Ask Lemmy

I try to live my life happily while causing the least negative impact for others.

Honesty, fairness, integrity.

I don’t lie - ever. Not even white lies. I might not always say what I think, but I never say something I know to be untrue.

I treat others the way I’d want to be treated myself. Even when it comes to decisions where no one else is directly involved, I ask myself: Would the world be better or worse if everyone acted like this? If the answer is worse, I don’t do it.

Don't be a hypocrite. I won’t criticize others for something I’m guilty of myself - which is probably why you rarely hear me criticizing anyone at all.

Also, I don't believe in free will - as in the ability to have done otherwise. That's the other reason I don't blame people for their actions. This is something that just overall plays a huge factor in how I approach life. There are many things I see completely differently than most other people - including myself.

A related quote: “It’s not a principle if it’s not costing you anything.”

This is one of the biggest problems going on right now. That people don't have a knowledge of their own morality, not in any tangible, processed way. People resort to following a person who they believe has the morality they seek, but their own decisions are actually based on a combo of feelings and whatever dogma they may have with no real analysis or improvement being done with any consistency. It would fix a hell of a lot of problems if your average person was breaking down the implications of their own morality and developing a defensible philosophical position. For most I observe that is farther than the average person is willing to parse. It seems that this has led many to base essentially their entire philosophy of right vs wrong (as far as they can actually explain it without just saying "God") on a series of impactful sounding, but ultimately hollow, sound bites or snappy retorts that don't have any actual substance.

Dont break the weekend safety brief.

• Do not add to the population
• Do not subtract from the population
• Do not end up in the newspaper, hospital or jail. -- If you do end up in jail, establish dominance quickly.

Obviosuly this a a comedic response but it covers most of the bases.

Be the person Captain Picard would want you to be.

Don't be a dick.

your*

Logic is the wrong tool for ethics. In formal logic, you can only assign values like true or false to something called "descriptive statements". These are statements of fact, that can be observed.

Morality deals with "prescriptive" statements. Unobservable and unstable statements about how the world ought to be.

Logic breaks down because it's impossible to argue for something that should be using only facts about how thing are.

The prescriptive statement "it's wrong to harm" relies on the prescriptive statement "harm is bad". Their is no bottom to it.

Don't be a cunt to...

... Yourself ... Others ... people in need

But...

... Not bring yourself in danger ... Not Bring Others in danger ... Not let people bully, use, hurt etc. you.

Be kind

Most other animals develop rapidly from birth to self sufficiency, while humans are born so very unfinished - totally dependent on others for our most basic needs, for years and years. If any values can be said to resonate with "human nature", it's prosocial and community-building values.

Just about every major religion glorifies some version of The Golden Rule - do unto others as ye would be done by.

To paraphrase Dr. Who, this has always stuck with me: Never be cruel, never be cowardly. Remember – hate is always foolish…and love, is always wise. Always try to be nice, and never fail to be kind.

1. Accept the things you can't change, and improve the things you can change. I disagree with the classical stoics on their emphasis on individual action and think that these principles can and should be applied on a societal level.

2. Mind your own business. If someone is doing something that doesn't have any real impact on your life or the lives of people you care about, ignore it. If someone is gay or trans that doesn't impact you at all. If someone has weird religious beliefs, let them believe them as long as they're not hurting anyone.

3. The supernatural should be ignored for society level decisions because it cannot be proven and hasn't been demonstrated. If someone wants to go to a psychic or astrologer for personal decisions I disagree with that but that's on them.

4. Everyone has a god they worship. It may not be Jesus or Allah, but it may be money, a sport team, or maybe a musical band. Ritual and community are things that make us feel good. Coming together with a group of people for a common cause to enjoy something together is built into our psychology. The problem of replacing religion with bands and sports teams is that it comes with the fun parts of religion without the discussion of morality or urging to do good that religion can bring. You don't see Kansas City Chiefs fans giving 10% of their income to the poor, for example. My ideal world would have secular temples to Reason where people come together to sing and discuss philosophy and work together for a common good. This one is weirder than the others and I won't be mad if anyone thinks this is absurd. I just think that we have rejected religion without having a satisfactory replacement for the good things it provides.

