Comment on Painful to recover from
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 1 week agoGotcha, 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.
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 1 week ago
You brought up being successful in a broken system being bad. I pointed out how one can do good in a system that’s broken, acknowledge that which they can’t fix, and not get hung up on it and find happiness. You seemed to take that as an ethical issue, which is why I brought up ethics.
I can’t think of an ethical system that requires one to be unhappy while doing good where they can simply because there still exists suffering.
Are you mistaking the word “good” for “well”? Are you thinking I’m saying it’s okay to smile at misery? Because what you said was my interpretation doesn’t even parse right.
If someone has done everything they can to help those it’s in their power to help, and they’ve done stuff to make a living like “teach astronomy”, I don’t know how you can say it’s worrisome that this person plays with their children at a park, or enjoys a birthday party. I’m not talking specific feelings of happiness at specific moments when contemplating specific news items or aspects of reality, I’m talking general life satisfaction.
The EU drowning thousands of refugees isn’t cause for me to have clinical depression. I’m sad when I think about it, but it’s beyond my control entirely.
You’ve still never given any actual examples of not problematic behavior by your metrics, or clarified if you’ve ever felt happiness.