I just don't see the added value of introducing it as a separate factor from ethics. You dropped it in out of nowhere and I don't know why.
I did not drop it in as separate factor, in edit I added a hint. Obviously you never got it.
We have different ideas on how to avoid hurting. For example, do you let your kid suffer short term (eat the jalapeno he picked up from the supermarket salad bar) to learn something that may save greater suffering down the line (consuming wood alcohol or heroin)? Do you tell him he can't sing or do you let him make a fool of himself on national TV?
Yes of course the various hurts have to be discerned, it takes wisdom to do so. Wisdom is knowledge of reality plus compassion so most parents don't have a problem with your examples.
Do we spend X dollars to give everyone flu shots or on a few heart transplants? Or do we do both and add to the deficit? Or do both and not fix the air traffic control system? Or do neither and save Darfur?
Determining that would require a lot of work, we can get to it later, but in the meantime I think we should speak nice and change the world.
Life's a bitch and then you die.
Speak for yourself please.
There aren't enough resources to avoid hurt.
Yes, that's a big problem, but it's not a zero sum game. They can be cultivated. Some game.
How is intention a key player in that?
See my previous posts re ethical foundations, which can only come from ethical intentions.
Are you suggesting it's not the amount of suffering that determines priority rank but the intention behind the suffering or the easing of suffering?
No, I was not focusing on any particular ranking, but simply saying that one's intentions inform ones choices. Priorities are personal things, like the self, in a constant process of becoming. Suffering is caused by unskilled action, and one's actions have a lot to do with where one's head is at or with one's intentions, whether one is fully aware of them or not. Good Intentions by themselves are not enough to avoid unintended consequences. Beneficial outcomes requires wisdom too. Unintended consequences are caused by lack of insight into the nature of reality. This includes your own mind. This includes mistakes "which are not your fault."
Welcome to Samsara. I have to go play. |
