zodiac26 Jul 2005

If you live to give happiness, how can you have any certainty the net happiness of the world is increased? People could just be lying and saying "Oh, I love lilacs!" or "Great party, Dovina!" If you live for your own happiness, and assuming happiness for you doesn't mean garrotting toddlers or something, then aren't you at least sure to increase the happiness of the world by a small amount? And who really believes their own happiness requires somebody else's harm?

Because I have a feeling murderous or abusive deviance is going to come up somewhere, I'll go ahead and say I think people who supposedly get off on murder or hurting others are products of your philosophy (ie, living for your own pleasure rather than somebody else's is somewhat sinful) and not mine. At least that's what I get from movies and a kind of haphazard experience in mental health: If the guy weren't taught it's shameful to engage in normal sex/emoting/whatever, he'd probably do that instead of some furtive and twisted version of it.