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Bardsley
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Joined: 02/04/01
Posts: 731
Bardsley
Moderator
Joined: 02/04/01
Posts: 731
11/06/2001 6:37 am
I think that selfishness is natural, but I think that hate and evil are not. Hate arises through people's inability to deal with things going against their selfish desires in a positive way, or through indoctirnation, but I don't think that kids hate when they are young, just, as PonyOne mentioned, because they have no sense of the "other". As I am not a huge fan of the idea of perfect morals (I am too much of a philosophy student), I tend to see parents and other elders in a child's life to simply educate them well about the way in which others are people in the same way as they are. I am fairly utilitarian, though i have HUGE problems with many utilitarian ideas (part of the reason why moral philosophy is so interesting is the way in which people really have to take their beliefs from many different ideals), so I see it as important to think of what is least likely to cause suffering as being desirable outcomes. I'm not sure where I am going with this, but I think that selfishness is something we can deal with, and we should try to teach ways in which our selfish desires do not have to lead to hate.
"Dozens of people spontaneously combust each year, it's just not that widely reported".