morality, as most of the world practices it, is exactly the thing you just said it wasn't and is exactly not the thing you just said it was. Padding out your moral deficiencies by being unusually noble in other areas is exactly the kind of thing that will make people tolerate those moral flaws in the first place. Because it turns out that most of the world would like to get along with the people around them. So much so, in fact, that a distressingly large amount of people, when confronted with a racist coworker, don't care enough to say a single damn thing. The fact is, people have different beliefs from you and will always have different beliefs from you, and if you want to have any influence over them at all it is exactly as important to acknowledge common ground as to condemn the behavior you disagree with, and to have a willingness not to condemn the entire person for a single act that violates your personal morals on any level. Uncompromising condemnation of anyone who disagrees with you even slightly only means you will never have allies when you need them and no one will want to have anything to do with you morally speaking. Because nothing but total compliance is ever good enough for you. People might be willing to put up with you in general, but only by avoiding issues of morality entirely, which means when a moral issue comes up everyone around you is automatically reluctant to stand up for you. I can, and have, convinced people who disagree with me on some issues to help me with others and I do it by being willing to accept them as something other than evil people (and I'll note that "evil" was your word and not mine) just because we disagree on a single issue.

Your position is antagonistic to the very notion of compromise, and therefore also to democracy. That's a pretty huge flaw from my perspective.

[DSMatticus]

You're right, that is hard, but not in the way you think it is. It's hard because quantifying the fear felt by the surviving prostitutes as compared to the relief felt by those who are threatened with injuries that would otherwise be fatal if not for a life-saving surgeon is hard. If we assume they are equal (although they are probably not), then the answer is one life saved for one life taken makes it a wash. You're a very strange person but whatever.

Do you think this guy gets his doctor powers by murdering prostitutes or something? This very specifically is not the trolley problem, and it is very specifically not about legal ramifications. I asked what number of lives he has to save to make it ethically permissible for him to indulge in a hobby that happens to be the brutal murder of prostitutes. The proper utilitarian answer (using your reasoning, anyway) is "the ethical thing to do is save as many lives as you can, and also not murder any prostitutes."

You seem to have made the incredibly common mistake of measuring net good as opposed to optimal good. Note that having a positive net is not the same thing as having an optimal result, and also note that the optimal result agrees with me about what whether or not it is ethical for the doctor to start murdering prostitutes. Which is the point: even if your net utility is positive, it is still not ethically permissible to take actions which would reduce it relative to alternatives.

Morality, as most of the world practices it, is exactly the thing you just said it wasn't and is exactly not the thing you just said it was. Padding out your moral deficiencies by being unusually noble in other areas is exactly the kind of thing that will make people tolerate those moral flaws in the first place. Because it turns out that most of the world would like to get along with the people around them. So much so, in fact, that a distressingly large amount of people, when confronted with a racist coworker, don't care enough to say a single damn thing.

So uhh... do you realize you're sort of in the middle of tearing yourself a new one? Has it occurred to you that if people will ignore minor moral faults for the sake of coexistence (as you suggest), and people will ignore major moral faults for the sake of coexistence (as you suggest), the phenomenon in question has everything to do with coexistence and complacency and nothing to do with the moral character of the person in question? I.e., you cannot work backwards from whether or not people "go with the flow" around you to whether or not you are an ethical person?

Uncompromising condemnation of anyone who disagrees with you even slightly only means you will never have allies when you need them and no one will want to have anything to do with you morally speaking.

Because they are your friends/family/coworkers/acquaintances, and that would be awkward. And you know what? That's fine. I don't rock the boat at my extended family gatherings, either.

From a utilitarian perspective, there is no obligation to condemn unethical behavior (by any standard) unless it will lead to greater overall utility. I don't know why you would assume that because I think people are behaving unethically that I have to confront them. Not only because that would be stupid by your own apparent ethical system, but also because I explicitly said I don't recommend doing that in my first post. And the rest of your post is pretty much just more about how I must condemn people even if it makes it harder to just deal with them in an effort to make the overall situation better. Again, super fucking weird coming from someone who lead off with a utilitarian argument, but whatever.

Your position is antagonistic to the very notion of compromise, and therefore also to democracy. That's a pretty huge flaw from my perspective.

Aside: I want to point out that being antagonistic to compromise is not a fault in and of itself. The positions people hold are completely arbitrary, and the idea that that which lies between is somehow privileged is terrible. The valuation of compromises punishes those whose demands are reasonable and rewards those whose demands are unreasonable. That is the opposite of desirable. If you're 'right', compromise is just a necessary evil of dealing with unethical people.

