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Comment by senand | Hacker News Reader

You gave an interesting explanation of what morality is and where it originates (in your opinion). However, that's besides the point.

Even if morality was just herd instinct, what you were saying previously is that suffering for you is not immoral. And even though, many intelligent people saw absolutely nothing wrong with torture, what about you, right now?

What I'm getting at is that your original statement which basically said "suffering is OK" (you didn't indicate any restrictions or conditions) is just bullshit.

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You seem to be constructing an argument like "if suffering is not immoral, then you must also think that torture is moral". That's a straw-man argument. It is a perfectly valid position to assert that inflicting suffering is morally wrong while at the same time rejecting that all suffering is morally wrong.

When someone says that something is not immoral (or evil), they can be arguing to things: either it is moral, or it is amoral (i.e. is not affected by qualifications of morality). The GP is arguing the latter: that, in the context of nature, suffering is an unavoidable consequence of competition for life. Is the lion evil for targeting the weakest wildebeest? Is toxoplasmosis evil for disrupting the fight-or-flight response of its host?

That just suffering by itself is not immoral is quite obvious. We were talking about _inflicting suffering_ the whole time. And, to be even more precise, about knowingly inflicting suffering by human beings. Therefore all the questions you stated are besides the point.

Now it seems the next argument that will come is that we as human beings are also animals and part of nature, and therefore we can also kill other animals as e.g. lions do.

Well, a female mantis occasionally decapitates its male mates after copulation. Does that mean that it is moral for women to do the same to men? Amezarak's original statement is just too broad.

Well, a female mantis occasionally decapitates its male mates after copulation. Does that mean that it is moral for women to do the same to men?

No one is arguing that nature is moral.

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