[ SECRET POST #3186 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3186 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.
[Steven Universe]


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03.
[Kushiel's Legacy and Harry Potter]


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04.
[Gravity Falls]


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05.
[Lacuna Coil]


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06. [huge]
[Youtube Sam and Nia]


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07. [huge]
[Austin Mahone]


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08.
[Eddie Izzard]


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09.
[Worm]


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10. http://i.imgur.com/IOyJzu9.jpg
[Kristen Bell, House of Lies, OP warned for nudity]


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11. http://i.imgur.com/zanEaAh.jpg
[The Great Mouse Detective, linked for porn (illustrated, furry)]











Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 014 secrets from Secret Submission Post #455.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[case]

Are you looking for moral arguments, or expecting moral arguments? Because there's a difference between being a good person and doing good acts, and lots of non-good people do good acts all the time for lots of reasons, morals be damned!

They like to look like a good person (tons of social benefits), they like to FEEL like a good person (ego benefits), they use the good to offset the bad and can use it to get favors/repayment from other people (monetary or utility benefits), they do good deeds to help others that are in their family or friends circles (companionship benefits). There are literally tons of purely logical reasons to do good things, ESPECIALLY if they're at no cost to you.

Lots of people automatically assume extreme selfishness is the smartest choice, though.

(ETA: That's why so many sociopaths are smiling, charming people - if you really didn't care about people, you'd use them, and getting them to trust and like you goes a long way. Much, much further than hating them and thinking they're all scum, which only hurts you by alienating you.)

(ETA2: I am not a sociopath! I have just studied them)

[(Anonymous)]

also being kind to others can help you out in tricky situations:

people who have zero reasons to hate you and several reasons to like you are more likely to come to your aid should you need it, and and might very well step up to defend you if you're in danger

/er, also not a sociopath! just gave this too much thought

[case]

Yup, one of the things that wasn't addressed is that there's a "neutral" in there too - doing good things, not doing anything, and doing bad things!

There are tons of reasons to NOT do things that harm others but help you in terms of logical consequences, and part of that is losing the trust and goodwill of people even if you're never formally charged with crimes or arrested or anything. All the people you screw over, provided they're not dead, will probably never take your side on anything again.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah as long as you are being observed or live around other people or in a social group, contributing to that gets you goodwill and a boosted reputation allowing you to take advantage of more people. So long as it doesn't incur you a significant time cost or is out of the way for you, it helps to do good things in front of other people so they like you and will do stuff for you in turn.

You can even see this in RPGs sometimes; my most evil bloodmage Dragon Age warden actually did a lot of good acts because people were watching or it'd net him goodwill (why desecrate the ashes when looking like the guy who went to the holy site and saved an arl will look so much better) but was 100% ok with having Caridin die and Branka win because the only people who would know what went down would be the companions. Meanwhile the actually good, noble Dalish elf I had completely fucked over a lot of Ferelden because she wouldn't compromise on points of honor and always Did The Right Thing as she saw it.

[case]

Fixed video game decisions are usually kind of weird like that, they have a default good option and a default bad option that doesn't take into account WHY the character is choosing those things. If you save the orphans, you're a hero, even if you only did it to impress your girlfriend or for the money - meanwhile kicking your dog 500 times alone in your house does nothing to your morality meter

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, it works better seeing it as a goodwill meter rather than a personal morality meter. I actually like roleplay game systems like VtM because they have the dual thing where you have humanity and masquerade breaking as measuring both what you do and how people view what you do. Though granted, the kind of thing you mention isn't too far off from reality in some ways - big well known faces of the community who do a lot of charity work can be dicks in their own home and get clean away with it, like the Texas judge who was beating his daughter - that wasn't a one off incident.

Anyway, as someone who is pretty self interested and doesn't see themselves as good, if you want to get in a position where there are more options for you to enrich yourself, doing a couple of good things here and there certainly does help. It doesn't mean you should always pick the good option, but just be smart about it. Also, what is viewed as 'good' is totally relative to the kind of community or culture you're in. It's like honour killings! You net a lot of understanding from your own cultural group, but if that cultural group happens to be in the minority and they don't understand why you see that as the good and right thing to do...

I think like in order to have any good (heh) discussion on this, OP - or whoever - needs to define exactly what they mean as 'good'. Is it 'selfless'? Something like being willing to take on the disapproval of the wider community to kill your child because they were dishonored by having sex before marriage could in theory be seen as selfless. And no doubt the person doing it would see it as good. See: Abraham and killing his kid, totally viewed as a 100% good thing by tons of people, just extend it out to modern times and you can understand where that kind of thing comes from. But at the same time loads of other people wouldn't view that sort of action as a good thing, so we're left a little confused as to just what that means anyway.

sameanon

[(Anonymous)]

Oops, I mean Abraham and being like totally willing to kill his kid because God told him that was the thing to do, not Abraham actually going through with it.

Re: sameanon

[case]

That's a big part of the reason I wouldn't (in the hypothetical scenario) tackle it according to morality since it's all pretty relative. Anything that requires "because someone else said so" depends totally on whether you believe in or agree with that God/authority figure/system/social contract/etc.

Re: sameanon

[(Anonymous)]

I'd agree with that. While I do think it's possible for people to be morally good, both 'by whose morals' and 'what do you mean by good' would have to be sort of applied there if I'm talking about it with other people, because what I might view as moral or good isn't necessarily what they'd think of as that.

Honestly, thinking that 'only acting out of self-interest' precludes 'doing things that are seen as good' or 'helping other people' is being kind of ignorant about how society as a whole functions. Unless you literally live out in the woods in some cabin in a totally self-sufficient manner (and are WILLING to do so and leave behind other sort of comforts and what not, which I sure as hell am not), you can't escape some level of exchanging favours and relying on reciprocity for deeds and services.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm looking for any answers people give! I think it's interesting. I had moral arguments in mind, or I suppose any other arguments to the person that I might be compelling, but I'm also interested in anything else people think.

My concern with self-interest arguments is - for one thing - there's just a lot of situations where they're not going to apply.

[case]

It's situational, but given no situation or details, it's tough to answer "What reason is there why I ought to do [good] things?" in any other way besides very generally in the "reasons exist, you can apply them where they do apply" way.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I definitely don't disagree that it's difficult. But at the same time that's kind of the question that's interesting to me.

Also, I agree that different reasons exist, but it seems unlikely to me that the self-interested thing to do is always the moral thing, and so again that seems like kind of a problem to me.

[case]

I wasn't saying you should always be moral, the answer was actually devoid of reason-by-morality! I was more trying to say that sometimes, doing the good thing is just as beneficial or more beneficial than swinging all the way to doing the bad thing.

Therefore, there are reasons to do good!

(There are also reasons to do bad, but almost never circumstances where it's ALWAYS more beneficial to only do one or the other.)

Unless the question meant to ask "what is a reason to always do good?"

[(Anonymous)]

The question I had in mind is along the lines of "Is there a reason, in general, to do good?", yes.

But, I mean, "There is no such reason" is a perfectly valid answer, and in many ways the most obvious one. And also, if people want to talk about other understandings of the question, that's also really interesting.

[case]

Then I think - to answer the question - there are lots of reasons, in general, to do good things (like the ones listed above that can apply to many situations)! And lots of reasons, in general, to do bad things (which the hypothetical person I'm speaking to would be familiar with).

Is there a reason, overall, to generally do good INSTEAD of doing bad things (as WELL as over doing nothing, which is also a legitimate choice) - depends on the person and situation. There CAN be such reason, but it depends on who the person is, where they live, what their situation is like, what they can afford to give up, what they want to accomplish, etc.