#moral decisions

[iamentertainmentclub-blog]

Proverbs Daily Reflection – January 5, 2025

🌟 Proverbs Daily: Proverbs 5:6 🌟 "She gives no thought to the way of life; her paths wander aimlessly, but she does not know it." #josephmekaelpageministries

🌟 Proverbs Daily: Proverbs 5:6 🌟“She gives no thought to the way of life; her paths wander aimlessly, but she does not know it.” This verse paints a vivid picture of spiritual blindness—a life of indulgence and distraction, devoid of direction or purpose. It warns us against the allure of worldly pleasures that lead us away from God’s truth. While the scripture uses the example of a woman, the…

[thesaltyace]

Y'all I did NOT know this about Harris, and I think it's really critical that we all listen and understand as we approach this election. Video at the end.

This creator's video describes how progressive Harris was as a prosecutor -- actively going against the grain to the point she was accused of being soft on crime. Accused of being a social worker, not a prosecutor. She calls it being smart on crime. She's pushing for systemic changes to give real pathways to reintegrate incarcerated folks back into society and prevent their past from continuing to haunt them moving forward.

"Kamala's a cop" is a catchy dismissive response usually used to shut down conversation rather than add nuance. But this kind of reform is ESSENTIAL to work towards a present and future that treats incarcerated people with value.

I fell for it in 2020 and have thought "Kamala's a cop" without further inspection since - and I'm sobered by the realization that (you guessed it!) I'm not immune to propaganda.

A better system only follows liberal democracy, because library democracy allows for exploration of better systems. If authoritarianism takes hold, it will not allow for the exploration of better systems. We will have to fight tooth and nail just to try to get back to liberal democracy, and I suspect we could not achieve it in our lifetimes.

Harris isn't perfect. But she's a hell of a lot better than many leftists have led me to believe. Don't let perfection be the enemy of good. Don't let perfection be the enemy of harm reduction.

We can either help elect Trump and usher in authoritarian fascism, or we can help defeat him and pull things back in the direction we want to go. Not liking the choices doesn't absolve you from participating and doing the most good you can with the options available.

I'll link the original video in the replies. The original video has captions if you need them.

[conceptsnest]

EXPLORING SITUATIONAL ETHICS AND BEHAVIOR DYNAMICS: THE SENSITIVITIES OF MORAL COMPASS – CHAPTER -01

Situational ethics, or situation ethics, is a teleological and consequential theory of ethics concerned with the outcome of an action as opposed to an action being intrinsically wrong as in deontological theories. The theory was principally developed in the 1960s by the Christian Episcopal priest Joseph Fletcher. He argued that sometimes moral principles could be cast aside in certain situations if love is best being served. He believed that there are no absolute laws other than the law of love, and that all the other laws were secondary. This means that all the other laws may be broken if other courses of action would result in more love. Thus, in the case of situational ethics, the ends can justify the means.

Joseph Fletcher (1905–1991), in his time, developed what he called an ethical non-system. His publication was questioned amongst the public because it legitimized the general post-war dissatisfaction with authority. The English term "situation ethics" was taken from the German Situationsethik. It is unclear who first coined the term either in German or in its English variant.

At the time it was written, it seemed to make some radical claims such as that it is not wrong to have extramarital sex, to be homosexual, or to have an abortion. All that said, Fletcher’s work is not widely discussed nor respected in philosophical circles. Fletcher called this ethical “non-system” Situationism.  

A few instances from the epic- The Ramayana- illustrate this. The Bible also has a few illustrations.

Because of its consequentialism, situational ethics is often confused with utilitarianism, because utilitarianism's aim is the greatest good for the greatest number, although situational ethics focuses more on creating the greatest amount of love and it also has different origins. Having said that, however, situational ethics can also be classed under the ethical theory genre of ‘proportionalism’, which says that 'it is never right to go against a principle unless there is a proportionate reason which would justify it’. Through situational ethics, Fletcher attempted to find a 'middle road' between legalistic and antinomian ethics.

The Meaning & Context of Agape

Our world has many definitions of love, but we most commonly think about love in a romantic sense. What if true love meant more than romance? What if there was a deeper, fuller expression of love?

The concept of agape has been widely examined within its Christian context. It has also been considered in the contexts of other religions, religious ethics, and science. For instance, in the New Testament, agape refers to the covenant love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for God; the term necessarily extends to the love of one's fellow human beings. Some contemporary writers have sought to extend the use of agape into non-religious contexts.

