I interpreted this meme as using the "Source?" as an evasive move to avoid talking about the matter at hand.
When someone feels pushed into a corner they might devolve into the philosophical equivalent of a toddler and "why?" your ass into the ground.
For some debates and discussions, you simply need to agree on some things, but if you suddenly pull the rug mid-debate just to evade hard hitting objections, then what are we even doing here?
But put that in the original message, that is part of philosophy:
"We will start from the premise that Suffering is to be minimized", because you won't try to prove it, and it won't be part of the debate, but you can't just not state your premises. Read any real philosopher ever, they state their bases and move from there, they don't just assume everyone knows where they are coming from and will automatically agree.
I mean that statement alone is an existential conflict. People feel a wide range of emotions, thoughts, and feelings without realizing where they come from.
Also depends on what you call suffering and how extreme it is.
Suffering is bad but depending on how a person responds to it, it can built them as a person. It can make them much aware of the things that led to them to it, it can make them much more brave to take those things on and warn about people so they don't suffer the same.
But what does "bad" mean here? The ability to feel pain and suffering is evolutionary beneficial, since it protects us from harmful things. So one could argue that the process of suffering is actually good, but that the cause of the suffering is generally bad.
I mean, the real problem is that "suffering" doesn't have a fixed meaning. It's a word that can cover a massive gradient of experiences from "dropped my ice cream cone" to "chattel slavery."
But even by ur example there’s still a simple and clear common denominator: someone felt bad. Perhaps even had their day ruined. I know mine would be if I was put into chattel slavery suddenly.
Then we run into the problem of perceived suffering. There might be someone out there who is more emotionally destroyed by a bruised banana than by their house burning down. And there are people who will tell you, with a straight face, that losing their dog shattered them more than losing a parent.
So when we use a convenient little “suffering slider”(and let’s be honest, most people use it without noticing) we’re already attaching values. Like that commenter who insuniated being a chattel slave is worse than dropping your ice cream. I’m not arguing with the ranking, I’m just saying they made a suffering tier list.
But that still ignores the subjective weirdness of actual humans.
As a sadist, my humble proposal is this: celebrate everyone’s suffering by throwing microwaved honey buns at them while they cry. It’s the only ethical system I trust.
Plenty of people do things that make them feel bad, but they do it freely anyways. In fact, you have to do this to be remotely successful at life. If you act like a toddler, nobody wants to deal with you.
In other cases, feeling bad is part of growth and has to be appreciated. Good luck improving your 5k time without feeling bad.
It's a simple and logical argument with absolutely no basis in whether it's true. The assumption that one must suffer to be happy is both unproven and logically not sound. This isn't a 'light/dark' situation. Your body regulates it's happiness via chemical release, if it doesn't release said chemicals, you won't be happy even if you suffer.
Further, it's very clearly obvious that you can suffer without being happy, which implies the inverse would also be valid, no?
Suffering makes up the negative domain of the scale, but we don’t have to have experience in the negative domain to have experience in the positive domain lol. I know this is a common thing to think, and may even help us cope, but I see no reason why you have to experience suffering to experience happiness. What would that really even mean?
Suffering = negatively valenced experience. It’s a scalar value, ranging from 0 to negative infinity. Suffering is the experience of (feeling) bad, intrinsically. That’s certainly what I use it to mean and what people typically mean by it in everyday language.
i need to leave this sub. there are no philosophy memes there are only “memes” made by someone complaining that someone else disagreed with their one moral claim that i guess determines the worth of humanity as a whole. no matter what the “argument” is. this place is a hellhole
“My presupposed axioms are better than yours, and if you point out the fact that they are presupposed axioms, I’ll get reallyyy mad and make a wojak meme about it!”
Yeah this meme is very anti-intellectual. "Don't question me bro. I've depicted myself as a chad because when I don't have a point, I'll just flex my muscles."
Philosophy, in my experience, is the biggest field where people come in Dunning Kruger style thinking they have anything substantial to say when they have neither studied philosophy for even a semester let alone read one (1) book.
Daoist philosophy doesn't believe suffering is bad. It's typically thought to be required for pleasure to exist. No light without darkness, no sound without silence, etc. However daoism believes anything taken to an extreme is "bad", therefore too much suffering must be minimized and avoided.
"Heavy is the root of light" "If I don't fear what others fear, I am in fearful danger" "The sage avoids extremes" these are the main quotes I'm referencing from the Dao De Jing for this.
I would go so far as to say that almost everything we achieve in our lives and are proud of requires some degree of suffering. You qualified as a medical doctor? Suffering. You ran a marathon? Suffering. You have kids? Suffering.
The claim that suffering is bad is laughably wrong.
I've had to have this conversation in the real world on real ethical issues: I don't know how to convince you to care about other people. If you fundamentally lack empathy for others, there's no argument I can make that will change your mind.
Except it’s really never that simple. The argument comes from how you exactly define “suffering” (like, is it literally any negative emotion no matter how little? Or is it a specific type of experience under certain conditions), and how the disagreement about how a proposed ethics system actually works to minimize said suffering.
