Comment on Painful to recover from
h4lf8yte@lemmy.ml 1 week agoHow you react to those circumstances speaks for your character
Being able to ignore the bigger picture because you can change your own privileged surroundings IS the problematic reaction that speaks for your character
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Gotcha, so doing good where you can makes you evil unless you’re mired in torment over things beyond your control? By that metric everyone in the world is evil.
I can’t fathom an ethical system that requires you to be unhappy about things beyond your control once you’ve done the good that you can.
What constitutes “good character” to you? What constitutes “success”?
h4lf8yte@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
Yes it is called empathy, it’s nothing you can buy yourself out of by doing good things. If you are somehow interested in the well being of the people it just doesn’t magically disappear after helping some of them. It doesn’t make you evil but it’s certainly not a good sign to weigh these things against each other. The ability to feel good while seeing the world suffer seems to me problematic.
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
Gotcha. So when was the last time you were happy? I take it you simply do not do things you enjoy?
And when did I say anything even remotely like not feeling empathy for suffering, or that caring for people disappears after doing a good deed? Empathy isn’t an ethical system.
I’m actually curious what behavior you think would be non-problematic, and if any human actually does that.
h4lf8yte@lemmy.ml 1 week ago
You’re the only one talking about abstract ethical systems. The original discussion is about being a good catch for doing good in life. And doing good in terms of being generally happy (your interpretation) while seeing the world suffer is the opposite of being empathic. Because empathy is a valuable good in relationships. So this is in my view not the best catch but there are levels to this.