The Three Views Of Situational Ethics

Situational ethics relies on one principle—what best serves love. According to Fletcher, love is unconditional and unsentimental. Situational ethics is based on the golden rule "love your neighbor as yourself" and altruism, which is putting others before yourself and showing agape (a greek interpretation of love – discussed shortly) towards everyone. It agrees on reason being the instrument of moral judgments, but disagrees that the good is to be disconcerted from the nature of things. All moral decisions depend on what the most loving thing to do is.

Fletcher says there are two unattractive views in ethics: “Legalism” and “Antinomianism”, and one attractive view, which sits in between them: “Situationism”.

Legalism: Someone who is following the system of Legalism is someone who “blindly” observes moral rules without being sensitive to the situation. For example, we ought to tell the truth in all situations, even if this means that, say, millions of people die. In 2002 the religious police of Saudi Arabia refused to let a group of girls escape from a burning building because they were wearing “inappropriate” clothing, which was against the will of God. Fifteen girls died.

Reference:

‘Saudi Police “Stopped” Fire Rescue’, BBC News (15 March 2002), freely available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1874471.stm

Antinomianism: The other extreme is Antinomianism (“anti” meaning against; “nominalism” meaning law). This is the view that says that an agent can do whatever he or she wants in a situation. An “existential” view - because it is one that says that people are always free to choose what they want. Any supposed laws and rules limiting the actions of people are simply a way of trying to comfort them because they are scared of absolute freedom.

Antinomianism means the moral agent is erratic and random, is unpredictable, and any decisions taken are ad hoc. There are no laws nor guiding principles, just agents and their conscience and the institutions in which they find themselves.

Situationism: The Middle Ethics. We might think that Legalism and Antinomianism exhaust the possibilities. If we reject moral laws then are not we forced into lawless moral anarchy?

Fletcher says that there is a moral law, and hence he rejects Antinomianism. But there is only one moral law, so he rejects Legalism. His one moral law is that we ought to always act so as to bring about the most love for the most people (“Agápē Calculus”). Fletcher’s Situationism is then a teleological theory- directed at the consequences that will determine whether an action is right or wrong. Of course, any teleological theory will ask us to look at the details of the situation. What makes his view different is the centrality of “love”, or as he calls it agápē.

There can be moral principles but that these differ from laws. Principles are generalizations which are context-sensitive and which derive from the one law regarding maximizing love. For example, we might have a moral principle that we ought not to murder. This is a principle because we might think in that in general murder is wrong because it does not bring about the most love. However, it is not a law because, murder is not wrong in all situations.

For example, a situation might arise where the child of a terrorist would have to be murdered in order to get information to stop a nuclear attack. From the universal law we can only derive principles, not other universal laws.

***To be continued in Chapter 02 (Four Working Principles of Situationism, Conscience as a Verb not a Noun, Six Propositions of Situation Ethics, The Criticism of Situational Ethics, How it falls short)

Content Curated by: Dr Shoury Kuttappa

[tikklil]

Red riding hood boys

[lauraisakilljoy]

“we need more complex characters!!” if Lost were released today all of the characters would be cancelled immediately

[seaglassdinosaur]

Something about how Haymitch continues to drink. That he never ‘fully’ recovers, even though there are plenty of opportunities through and after the series when his access to alcohol is cut off. Something about him perhaps seeing the act as pointless because the damage to his body has been done, but being content with the time he has left.

Something about Haymitch being able to care about people again; allowing himself to care about Katniss and Peeta and not having to fear losing them or anyone else ever again. That he finds a hobby, a constructive and meaningful way to spend his time that not only reminds him of Lenore Dove, but was prompted by the people he has around him. That he finally feels safe enough to open up about and remember everyone who was taken over the years. That he’s able to heal some through this.

Something about how Haymitch’s pain doesn’t go away, but he’s able to find peace with it through these practices and people, and is able to forgive himself and feel forgiven by those he lost.

[sydneighsays]

May have dipped my toes into the malevolent pool.

My take on Arthur, I'm only on s3, don't crucify me if I'm wrong.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 271

“Grandmother is visiting,” Damian suddenly said with no warning and with his usual not-quite demanding tone. 

“Who?” Tim wasn’t the only one to startle, seeing as Bruce had practically froze, a downturn to his lips in a silent show of confusion. 

Damian scowled. “Are you deaf Drake? Grandmother is coming to Gotham to, quote, make sure I am being properly cared for.” None of them had known that Ras was with anyone actually. At least Tim was pretty sure that would have been in the files. 

“Oh?” Dick didn’t quite crouch to Damian’s height but it was a near thing. “She-” “He,” Damian corrected, interrupting him. They all exchanged a glance before Dick continued. 