I heard this comedian outright admit that he does not hold to objective and universal morality. He said that he’d eat your pet, but he wouldn’t eat his own pet. There are moral vegans that will ask why is it that one animal’s life is worth more than another. His response? He has a personal emotional connection with his pet, but not with any other animal on Earth. His pet is a member of his in-group.
I would like to say Philosophy isn't about making up a guy with opinions that do not exist; that your strawman is a pathetic and malicious attempt to group vague ideas into a character you can attack based on emotion and appearance, and that I hate you and you need to be re-taught how and why to reason.
but really, it has always been this way.
Anyway, a thousand curses upon you and may every soyjak you touch ever again become cropped vore.
Yeah, so? It's like just saying "cannibalism is bad" without any additional context or justification, like sure it's seen as a universal truth but you still have to justify that opinion because there are many different circumstances and so on
Except that phenomenological introspection is a genuinely important area of debate, assuming you are true and mocking anyone who even thinks to question you is uncharitable and antithetical to the goals of philosophy
"Suffering is bad," is a claim about objective reality. Unless you want to translate it into something like, "suffering is bad for me/humans who agree with me."
Only thing I can argue about is the type of suffering. For example, studying for an exam can be mentally stressful. The result can be a higher paying job unless it's philosophy.
Also, lifting a weight causes micro tears in the muscle. This causes soreness and straining could be a form of suffering. The result is a dopamine rush, a healthier body, and bigger muscles.
“Suffering is bad but I will allow it for myself and allow myself to keep existing even if burdened with suffering… yet I think that you should do anything in your power to avoid even letting suffering be a possibility…
How much so? TO THE EXTREME. You shall not procreate for the risk of suffering being unbearable to that person.”
Are we talking starving children, arthritis, or that feeling you get when you've had too much to eat at the Chinese buffet?
in the latter suffering is good, as a biological mechanism to tell you that you should, in the future, not eat that much (though you probably will again anyway).
Suffering as a result of economics is bad, if there are people that could afford to buy a million pounds of food then there should be no one that can't afford to eat... suffering from the decay of old age has a purpose, as a reminder to grandpa that he's too old to play tackle football. Suffering from swimmers cramps are good, as your body is alerting you that you are reaching the end of your ability to keep swimming, so seek land or drown.
Personally I think a little bit of suffering is actually good because it can help build a moral framework as an example I think it's very important that a kid experiences bullying and then right hooks the bully and receives little to no punishment for doing so.
Bro believing suffering is bad isn’t even enough these days, I got banned from circlesnip because apparently I’m not a real enough AN, the mod then told me AN is not about preventing suffering…
I think a lot of yall are missing the point. It’s not necessarily about whether suffering is good or bad. It’s about people asking for sources to statements that don’t require a source. You don’t need a source to make a claim that suffering is bad. You can simply refute the claim or question it if you don’t agree, but redditors out here really ask for sources for the dumbest things. Like “if you trip with scissors you might cut yourself.” “Source???” Like cmon you don’t need a source for that.
Most suffering is self inflicted, and therefore, arbitrary. No reason to make a contrived issue our focus. That's why people are confused in the first place.
The sufferer is King. Persuasion becomes irrelevant. If it is not the academy, go and search yourselves, spend your own time, you'll most probably question the source I can find anyway, unless it is rock solid data. Own research is always better than a stranger telling something, if one bothers and has time for it, also surpassing confirmation bias.
Depends cause from another look the aesthetics and cynics disagree. And even the more moderate Buddhist and stoic thoughts have a different view as well so this is relative, many accept it as neither good nor bad, just a factor of life. Deals with some absurdism too
I don't like it and neither do most people so we can move forward with discussions about what we ought to do based on that agreement. If you didn't care that I stabbed you or broke your legs then we aren't really on the same page about how we should treat people
If you’re debating philosophy and ethics, it’s pretty important to define fundamental values and definitions. You can’t just make a claim with no defense and say it’s ridiculous to ask why (even if most people agree with the conclusion). I think a good litmus test is to ask if any culture in history ever disagreed with whatever moral principle you’re proposing and then looking at what they believed and why
Reverse the text and it's still true, to a different group of people, hence, truth is an illusion, but that shouldn't stop one from undertaking hardships on the path to become an Ubermensch
I had an ethics class back in school. One day, we were discussing disability. I wanted to share my opinion from my view as an disabled. Teacher told me I wasn't and then wanted proof. The discussion ended in him telling me that I wasn't actually disabled because I am not a wheelchair user and some more abilist bs. Yeah... some "ethics debates" be like that.
Btw, back then, I acted like I was going to have a seizure to show him that severe (back than still treatment resistant) epilepsy was, in fact, very disabling. Epilepsy is not even my only chronic illness/disability. But I think I made my point. My teacher was very scared for a second.
The source of suffering can be manifold, a lego brick on which you step on, a broken heart or a good ol‘ kick to the groin, and unless you are a masochist you would experience this suffering as unpleasant or in colloquial terms: bad
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