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Suffering-focused Ethics
Suffering-focused ethics are those positions in ethics that give moral priority to the reduction of suffering. This means that they give greater weight to the reduction of suffering than to the promotion of pleasure, happiness, or to other things that one might consider valuable. According to some suffering-focused ethics, humans should concentrate exclusively on reducing preventable suffering. Other views can include additional features as the prevention of other disvalues or the promotion of other positive values while giving priority to reducing preventable suffering over them. Different suffering-focused ethics "Suffering-focused ethics" is an umbrella term that covers different normative positions which share the common element of giving priority to suffering. Even though all these doctrines share this common general aim, they make different claims regarding how we should act. An example of these views is negative consequentialism, which claims that we should minimize suffer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ethics
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns matters of value; these fields comprise the branch of philosophy called axiology. Ethics seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime. As a field of intellectual inquiry, moral philosophy is related to the fields of moral psychology, descriptive ethics, and value theory. Three major areas of study within ethics recognized today are: # Meta-ethics, concerning the theoretical meaning and reference of moral propositions, and how their truth values (if any) can be determined; # Normative ethics, concerning the practical means of determining a moral course of action; # Applied ethics, concerning what a person is obligated (or permitted) to do ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Buddhist Ethics
Buddhist ethics are traditionally based on what Buddhists view as the Enlightenment in Buddhism, enlightened perspective of the Buddha. The term for ethics or morality used in Buddhism is ''Śīla'' or ''sīla'' (Pāli). ''Śīla'' in Buddhism is one of three sections of the Noble Eightfold Path, and is a code of conduct that embraces a commitment to harmony and self-restraint with the principal motivation being nonviolence, or freedom from causing harm. It has been variously described as virtue, moral discipline and precept. ''Sīla'' is an internal, aware, and intentional ethical behavior, according to one's commitment to the path of liberation. It is an ethical compass within self and relationships, rather than what is associated with the English word "morality" (i.e., obedience, a sense of obligation, and external constraint). ''Sīla'' is one of the Threefold Training, three practices foundational to Buddhism and the non-sectarian Vipassana movement; ''sīla,'' ''Samadhi#Bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suffering Risks
Suffering risks, known as s-risks for short, are future events with the potential capacity to produce an astronomical amount of suffering. These events may generate more suffering than has ever existed on Earth, in the entirety of its existence. Sources of possible s-risks include embodied artificial intelligence and superintelligence, as well as space colonization, which could potentially lead to "constant and catastrophic wars" and an immense increase in wild animal suffering by introducing wild animals, who "generally lead short, miserable lives full of sometimes the most brutal suffering", to other planets, either intentionally, or inadvertently. Steven Umbrello, an AI ethics researcher has warned that biological computing may make system design more prone to s-risks. References Further reading * * * * * See also * AI control problem * Ethics of artificial intelligence * Ethics of terraforming * Existential risk from artificial general intelligence * Global ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Speciesism
Speciesism () is a term used in philosophy regarding the treatment of individuals of different species. The term has several different definitions within the relevant literature. A common element of most definitions is that speciesism involves treating members of one species as morally more important than members of other species in the context of their Equal consideration of interests, similar interests. Some sources specifically define speciesism as discrimination or unjustified treatment based on an individual's species membership,Horta, O., 2010. ''What is speciesism?''. Journal of agricultural and environmental ethics, 23(3), pp.243-266, p.247 "[S]peciesism is the unjustified disadvantageous consideration or treatment of those who are not classified as belonging to one or more particular species" while other sources define it as differential treatment without regard to whether the treatment is justified or not. Richard D. Ryder, Richard Ryder, who coined the term, defined it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Philosophical Pessimism
Philosophical pessimism is a family of philosophical views that assign a negative value to life or existence. Philosophical pessimists commonly argue that the world contains an Empiricism, empirical prevalence of pains over pleasures, that existence is Ontology, ontologically or Metaphysics, metaphysically adverse to living beings, and that life is fundamentally meaningless or without Teleology, purpose. Their responses to this condition, however, are widely varied and can be life-affirming. Philosophical pessimism is not a single coherent movement, but rather a loosely associated group of thinkers with similar ideas and a resemblance to each other. In ''Weltschmerz: Pessimism in German Philosophy, 1860-1900'', Frederick C. Beiser describes philosophical pessimism as "the thesis that life is not worth living, that nothingness is better than being, or that it is worse to be than not be". In a very similar way, Schopenhauer argues that it would have been better if life had not come ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard D
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'strong in rule'. Nicknames include "Richie", "Dick", "Dickon", " Dickie", "Rich", "Rick", "Rico", "Ricky", and more. Richard is a common English, German and French male name. It's also used in many more languages, particularly Germanic, such as Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Icelandic, and Dutch, as well as other languages including Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Finnish. Richard is cognate with variants of the name in other European languages, such as the Swedish "Rickard", the Catalan "Ricard" and the Italian "Riccardo", among others (see comprehensive variant list below). People named Richard Multiple people with the same name * Richard Andersen (other) * Richard Anderson (other) * Richard Cartwright (other) * Ri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pain (philosophy)