“Is he coming to the Manor or…” 

Damian scoffed again, a tiny bit of a flush against his face. “No, Grandmother will most likely be staying with Akhi-”

Now wait one moment-

“YOU HAVE ANOTHER BROTHER?!” 

[mostlysignssomeportents]

AI can’t do your job

I'm on a 20+ city book tour for my new novel PICKS AND SHOVELS. Catch me in SAN DIEGO at MYSTERIOUS GALAXY on Mar 24, and in CHICAGO with PETER SAGAL on Apr 2. More tour dates here.

AI can't do your job, but an AI salesman (Elon Musk) can convince your boss (the USA) to fire you and replace you (a federal worker) with a chatbot that can't do your job:

https://www.pcmag.com/news/amid-job-cuts-doge-accelerates-rollout-of-ai-tool-to-automate-government

If you pay attention to the hype, you'd think that all the action on "AI" (an incoherent grab-bag of only marginally related technologies) was in generating text and images. Man, is that ever wrong. The AI hype machine could put every commercial illustrator alive on the breadline and the savings wouldn't pay the kombucha budget for the million-dollar-a-year techies who oversaw Dall-E's training run. The commercial market for automated email summaries is likewise infinitesimal.

The fact that CEOs overestimate the size of this market is easy to understand, since "CEO" is the most laptop job of all laptop jobs. Having a chatbot summarize the boss's email is the 2025 equivalent of the 2000s gag about the boss whose secretary printed out the boss's email and put it in his in-tray so he could go over it with a red pen and then dictate his reply.

The smart AI money is long on "decision support," whereby a statistical inference engine suggests to a human being what decision they should make. There's bots that are supposed to diagnose tumors, bots that are supposed to make neutral bail and parole decisions, bots that are supposed to evaluate student essays, resumes and loan applications.

The narrative around these bots is that they are there to help humans. In this story, the hospital buys a radiology bot that offers a second opinion to the human radiologist. If they disagree, the human radiologist takes another look. In this tale, AI is a way for hospitals to make fewer mistakes by spending more money. An AI assisted radiologist is less productive (because they re-run some x-rays to resolve disagreements with the bot) but more accurate.

In automation theory jargon, this radiologist is a "centaur" – a human head grafted onto the tireless, ever-vigilant body of a robot

Of course, no one who invests in an AI company expects this to happen. Instead, they want reverse-centaurs: a human who acts as an assistant to a robot. The real pitch to hospital is, "Fire all but one of your radiologists and then put that poor bastard to work reviewing the judgments our robot makes at machine scale."

No one seriously thinks that the reverse-centaur radiologist will be able to maintain perfect vigilance over long shifts of supervising automated process that rarely go wrong, but when they do, the error must be caught:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/01/human-in-the-loop/#monkey-in-the-middle

The role of this "human in the loop" isn't to prevent errors. That human's is there to be blamed for errors:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/30/a-neck-in-a-noose/#is-also-a-human-in-the-loop

The human is there to be a "moral crumple zone":

https://estsjournal.org/index.php/ests/article/view/260

The human is there to be an "accountability sink":

https://profilebooks.com/work/the-unaccountability-machine/

But they're not there to be radiologists.

This is bad enough when we're talking about radiology, but it's even worse in government contexts, where the bots are deciding who gets Medicare, who gets food stamps, who gets VA benefits, who gets a visa, who gets indicted, who gets bail, and who gets parole.

That's because statistical inference is intrinsically conservative: an AI predicts the future by looking at its data about the past, and when that prediction is also an automated decision, fed to a Chaplinesque reverse-centaur trying to keep pace with a torrent of machine judgments, the prediction becomes a directive, and thus a self-fulfilling prophecy:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/09/autocomplete-worshippers/#the-real-ai-was-the-corporations-that-we-fought-along-the-way

AIs want the future to be like the past, and AIs make the future like the past. If the training data is full of human bias, then the predictions will also be full of human bias, and then the outcomes will be full of human bias, and when those outcomes are copraphagically fed back into the training data, you get new, highly concentrated human/machine bias:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/14/inhuman-centipede/#enshittibottification

By firing skilled human workers and replacing them with spicy autocomplete, Musk is assuming his final form as both the kind of boss who can be conned into replacing you with a defective chatbot and as the fast-talking sales rep who cons your boss. Musk is transforming key government functions into high-speed error-generating machines whose human minders are only the payroll to take the fall for the coming tsunami of robot fuckups.

This is the equivalent to filling the American government's walls with asbestos, turning agencies into hazmat zones that we can't touch without causing thousands to sicken and die:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/19/failure-cascades/#dirty-data

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2025/03/18/asbestos-in-the-walls/#government-by-spicy-autocomplete

Image: Krd (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DASA_01.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

--

Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[ffcrazy15]

There's this way of doing female-ness in Christianity that I call "pastel flower journal Christianity." I've got nothing against pastel flower journals per se, but for some reason people believe it's the end all and be all of female spirituality, and I think it's a real disservice towards young Christian women.

