...Clearly people use them because it is easier to invoke the emotion than through e.g. meditation or whatever you are proposing.
This assumes of course that the human's world and the human's lifestyle is rational. I believe it is not. Humans deciding to do one thing over another does not necessarily mean that their choice is the best. Humans have collectively done some really stupid shit in the past...
Besides, this philosophy also applies to the other side. Is there an inherent correlation between what other people do (say, make noise that makes our ears hurt) and subjective pain felt?
No, not if "subjective pain felt" is defined as raw emotion. Emotion can be manipulated with perception.
If you have some sort of a meditation technique that can make people as elevated as they are made by a good song, can't this be used the same way to detach from pain, in which other people infringing on our rights or not respecting the live and let live fully becomes a moot point?
I think I am getting confused here, and misunderstanding you. If the pain you speak of in this excerpt were for instance defined as a human being hit with a baseball bat by another human, I would fallback to my argument of emotion existing exclusively in the mind and of relying on things outside of your head being redundant and unnecessary if you can simply remember how to rouse that emotion. In this scenario, I do not believe listening to music in 3D space could possibly be inherent good, so the girl should just stop listening to the music if another human can hear it, and it makes them unhappy.
Why do you turn an empirical question into a philosophical one?
I don't understand... Would you please rephrase this inquiry in layman's terms for me? But I answered the question as I did because I thought doing so was the best way. Sorry if this post sucks... it was difficult to compose.
By the way, it said I had to wait one minute to submit this post despite it taking me several minutes of typing to compose so I don't know if this will double post. I don't see a copy of this post on my userpage right now.
My hidden secret goal is to understand the sentiments behind social justice better, however I will refrain from asking questions that directly relate to it, as they can be mind-killers, instead, I have constructed an entirely apolitical, and probably safe thought experiment involving a common everyday problem that shouldn't be incisive.
Alice is living in an apartment, she is listening to music. The volume of her music is well within what is allowed by the regulations or social norms. Yet the neighbor is still complaining and wants her to turn it down, claiming that she (the neighbor) is unusually sensitive to noise due to some kind of ear or mental condition.
Bob, Alice's friend is also present, and he makes a case that while she can turn it down basically out of niceness or neighborliness, this level of kindness is going far beyond the requirements of duty, and should be considered a favor, because she has no ethical duty to turn it down, for the following reasons.
1) Her volume level of music is usual, it is the sensitivity level of the neighbor that is unusual, and we are under no duty to cater to every special need of others.
2) In other words, it is okay to cause suffering to others as long as it is a usual, common, accepted thing to do that would not cause suffering to a typical person.
The reasons for this are
A) It would be too hard to do otherwise, to cater to every special need, in this case it is easy, but not in all cases, so this is no general principle.
B/1) It would not help the other person much, if the other person is unusually sensitive, the problem would not be fixed by one person catering to them. A hundred people should cater to it, after all there are many sources of noise in the neighborhood.
B/2) In other words, if you are unusually rude, reducing it to usual levels of rudeness is efficient, because by that one move you made a lot of people content. But if you are already on the usual levels of rudeness and an unusually sensitive person is still suffering, further reduction is less efficient because you are only one of the many sources of their suffering. And these people are few anyway.
C) Special needs are easy to fake.
D) People should really work on toughening up and growing a thicker skin, it is actually possible.
Polls in comments below
Please explain your view in the comments.