[Chamomile]

Do you think this guy gets his doctor powers by murdering prostitutes or something? This very specifically is not the trolley problem, and it is very specifically not about legal ramifications. I asked what number of lives he has to save to make it ethically permissible for him to indulge in a hobby that happens to be the brutal murder of prostitutes. The proper utilitarian answer (using your reasoning, anyway) is "the ethical thing to do is save as many lives as you can, and also not murder any prostitutes."

Well, yes, but so? You didn't ask for an optimal solution, you asked how many lives he has to save per month to make him not evil whilst murdering a prostitute per month. Sure, the best thing to do is to make him save lives and then also not murder prostitutes, but if he's still a net positive for general well-being while murdering the prostitutes, that still makes him a net positive for general well-being. Good for him.

So uhh... do you realize you're sort of in the middle of tearing yourself a new one?

Sort of. Not really, because this isn't actually the contradiction you think it is, but in the sense of "these two moral positions are incompatible," yes, you're right. Because first you asked for my morality, which is utilitarian, and then you asked for morality as most of the world practices it, which is not. As it happens, my morality and the morality of the world have a strong preference for compromise over being petty and judgmental in common, but not really a whole lot else, so while I talked a lot about that point I kind of transitioned back into talking about my morality and not the world's and there probably should've been a paragraph break in there somewhere to communicate that. Oops.

Uncompromising condemnation of anyone who disagrees with you even slightly only means you will never have allies when you need them and no one will want to have anything to do with you morally speaking.

Because they are your friends/family/coworkers/acquaintances, and that would be awkward. And you know what? That's fine. I don't rock the boat at my extended family gatherings, either.

People might be willing to put up with you in general, but only by avoiding issues of morality entirely, which means when a moral issue comes up everyone around you is automatically reluctant to stand up for you.

There's only three ways this can shake out so far as I can tell.

1) You never act on your morals anyway, in which case your opinions are irrelevant. Why should anyone care what you think when you are committed to never helping anyone?

2) You lie about your morals constantly in order to match whatever group you're currently apart of, in which case whichever set of morals you consider to be the "true" set is irrelevant, because you won't act on them anyway. Why should anyone care what you think if you're committed to following the crowd?

3) You don't rock the boat when morals aren't coming up in the first place, but you're completely unwilling to compromise when morals do come up, which means you will never be able to take effective action because you will never have allies.

If it's the case that #1 or #2 is true, you just don't matter at all. Not a single homosexual person will benefit from you quietly disliking Chick Fil-A if you will not even mention it in front of anyone who doesn't already agree. If you are in category 3, your incredible unwillingness to compromise means you will never get anything done so you don't matter anyway.

Your position is antagonistic to the very notion of compromise, and therefore also to democracy. That's a pretty huge flaw from my perspective.

Aside: I want to point out that being antagonistic to compromise is not a fault in and of itself.

Well, yes it is, and the paragraph you wrote on it doesn't actually disagree. No, the middle way isn't actually preferable in theory, but in the actual real world where Chick Fil-A exists, it's unreasonable to expect others to conform perfectly to your morals all the time. It's unreasonable to call people "evil," a term which very much implies that you oppose them in their entirety and not just their specific flaw, because they're only meeting (and exceeding!) nine out of the ten moral obligations you have decided they have. If you're quietly judging people as evil for disagreeing with even one of your morals, first of all, your scale is borked, because if the moderately obnoxious homophobe who doesn't like calling gay marriages "marriages" is evil, what do you call the people who run gulags to beat the gay out of fifteen year olds because minors have almost no rights so long as parents consent to something? More importantly, you're a judgmental prick because damn near everyone is going to have some tiny deviation from your own personal morals. Who doesn't qualify as evil by that worldview?

[ishy]

Do you think this guy gets his doctor powers by murdering prostitutes or something? This very specifically is not the trolley problem, and it is very specifically not about legal ramifications. I asked what number of lives he has to save to make it ethically permissible for him to indulge in a hobby that happens to be the brutal murder of prostitutes. The proper utilitarian answer (using your reasoning, anyway) is "the ethical thing to do is save as many lives as you can, and also not murder any prostitutes."

Well, yes, but so? You didn't ask for an optimal solution, you asked how many lives he has to save per month to make him not evil whilst murdering a prostitute per month. Sure, the best thing to do is to make him save lives and then also not murder prostitutes, but if he's still a net positive for general well-being while murdering the prostitutes, that still makes him a net positive for general well-being. Good for him.

The fuck? Please tell me you're just trolling.

[Chamomile]

I'm going to restate that DSMatticus constructed an incredibly bizarre situation in which a man is simultaneously a selfless surgeon performing life-saving surgery out of the goodness of his heart while simultaneously being a sociopathic monster who murders women for giggles. Bizarre inputs generate bizarre results.

