I said nothing about the sadist. I spoke of his action.
A morally neutral act is one which does not change the net sum of goodness and badness as defined by one's philosophy.
Your philosophy takes into account all affected individuals. Therefore, a sadist who follows your philosophy will make decisions based on all relevant individuals. Therefore, when a person is making a decision about how to act, they will make the decision based on all relevant individuals. Therefore, a morally neutral person by your philosophy will be evil.

But whose's net sum of goodness and badness are we talking about here?

I think it would be more accurate, with respect to my philosophy, to describe the effect of his actions (assuming proper punishment afterward) on society as morally neutral, while he himself is not morally neutral.

Actually, I think your whole last post was a technicality whose relevance is tangential at best; however, I admittedly lack the reasoning ability required to prove it, so... I do not know what else to say at this point. ><

More so the entire race than just the 'innocent' (if such a thing exists). And yeah, you misunderstood me I guess, but you are correct about the second part 'we are unfit to morally judge' seems to be correct because as I've said before, I find it hard to believe that one of my fellow humans is intelligent or pure or wise or strong or whatever enough to distinguish truths necessary to determine which morals are worth holding.

But the fact that most humans are capable of empathy, guilt, and righteous indignation would seem to imply a fitness for making moral judgments, wouldn't it?

For themselves, definitely, but for the race as a whole? Not even close.

By definition of what a moral framework or philosophy is, as a person subscribing to your philosophy which deals with the whole, we are talking about the whole.
In terms of what action he has chosen to make, knowing and following your philosophy, he has pursued a neutral goal; that is a neutral action.
That's exactly what it is. As you may recall, I described it (apparently incorrectly, regarding my use of the word "too") as "interpreting [..] intentionally too literally for purposes of joke".

By the way, I think that the correct point to make here is that either "evil" is not antonymous with "good", or else we are implying that there can be a difference between what a person is and what they intentionally make of their existence, which seems rather counterintuitive for me; else that it is not correct to call them evil, but rather that they are sinful.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jul 3 2010, 1:17 am by EzDay281.

I think this is correct. However, I don't think that neutral intentions with respect to the entirety of mankind absolve evil actions with respect to an innocent person. In your example, the sadist is doing something evil. It doesn't matter that he is punished for it and that he planned for that punishment. His intentions were not neutral: he intended to do evil, and then to have others punish him in the name of good. His intentions -- the things he himself intended to do -- were evil. Even if he did those things with the knowledge that he would be punished and his actions with respect to humanity would be neutralized, his own actions were still evil.

Your emphasis (and double emphasis) imply to me that you think there is a point that you are trying to communicate which you need to highlight; yet these last few posts of ours have simply been repeated reiteratings and reconfirmings of a concept.
Where am I confused? >.>

I think I'm the one confused. If his actions are evil, how can they be neutral?

That's what you're saying.
Unless you're saying that you do not determine the morality of an action by how it affects the variables that a moral system is concerned with. In which case, you've got some really weird thing going on with your English and think that "moral system" is not a means by which one defines morality (including of actions).

That, or you believe that it is morally wrong to pull the lever because you are causing someone to die, and for some reason (either intentionally or not) not distinguishing between an action and all intents and actions.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. And unless I've been completely blinded by confusion, I've yet to see you answer that question.

Given this, we can determine that a sadist torturing someone and, by intent, being punished equally is intentionally yielding neutrality. You are saying that he is evil, and by definition of morals, he is acting in a neutral manner as he is intentionally creating neutrality.
That is what morals is. The values by which good and bad are judged. A moral system which deals with a whole must account for the whole in determining good or bad.

In English, please?

Your moral system deals with humanity as a whole. Therefore, if you are judging morality, you are judging it with regards to the whole.

I think my moral system works on both a species-wide and individual level.

• If a person does something evil, they are evil.
  
• If a person does something evil, mankind is also evil and will remain so until the evil act is balanced (by inflicting an equal amount of pain upon the evildoer).
  

And this is what the situation I proposed involves, by intention of the sadist.
In order to say that the sadist is evil for his one act but not made neutral for his other, then you must be intentionally ignoring factors other than "he caused pain". And that leads to obvious problems.

Well, think of this.

Let Evil = -1.
Let Neutral = 0.
Let Good = 1.

Our sadist, John Smith, becomes more evil when he commits an evil act. So his morality -= 1.

However, its effect on mankind is neutral, so his morality += 0.

Morality -= 1 += 0 == Morality -= 1 == Evil

Quite basically, you're saying that he did something that by your moral system is judged good (changed -1 to 0), but he did not do something that by your moral system is judged good (he's still evil).
A moral system is a set of values. John Smith did not affect these values, only rearranged them. From the perspective of the moral system, he basically did nothing, and by intent.
-1 + 0 != 0.

If someone causes you to simultaneously lose and gain $5, from and to the same location, in a manner in which the sets of $5 are identical in function to you, do you say that this person is guilty of making you lose money?

Assuming that our John Smith was properly punished, he made no change to the morality of mankind as a whole. His own morality, however, is still compromised. I'm stating that a person's morality is not the same as mankind's morality, though their own actions affect both.

Your monetary example is off. John Smith is not directly responsible for his punishment. While he may perform a sequence of actions that he knows will lead to punishment, he himself is not the entity carrying out that punishment, and so he himself is not the one re-balancing the scales (returning the $5).

A more proper analogy would be to say that someone takes $5 from me, and then someone else takes that $5 from them and returns it to me; the person who took my money away from me is still a thief, but their actions have been corrected.

So if you do not determine one's responsibility for something by their intent, then how do you?

I am reminded of a thought experiment. Asking for curiosity, would you consider me to be guilty of murder for flipping the switch?

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Jul 4 2010, 2:44 pm by EzDay281.