Philosophy of pain may be about suffering in general or more specifically about physical pain. The experience of pain is, due to its seeming universality, a very good portal through which to view various aspects of human life. Discussions in philosophy of mind concerning qualia has given rise to a body of knowledge called ''philosophy of pain'',Murat Aydede, ''Bibliography — Philosophy of Pain'' http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/maydede/pain/ which is about pain in the narrow sense of physical pain, and which must be distinguished from philosophical works concerning pain in the broad sense of suffering. This article covers both topics. Historical views of pain Two near contemporaries in the 18th and 19th centuries, Jeremy Bentham and the Marquis de Sade had very different views on these matters. Bentham saw pain and pleasure as objective phenomena, and defined utilitarianism on that principle. However the Marquis de Sade offered a wholly different view – which is that pain itse ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Negative Utilitarianism
Negative utilitarianism is a form of negative consequentialism that can be described as the view that people should minimize the total amount of aggregate suffering, or that they should minimize suffering and then, secondarily, maximize the total amount of happiness. It can be considered as a version of utilitarianism that gives greater priority to reducing suffering (negative utility or 'disutility') than to increasing pleasure (positive utility). This differs from classical utilitarianism, which does not claim that reducing suffering is intrinsically more important than increasing happiness. Both versions of utilitarianism hold that morally right and morally wrong actions depend solely on the consequences for overall aggregate well-being. 'Well-being' refers to the state of the individual. Negative utilitarianism would thus differ from other consequentialist views, such as negative prioritarianism or negative consequentialist egalitarianism. While these other theories would al ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Negative Consequentialism
Negative consequentialism is a version of consequentialism, which is "one of the major theories of normative ethics." Like other versions of consequentialism, negative consequentialism holds that moral right and wrong depend only on the value of outcomes. That is, for negative and other versions of consequentialism, questions such as "what should I do?" and "what kind of person should I be?" are answered only based on consequences. Negative consequentialism differs from other versions of consequentialism by giving greater weight in moral deliberations to what is bad (e.g. suffering or injustice) than what is good (e.g. happiness or justice). Due to this, it can be considered an instance of what has been called "suffering-focused ethics", the view that the reduction of suffering has moral priority over any other possible duties we may think of. Negative Utilitarianism A specific type of consequentialism is utilitarianism, which says that the consequences that matter are those that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eradication Of Suffering
The eradication or abolition of suffering is the concept of using biotechnology to create a permanent absence of involuntary pain and suffering in all sentient beings. Biology and medicine The discovery of modern anesthesia in the 19th century was an early breakthrough in the elimination of pain during surgery, but acceptance was not universal. Some medical practitioners at the time believed that anesthesia was an artificial and harmful intervention in the body's natural response to injury. Opposition to anesthesia has since dissipated, however the prospect of eradicating pain raises similar concerns about interfering with life's natural functions. People who are naturally incapable of feeling pain or unpleasant sensations due to rare conditions like pain asymbolia or congenital insensitivity to pain have been studied to discover the biological and genetic reasons for their pain-free lives. A Scottish woman with a previously unreported genetic mutation in a FAAH pseudogene ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antinatalism
Antinatalism or anti-natalism is the view that procreation is wrong. Antinatalists argue that humans should abstain from procreation because it is morally wrong. In scholarly and literary writings, various ethical arguments have been put forth in defense of antinatalism. Some of the earliest surviving formulations of the idea that it would be better not to have been born can be found in ancient Greece. The term antinatalism is in opposition to the term natalism, pronatalism or pro-natalism, and was used probably for the first time as the name of the position by Théophile de Giraud in his book ''L'art de guillotiner les procréateurs: Manifeste anti-nataliste''. The most prominent recent arguments in favor of antinatalism have been put forward by South African philosopher David Benatar. Arguments In religion Buddhism The teaching of the Buddha, among other Four Noble Truths and the beginning of Mahāvagga, is interpreted by Hari Singh Gour as follows: The issue of Bud ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suffering
Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, may be an experience of unpleasantness or aversion, possibly associated with the perception of harm or threat of harm in an individual. Suffering is the basic element that makes up the negative valence of affective phenomena. The opposite of suffering is pleasure or happiness. Suffering is often categorized as physical or mental. It may come in all degrees of intensity, from mild to intolerable. Factors of duration and frequency of occurrence usually compound that of intensity. Attitudes toward suffering may vary widely, in the sufferer or other people, according to how much it is regarded as avoidable or unavoidable, useful or useless, deserved or undeserved. Suffering occurs in the lives of sentient beings in numerous manners, often dramatically. As a result, many fields of human activity are concerned with some aspects of suffering. These aspects may include the nature of suffering, its processes, its origin and causes, its meaning and s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