One of these days I'd like to start a prayer-and-reading group or something for young women, but there would be no floral themes or over-focus on how "God thinks you're beautiful even if the world doesn't" (a true statement, but it's wayyyyy too often the focus in women's spiritual reading). Instead we would be reading:

Seneca's Letters from a Stoic

Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning

Sheed's A Map of Life

Portions of Pieper's book on leisure

Kreeft's Three Philosophies of Life

Guardini's The Lord (or something similar)

Therese's Story of a Soul

and some select portions of the Nicomachean Ethics.

(Also they're all getting the porn talk. I don't know why we give the porn talk to young men but not young women. There's this idea that women don't use porn and they only need the talk about "guarding their heart." Bullshit. There's porn on the YA shelves of Barnes and Nobles and before that there were bodice rippers. Young women need the porn talk too.)

Every young woman needs to be getting a basic grounding in virtue ethics, logic, natural law, scholastic philosophy and Biblical hermeneutics if they're going to get by in today's spiritual landscape. Enough faffery and emotionalism in young women's spiritual education! Give them real food to chew on, not pasty sentimentalism!

[dukeofthomas]

I find the fact that the confrontation at the end of UTRH is often summarized as Jason asking Bruce to kill the Joker for him fascinating.

Because that's not what happened.

Jason holds a gun up to Joker's head, gives Bruce another, and tells him that if Bruce doesn't do something (shoot Jason), he will kill Joker.

Jason doesn't give the gun to Bruce so that he would shoot Joker. He isn't expecting Bruce to pull the trigger on the clown. He's asking Bruce to do nothing. To be inactive. Because that will still be a choice, and despite having done nothing, everybody clearly agrees that Bruce would still, at least in part, be responsible for Joker's death.

...And to me, this moment is a kind of- microcosm, of the rest of Jason's point. Because after being captured and carted off to Arkham, the villain will escape again, and will kill more people. The only way to truly prevent that from happening would be to kill them; Bruce refuses to do so, and I respect his right to choose such a thing for himself, but it is still a choice, and if we agree that Bruce's inaction during the confrontation would leave him at least partly responsible for the Joker's death, then we must also agree that his inaction in permanently preventing the Rogues from killing more people means he is also, partly, responsible for all of those deaths.

[softestaries]

do we think matt even realised it was wilson fisk he was taking a bullet for or was he reliving the same night foggy got shot all over again, except this time daredevil got there fast enough to stop it?

he saved his arch nemesis but he couldn't save his best friend.

he got shot on the same side as foggy.

the showrunners are sick.

[finalgirlsamwinchester]

supernatural was truly just. a fifteen year long experimental study looking into an audience's ability to empathise with the Narrative Scapegoat. the results? most people are still filled with the medieval urge to throw rotten fruit at the resident Freak in the town square.

[stale-popsicle-queen]

Plenty of y'all fans in the Watcher fandom really gonna just gloss over the fact that you were vile to these people just a few days ago.

[fangirl-nadir]

[mollysunder]

I know Heimerdinger's Christian Linke's favorite character, and I sort of tolerated it in s1, but now it feels like things are a little too indulgent. Heimerdinger gets to team up with Ekko to launder his reputation through Ekko and the Firelights. Heimerdinger gets the first narrative game and second character teaser in the promotional cycl. Heimerdinger gets to SING A SONG that's included on the s2 Arcane soundtrack (Spin the Wheel).

Maybe I'd be less annoyed if the show at least did more to acknowledge Heimerdinger's failings as a leader, but his character description can't even do that. This is how the official Arcane website describes Heimerdinger:

"Heimerdinger warned the Piltover Council about the dangers of using magic without tangible solutions for safeguarding its use. Learning from his mistakes with Jayce, Heimerdinger inspires Ekko to keep looking for a solution and works with him to solve the problem, instead of just offering advice."

That's not Heimerdinger's main problem! The problem is the fact he's the person most singularly responsible for the state of Zaun and Piltover. It feels like the show and the cast are just dancing around the fact that Heimerdinger technically has the highest body count in the show (Day of Ash, pollution, extreme poverty, etc). The one time someone puts him to task (Jayce), the show makes it seem like Jayce is wrong or overstepped, and yeah he did do it for Viktor's sake, but Jayce was right! Heimerdinger's bad at his job, he shouldn't be in a leadership position if he's a bad leader.