I start with my ideal, which is "I want the most amount of people to be as content as possible for as long as possible."

Then I build a heirarchy of groups in relation to the ideal, and it comes out in stepped groups, starting with me, immediate family, social group (further family, friends, colleagues), local community, government, humanity. This set allows me to target my focus, if Im content and safe, I can focus on helping my family be the same, and each level builds up to and allows for the next.

Now I can identify where to focus i need rules on how to act, i know what my goals is, but i need to make sure my actions arent counter to goal in some way, a set of rules like commandments (that can only be divined through experience) mitigate the possibility. Christianity does a good job of picking out the things that are counter to my ideal as it is, so mine are basically modelled after that.

1. No killing
2. No stealing
3. Dont lie
4. Dont covet
5. No adultery (though I'd say this covers breaking any agreement/commitment made)
6. There's probably a couple more I've missed but I'm short on time

And for it to be fair for me to expect anyone else to follow the rules, i must first, this is the connection between rights and responsibilities If I want to claim a right, it is my responsibility to ensure others receives that right.

So basically I know if I follow that schedule, I really cant consciously do any wrong and can sleep right knowing I mad the best decision.

Let mek now if Im being incoherent anywhere, happy to discuss whatever.

Learn the difference between a necessary risk and an unnecessary one, and whenever possible, decide with intent when to deploy the latter.

Other than that, leave things better than you found them. That goes a long way.

Golden Mean - a famous philosphy by Aristotle has been really been big part of my adult life. It's just incredibly handy and applicable to any situation.

Aristotle's Golden Mean is the idea that virtue lies between two extremes - excess and deficiency.

We even see this idea expressed in contemporary sciences and sociology concepts like economic diminishing returns etc. and it really applies to everything. The best parts of life are trully in the middle and if you believe in only one life focusing on extremes is unlikely to get you anywhere interesting unless you're very lucky/unlucky.

I really recommend "How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question" by Michael Schur who is one of the creators of The Good Place and he evaluates many popular ethics and world model views from a contemporary point of view and its really well done if you're interested in practical ethics.

Drink enough coffee to shit before leaving the house.

If you want to judge the character of a person:

Observe how they treat those they have power over, usually in terms of social hirarchy or economic position.

Edit: Read the question wrong. Be nice to the service workers you rely on to get things done, like janitors, servers, cleaners, basically the bottom ranks of the totem pole.

If you have to ask why and need a selfish reason:

These people often are in positions where they can sabotage you, make your life difficult or slow you down. You really dont want to scream at the people who handle your importent paperwork, which can easily "get lost in the administration"...

It's right if it brings happiness to yourself and the world, it's wrong if it brings pain to yourself and the world.

It is also right to follow rules if you don't have a clear understanding of the situation, because (hopefully) those rules were made with an expertise that you don't posses.

Love deeply

In the immortal words of J.

"Don't start nothin', won't be nothin'."

A lot of it is just Kant's categorical imperative: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."

Also leave the camp better than you found it, because small improvements add up.

Don't attract too much attention to yourself and you can get way with a lot of shit.

My standard for "good" practise is: if everyone adapt said practice, then the world would be better off.

Even though the effort of a single person can be futile; if I cannot chance my behavior for a cause I believe in, how can I expect the rest of the world to do the same?

What are you most basic principles for life?

Spell check

Pay your taxes, use your blinker, and don't preach at people. As long as you follow those guidelines have a fucking field day with your life.

1. Human rights as a consensual starting pooint of what is good.
2. Rational skepticism, ranking knowledge/belief based on the proximity to an international scientific consensus.
3. Expressing my opinions and questioning others opinions in a polite and nuanced way that allows civilized discussion. It increases the chance of common progress rather than strengthening tribal bubbles.

Do what you think is right, but spend some time considering if it's right or not first.

Recognizing when you're not considering and just going by intuition or emotional response would probably already put you ahead of most of us.

Empathy seems to be necessary (but I'm not sure if sufficient) for logical moral consideration because you cannot justify your position if you purposefully ignore another's, and considering someone else's perspective without prejudice is empathy.