You're looking at Less Wrong's discussion board. This includes all posts, including those that haven't been promoted to the front page yet. For more information, see About Less Wrong.

DeVliegendeHollander comments on Happiness and Goodness as Universal Terminal Virtues - Less Wrong Discussion

19 [deleted] 21 April 2015 04:42PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (66)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: [deleted] 30 April 2015 09:37:11AM *  1 point [-]

In the modern world, goodness is generally understood as wanting others to be happy and not suffer. Sounds like the Golden Rule, as most people want to be happy and not suffer themselves, and goodness is understood as wishing the same for others. To be fair, it does look like a little bit of a narrow view, I remember Roger Scruton remarking that if your philosophy is equally suitable for humans and swine then you may need to rethink something (i.e. happy as a pig in the mud cannot really be the only terminal value, wishing it for everybody cannot be the only terminal goodness), but this is the social consensus today.

Comment author: Romashka 30 April 2015 11:03:18AM 0 points [-]

Ah, then you might like "Град обреченный" (The doomed city) by A&B Strugatsky:)