Let's talk about ethics, you and I. No doubt that if you were in the lecture on Friday you surely heard me voice my opinions on the philosophy of the so-called 'dice life'. What made me angry is that the core maxim of the philosophy is flawed, and if your foundations are flawed then you'll have a very shaky house. It started that following the dice gives you freedom. That's rubbish. By following the dice you are NOT getting anymore freedom, you're just following another set of rules- YOU choose six options and then the dices picks for you. That's not freedom, that's just asking something else to choose for you, you still have to choose the options.
At least it seemed that the dice idea was a bit of a satire, but it seemed the guy in the video actually believe in it which befuddles me. If you chose to follow the 'dice' path then you really are shutting yourself off from other people, forsaking them. That to me is only a step away from narcissism, egotism and solipsism (in which you believe you are the only mind in existence). If you cut people out of your philosophy then I believe your screwed. Why? Because everything you do will ALWAYS have an effect on other people. Think about it, can you honestly name one act that really has no effect on anybody else? My philosophy is a combination of two theories, the fist is utilitarianism which works on the maxim- the greatest good for the greatest number. And what is 'good? Quite simply- happiness. If you look inside yourself can you find anything better than the feeling of happiness? If you think this sounds like a selfish theory, then you're wrong- it's the opposite. If a good utilitarian had to sacrifice his happiness so that, say, three other people could be happy then they would do it.
Now, other course there are problems with this theory which I'm sure you can see, so in order to fill the gaps as it were I bring in this theory- libertarianism. And the maxim for this- people can do whatever they want as long as they don't hurt or harm anybody else. For me, those two theories really go hand in hand, helping each other out when there's a problem. I try and live my life by these rules because they make sense to me. Everybody should have some kind of a principle they try and live by. With the 'dice life' there is no principle other than letting the dice decide, and by my philosophies it seems that alienating other people while making yourself happy, will cause harm to other people and that's not good.
Any comments?
3 comments:
Mostly I just thought, "eh, each to their own". I can see what you're saying about leading a dice life not necessarily granting you freedom, although I suppose one could argue that it gives you slightly more freedom then if you were to just say "Right, I'm going to do blah, and that's that." Even if you pick the options, there's no guarantee that you will end up doing the one you actually really wanted to do over the on you maybe weren't so bothered about.
But. Yeah. Mostly I thought it was kinda dumb too XD;;
i think that whether you shut yourself off from people in the dice life truly depends on which choices were made, you could say, for example 'get married' or 'have a picnic with so and so' or 'go to the beach with friends'. At the same time, though I also think that to give up our ability to make a choice is to hand over our humanity.
Most philosophies are flawed, in my opinion. Utilitarianism, for example, was notorious for it's population paradoxes. two towns could be equally happy but one would 'worse' than the other because of population density.
but...yes...as Laney said before me, each to their own
My view was that the dice life would probably have been fun had the person holding the dice not been a psycho. To say that it is a way of freedom is wrong because it clearly isn't if you have to absolutely do what it says then of course it isn't.
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