Kyre comments on Rationality Quotes August 2012 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: Alejandro1 03 August 2012 03:33PM

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Comment author: Kyre 04 August 2012 10:10:09AM 4 points [-]

On the face of it I would absolutely disagree with Wilde on that: to live a moral life one absolutely needs to distinguish between good and bad. Charm (in bad people) and tedium (in good people) get in the way of this.

On the other hand, was Wilde really just blowing a big raspberry at the moralisers of his day ? Sort of saying "I care more about charm and tedium than what you call morality". I don't know enough about his context ...

Comment author: tgb 04 August 2012 02:21:12PM 14 points [-]

Since I can't be bothered to do real research, I'll just point out that this Yahoo answer says that the quote is spoken by Lord Darlington. Oscar Wilde was a humorist and an entertainer. He makes amusing characters. His characters say amusing things.

Do not read too much into this quote and, without further evidence, I would not attribute this philosophy to Oscar Wilde himself.

(I haven't read Lady Windermere's Fan, where this if from, but this sounds very much like something Lord Henry from The Picture of Dorian Gray would say. And Lord Henry is one of the main causes of the Dorian's fall from grace in this book; he's not exactly a very positive character but certainly an entertainingly cynical one!)

Comment author: Incorrect 04 August 2012 02:11:18PM 0 points [-]

On the face of it I would absolutely disagree with Wilde on that: to live a moral life one absolutely needs to distinguish between good and bad.

But is it necessary to divide people into good and bad? What if you were only to apply goodness and badness to consequences and to your own actions?

Comment author: dspeyer 05 August 2012 11:01:55PM 2 points [-]

If your own action is to empower another person, understanding that person's goodness or badness is necessary to understanding the action's goodness or badness.

Comment author: Incorrect 06 August 2012 02:33:16AM -2 points [-]

But that can be entirely reduced to the goodness or badness of consequences.