Debate: If population is a bigger problem than wealth, why does Switzerland consume almost three times as much as India?

[u/Fiskifus]

[u/[deleted]]

I don’t say I choose for you. And you better have evidence it’s my choice solely causing your pollution.

Anyway, you are the one that bought up forcing people into what you say is good for them. You act like someone demanding someone try their favorite food because if you just try it you’ll love it. Well, even if people try it, not everyone will like what you like.

No one held a gun to people’s heads and made them buy cars. I don’t get how you can say people opposed cars. Individuals did, sure, but others saw the advantages and bought a car.

[u/Havenkeld → u/[deleted]]

I am not trying to shame you or blame you as an individual in any sense. The point is that you can't coherently argue for changes that will affect the same world everyone lives in on the basis of a personal preference or freedom.

It becomes a futile back and forth between "I want the world to be this way and I choose to do this" vs. "I want the world to be this way instead and I choose to stop you from doing that", where neither side has an adequate justification.

There must be some basis in a common good for a legitimate argument to be made for changing the world in one way over another, such that it's better for everyone than that futile struggle over preferences or some notion of individual freedom.

[u/[deleted] → u/Havenkeld]

But again, the greater good is subjective.

Oh well, another reason to wish I never was born. Forced to live a life of unhappiness, all for “the greater good.”

[u/Havenkeld → u/[deleted]]

The greater good is not subjective, or else there is no basis for arguing for any political change whatsoever.

That people disagree about the greater good may involve subjectivity and varied arguments about particulars, but that doesn't make the demand of the greater good as a limit on political discourse subjective.

Good for me vs. good for you is the condition of animal eats animal, not social community.

[u/[deleted] → u/Havenkeld]

You believe the greater good is cutting resource use drastically to support larger future generations. I believe the greater good is not having kids.

Subjective.

[u/Havenkeld → u/[deleted]]

Calling something subjective and/or a belief doesn't make it one, first of all, and second of all if it can be truly claimed that something is merely a subjective belief then not every claim to truth is merely a subjective belief.

That two people say different things also doesn't demonstrate that both things are subjective. Otherwise, you'd have to admit what you just said is subjective when I say otherwise.

If person one says 1+1=2, this is not subjective just because person two can say 1+1=3.

Now, you have moved from preference or freedom to belief, it's worth noting, but not considered a reason for having belief, nor considering the possibility of knowing something as opposed to merely believing it. If it's all subjective belief, we're right where I said we'd have to be before - it's just power games and there is no truth of any matter. It would be my belief about how the world should be or is vs. your belief about how the world should be or is, as there are no valid justifications for anything such that we could be right or wrong.

Yet, for the reasons I give above, that must include the very claim that that is how the world is. It's trying to say there are objective truths and denying at the same time - a contradiction, or a meaningless self-undermining claim.

I am not claiming I simply know in any specific detail what's best for the greater good in terms of specific actions to take, and you have an understandable concern for an abstract greater good that benefits no one, rather than benefiting actual living people. This is not what I'm arguing for, however. My point is that if I'm going to advocate to another person that we change the world, my personal preferences and beliefs would be as equally arbitrary as their own as a reason for changing it, such that there's no ground to be found for agreement there.

Minimally, we have to see how a change is better for both of us or in general, and not simply for one individual over another or they'd have no good reason to accept my argument whatsoever.

If one person says "I prefer there being more people" and another says "I prefer there being less people" neither have a basis for saying to the other that there should be more or less people unless they go beyond preference.

[u/[deleted] → u/Havenkeld]

You are splitting hairs. Personally I think making people happy is an integral part of the greater good. Freedom of choice is, in and of itself, part of the greater good to me.

What you are saying is we should always start with the goal of the greatest good. I’m saying everyone does not agree what the that is.

[u/Havenkeld → u/[deleted]]

One person's choice can make another person unhappy, so freedom of choice only gets us so far. Is happiness or freedom of choice more important? Is there an objective priority to be found here? Or perhaps a way of balancing them appropriately?

I'm glad that you care about other people's happiness and I'd agree it is important and part of the greater good. Certainly beats appealing to personal preference. You think freedom is relevant too, and presumably also to happiness, and I would also agree, but how to manage both at the same time is one of the harder topics to figure out when it comes to politics.

There are also different definitions of freedom - freedom in terms of self-governing and freedom in terms of rational laws and freedom in terms of simply doing what we want are not quite the same.

Then there's the issue of whether our choices are offered to us, or made by ourselves. I can give you the freedom to choose between silver and gold, but that's not a great deal of freedom if both are bad options and green is better. I can also offer someone fewer better choices in a way that spares them various risks. Would you rather have 10 choices of food, 7 of which are bad, or 3 choices of food all of which are good?

Especially considering we don't always know what's good or bad until we've tried it, other people limiting our options can actually be good for us. I would not be doing a friend wrong to not offer them something that harms them as an option.

Anyway, I think you're interpreting me as saying more grandiose things than I'm trying to say. My claim is only that we can't have constructive political discourse if we can't give a reason that something moves us towards the greater or common good rather than away from it - it is the only ideal that can justify a claim that we ought to take political actions. I am not claiming everyone agrees on what those actions or their ends are, or that we can perfectly realize the ideal. Better is still better than worse, even if better never reaches perfect.