Debates

This is intended to be a place for debates. Please suggest a topic in the comments if you are interested in starting a debate on a new topic.

6 Responses

  1. Anonymous, on March 14, 2009 at 3:09 am said:

    How does Altruism corrupt the soul?

  2. K. M., on March 15, 2009 at 10:01 pm said:

    Anonymous,
    I have written a bit about altruism here. If you can make the question more specific or can quote something that can serve as a starting point for a debate, I will be glad to continue it.

  3. bahha, on December 24, 2010 at 11:20 pm said:

    I’d like to discuss the egoism of I and we

    like a person vs generation egoism

  4. K. M., on December 25, 2010 at 12:46 pm said:

    bahha,
    I am not sure what you mean by generation egoism. Can you elaborate?

  5. bahha, on December 26, 2010 at 9:43 pm said:

    K.M.
    hi, what i mean , the first egoism is quiet clear although there have been so many things about it .
    The egoism of generation: almost every generation tends to live only for itself, neglecting the coming generations and what they may suffer or be deprived from in the future because of their actions and egoism.
    sorry my laptop battery is draining I can’t write anylonger

  6. K. M., on December 29, 2010 at 12:08 am said:

    bahha,

    The individual is a moral agent, a collective like a generation is not. Therefore it is not clear to me, what you mean by a generation living for itself.

    A rational man understands that his interests are best served when no one is required to sacrifice their interests. Thus a man living for himself rationally is not a threat to other men. Does the same statement hold across generations? To answer that you would have to answer – What are the interests of the as yet unborn? Except in an extremely broad sense, I don’t think that is a valid question.

    If I get the drift of your comment, you seem to be raising some sort of an environmentalist concern: something to the effect that if we use up more than “our share” of natural resources, the coming generations will suffer. I don’t buy that arguement – there is no limit to resources. This is quite obvious from the fact that our ancestors did not even know about the existence of what we regard as scarce resources today – oil for instance was not a resource 150 years back. Who knows what will be regarded as resources 150 years from now?

    But even if it is true that our use of scarce resources today will reduce the quality of life of future generations, what of it? Why should we sacrifice our interests for the sake of future generations – for people who would not even exist but for us?

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