[Korwin]

I'm going to restate that DSMatticus constructed an incredibly bizarre situation in which a man is simultaneously a selfless surgeon performing life-saving surgery out of the goodness of his heart while simultaneously being a sociopathic monster who murders women for giggles. Bizarre inputs generate bizarre results.

Would it make an difference, if he did the life-saving surgery because it paid good?

[ishy]

I'm going to restate that DSMatticus constructed an incredibly bizarre situation in which a man is simultaneously a selfless surgeon performing life-saving surgery out of the goodness of his heart while simultaneously being a sociopathic monster who murders women for giggles. Bizarre inputs generate bizarre results.

So you're saying for example Ted Bundy, who volunteered at a suicide prevention hotline is an asset to society, a good guy, as long as he talked down more people from committing suicide than he murdered?

[rasmuswagner]

It really isn't any different. Other than a few tiny software corrections, gay marriage doesn't have any weird legal consequences, or any social consequences other than "haters gonna hate". Now, genderqueer and polyamorous people, those present some issues that need work, but I challenge you to name just one of those complexities that come with gay marriage.

The societal question is whether or not tax breaks which are intended for the procreation of children (which is what the legal benefits of marriage are intended to encourage) should be given to people who aren't able to do so.

*Traditional nuclear family ONLY
*Someone, somewhere, might be getting a free lunch.

Yeah, this sounds like the kind of hogwash a US conservative would tell you.
Dropping birthrates is a very recent phenomenon. I don't see a drive to criminalize marriage for women past the age of menopause. Marriages that haven't resulted in children within 7 year are exceedingly unlikely to ever produce children, what should we do about them?

Your argument is no more different from "Because homoes are UNNATURAL" than Intelligent Design is from Creationism.

[fectin]

So: actually different, to the point that conflating the two is either ignorant or disingenuous?

[TiaC]

Chamomile: DSM is talking about evil acts. No amount of good acts will make it acceptable to kill someone. Enough good acts might lead to a world that seems a better place for that person's existence. However, you should still condemn the doctor as a murderer because those murders can never become a good act.

[Cyberzombie]

Well, yes, but so? You didn't ask for an optimal solution, you asked how many lives he has to save per month to make him not evil whilst murdering a prostitute per month. Sure, the best thing to do is to make him save lives and then also not murder prostitutes, but if he's still a net positive for general well-being while murdering the prostitutes, that still makes him a net positive for general well-being. Good for him.

The problem here is that had the guy not existed in the first place, the hospital would hire another surgeon who would save the lives that guy would have saved, and yet his victims would still be alive.

His existence was still a net negative on the world.

[angelfromanotherpin]

The societal question is whether or not tax breaks which are intended for the procreation of children (which is what the legal benefits of marriage are intended to encourage) should be given to people who aren't able to do so.

Why does nobody who makes this argument also advocate prenuptial fertility testing for hetero couples? Oh, because it's latex-veiled hogwash? Good to know.

[TheNotoriousAMP]

The societal question is whether or not tax breaks which are intended for the procreation of children (which is what the legal benefits of marriage are intended to encourage) should be given to people who aren't able to do so.

Why does nobody who makes this argument also advocate prenuptial fertility testing for hetero couples? Oh, because it's latex-veiled hogwash? Good to know.

Not really, its because like everything with this issue, the core problem is that the concept of marriage just hasn't been updated to fit with the times. Its a lot like DnD in a way, in that's its an archaic system with fixes bolted on every now and then, but it still isn't really brought up to speed. And its messing with people's heads, because a lot of formerly secular or religious ideas are being blended together. Hell, the idea that its the state that grants marriage in the first place is a key example of this. Traditionally, all the state did was use the marriage registers of churches to keep track of people. It's really quite recent that the primary recognizer of a bond was the state (even in 1930's France, it was the church that did most of the bookkeeping). So people think that calling something marriage means giving it the religious connotations of the term, when in reality you're just applying an incorrect term to the same legal bond. The taxes face the same problem, a lot of them were put in place in the 40's, 50's and 60's, during a time when having more children and getting married was really the norm (which was a fluke, considering that during the early 1900's a lot of people couldn't really afford to do either at a young age), they weren't designed for our slowing birthrate and declining marriage rate.

So we have tax breaks that really don't fit out situation anymore (much greater adoption, in vitro) and civil unions that are called marriages. Its why I suggested just renaming all state legal recognition of any partnership as a civil union. Because historically and socially speaking, that's what they are. It removes the controversy and updates an institution to modern times. Heck, it would be nice to pair this up with maybe an intermediary domestic partnership step, like several European countries do, to recognize the fact that a lot of people aren't settling down, and that we should be providing some framework for them.

