ZOMBIE FORUMS

Okay, since I only skimmed this thread (sorry, I'm a compulsive lazy-ass), I'm going to first address the issue of morality surrounding the whole "panty-sniffer" ordeal, and then the sympathy as a moral trait.

First, yes, I see laughing at this situation as fiction acceptable, and quite different from laughing at the real thing. The sponsor of this thread asserts that "The two are effectively equivalent, in my eyes. And if two actions produce the exact same result, and this result was intended, then they are morally equivalent." Okay, you ALMOST got it right, because you're completely leaving out the concept of circumstances, which is always a variable. Let me give you another example. I happen to be a very big Looney Tune fan, and watching Elmer Fudd trying to shoot Bugs Bunny is kind of funny to me. If I actually saw a short fat man trying to shoot a comical rabbit, I wouldn't laugh. The circumstances are different, and it's unfeasible to pretend that circumstances cannot play a role in a controversial issue. If you're going to argue that "Looney Tunes is different from the panty-sniffer, it's a completely different thing..." yea, well, you're right. It's a different circumstance, and that's why they aren't exactly paralleled, the same way fiction and reality aren't exactly paralleled, even if similarities can be drawn between them.

Point is, fiction is supposed to elicit a response, or a reaction from it's audience. If we're "all going to hell for laughing at the panty-sniffer", then we're all going to hell for laughing at Wile E. Coyote getting clobbered when he tries to catch Road Runner, which really comes off as absurd - most likely, because it is. You can't intend something without knowledge of the entire circumstance, or else then something is UN-intentional, because of ignorance to the whole picture. Laughing at a joke is acceptable; they're called jokes for a reason. And no one would hold you in poor regard for laughing at a joke, however, when the real thing came along, then it's a different story, so it's kind of absurd to pigeonhole reality and fiction into the same moral schema.

I think the best example for this is the movie "The Game" with Michael Douglas. Everything is really serious and scary until you figure out it was all a ploy, a joke, an act... and then you laugh. You don't STAY serious. That's just ridiculous.

"Morality is not a matter of thought or feeling. Morality is based on action. You can sit on your ass and whine about starving children in Iraq; you could try to develop sympathy for them as well. But this has nothing to do with morality."

Actually, morality is more based on thought and interpretation than anything. A man can be very moral and do very little, if it suits him. You're basically asserting that the only moral people are the ones who act on their sympathies, and sympathy, quite simply, isn't what morality is.

This takes us on to the sympathy as a moral trait, and I think that it is, firstly because of the controversial and ever changing definition and interpretation of morality as a whole, and because morality is the composition of several aspects.

Now, if you agree with my contention that morality is NOT based on action, then sympathy is essential. An immoral person would grin and say "let those little camel jockeys dies" and a moral person would say "I hope this ends soon, for their sake" or you know, something along the lines, don't argue my examples for moral/immoral, I'm just picking somthing. IcyMonkey claims that because neither one of them is acting on their words, they have no moral standing, and obviously they do. One is malicious, and one is sympathetic, and through these responses, SOME of their moral value is shown, though not all. Someone who is completely unsympathetic, towards anything, must be apathetic, and those are people who have nuetral moral standings. They're not immoral, nor are they moral, they just are. They have no moral standing.

So yes, sympathy is a trait of morality, it's a part of morality, though it does not contain the whole of it.

I hope that made sense. I'm hungry now.

most likely because I'm an idiot and I can't work this, and because I haven't eaten, I posted this as new rather than as a reply to morality. so just move it, or assume it's there, and if you call me a stupid n00b, I may have to remove your scrotum or cerebral cortex, depending upon which one you have.

my bad.

Ignorant n00b. Not quite stupid, simply ignorant.

Rather interesting seing a DNI by Kills Commies... that was a while ago.

Why did you get the DNI from me again, AoC?

-MiB, formally kills commies

http://forums.kyhm.com/viewtopic.php?p= ... ght=#45759 or something along the lines.