I love how philosophy provides no answers and makes every debate worse

In my first year I was like “wow I’ll be able to win any argument soon” but philosophy classes are just learning the overarching lesson over and over that there isn’t and will likely never be an answer because literally anything can be refuted in a manner that’s at least cogent

There’s just a lot of shit we would need like some kind of concrete evidence to conclude upon without any possibility for further debate but on stuff like morality or theology we don’t have anything that tells us right from wrong definitively.

I mean that helps our ideas of morality shift over time and change across generations but it makes it difficult to stomp out devils advocates and people who want to justify hurting other people with really long winded twisty logic

I think the only thing most people have agreed upon is that morality depends heavily on intention, but intention itself is so tricky to navigate because it depends so heavily on perception, which is easily flawed.

I’ve also heard it said that morality really ends up being a case by case basis given how fucking big it is, which I think makes sense, and like I think the current justice system tries to reflect that even if it doesn’t get it right.

I worry a lot about thinking about morality as though it’s on this wide 3D spectrum because I don’t want to risk giving actual evil like serial killers and manipulative cult leaders breathing room to defend themselves but I think those would just count as like far end evil??

But that’s objectively speaking, and we have no objectivity. Again, we circle back to perception. So it seems a lot of right and wrong depends on what groups of subjective viewers can agree on, but those groups are still not 100% reliable

It bothers me a lot that there’s stuff I can never have objective answers to, because there’s a lot of things I feel ought to be classified as immoral in all contexts (racism, homophobia, transphobia)

Adding in principles grounds some idea of what morality ought to look like which helps with getting groups of people to agree on things but it’ll never convince everybody.

For example, I personally feel like what makes something moral is if it prevents harm, encourages happiness and wellbeing for the most amount of people possible, and lets people be free

But any smartass from my morality classes could make up some really specific scenario where all those things are met but something about it is still immoral. Like an entire utopian country thriving off the energy produced by a single tortured person or something

Circles back, morality is a case by case basis regardless. It’s like a “here’s some classifications to guide you but they aren’t all encompassing”

Frustrating as all hell because I’m always inclined to follow the rules, but the one rule is that the rules are malleable and not conclusive. Not to mention that sometimes following the rules has made me more miserable than not

Thematically in line, there’s like no way to conclude this thread. It is my birthday so everyone has to look at my thoughts