[...You Lost Me]

Well, yes, but so? You didn't ask for an optimal solution, you asked how many lives he has to save per month to make him not evil whilst murdering a prostitute per month. Sure, the best thing to do is to make him save lives and then also not murder prostitutes, but if he's still a net positive for general well-being while murdering the prostitutes, that still makes him a net positive for general well-being. Good for him.

The problem here is that had the guy not existed in the first place, the hospital would hire another surgeon who would save the lives that guy would have saved, and yet his victims would still be alive.

His existence was still a net negative on the world.

Actually, if the hospital didn't hire him, he could go join a different hospital. Yay conjecture.

Chamomile: DSM is talking about evil acts. No amount of good acts will make it acceptable to kill someone. Enough good acts might lead to a world that seems a better place for that person's existence. However, you should still condemn the doctor as a murderer because those murders can never become a good act.

This is a very bad way of viewing morality and no one should ever use it.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I'm going to restate that DSMatticus constructed an incredibly bizarre situation in which a man is simultaneously a selfless surgeon performing life-saving surgery out of the goodness of his heart while simultaneously being a sociopathic monster who murders women for giggles. Bizarre inputs generate bizarre results.

What if he's a religious fundamentalist who feels he has a responsibility to save people who aren't abhorrent monsters, but considers prostitutes abhorrent monsters?

[DSMatticus]

Well, yes, but so? You didn't ask for an optimal solution, you asked how many lives he has to save per month to make him not evil whilst murdering a prostitute per month. Sure, the best thing to do is to make him save lives and then also not murder prostitutes, but if he's still a net positive for general well-being while murdering the prostitutes, that still makes him a net positive for general well-being. Good for him.

No. I asked how many lives he has to save each month before it became ethically permissible for him to also murder a prostitute each month. From a utilitarian perspective, the ethical course of action is always the one that maximizes overall utility, and since murdering prostitutes is inferior to not murdering prostitutes, it would be completely unethical to do so regardless of how many lives you save.

Now, because the doctor is overall a net good, an aggressively utilitarian detective might decide he is ethically justified in letting the unethical doctor go uncaught. But that detective still knows the doctor is not ethical and that he is dealing with the devil for the greater good.

If it's the case that #1 or #2 is true, you just don't matter at all. Not a single homosexual person will benefit from you quietly disliking Chick Fil-A if you will not even mention it in front of anyone who doesn't already agree. If you are in category 3, your incredible unwillingness to compromise means you will never get anything done so you don't matter anyway.

You have painted a completely false dichotomy between not expressing moral outrage at any opportunity and expressing moral outrage at every opportunity in order to claim I am either a dysfunctionally argumentative, impractical dick or someone whose morals have no practical difference. Again, it's dumb and you should stop.

because if the moderately obnoxious homophobe who doesn't like calling gay marriages "marriages" is evil

I'm not really impressed by or interested in your decision to quibble about whether or not my flowery descriptions of people as "vile disgusting shitbags" as opposed to "half-empty ziplocks of shit that doesn't smell quite as bad" or whatever is appropriate given the severity of their wrongs. But I do want to point out that you should be careful about why you are suggesting we do not call them evil. It is currently socially acceptable to discriminate against homosexuals in particular ways, but the same has been true of virtually all forms of discrimination throughout history. Personally, I do think acting with intent to deprive people you don't like of equal rights for the sake of depriving people you don't like of equal rights is pretty fucking far up the ladder of evil fuckery.

On marriage and civil unions: this topic is coming up all over the place, so... I want to point out civil unions and marriages are not equal. Civil unions enjoy absolutely zero of the benefits that the federal governments give to marriages, and civil unions are even sometimes weaker than marriage in the states that pass them. They also don't have the cross-state presence and validity marriage has. When people try to tell you they're for separate but equal institutions, they're lying. It's a false gesture of accomodation, and they are offering you separate and inequal institutions. Now, it's also a slight against the dignity of homosexuals, but the part where it's just continuing to actively discriminate in practice as well as name is completely awful.

On the religious nature of marriage: it isn't. Marriage is older than the religion. The latin words Christians borrowed ~1300 to rename this very old institution are also older than the religion (and also basically mean 'to marry'). Christianity just continued the Roman institution of owning one woman at a time, and then post-enlightenment a bunch of anticlericals, atheists, and other unsavory radicals started pushing the notion that maybe owning women was not okay and marriage should be a matter of choice and love instead of ownership. If anyone gets to claim rights on the modern marriage by virtue of reinvention, it's feminists who decided they didn't want men telling them what to do with their hearts and vaginas.

[rasmuswagner]

So: actually different, to the point that conflating the two is either ignorant or disingenuous?

True, a Creationist might be legitimately stupid but an ID'er knows he's being dishonest. That *is* a pretty significant difference.