Thought experiment: A white supremacist finds out he is partially ethnically Jewish and commits suicide out of self loathing. Is it a virtuous death? What if his guiding emotion was shame instead of self loathing? Should suicides even be ranked in nobility?
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Replying to @warm_horizons
no. what even is a virtuous death? to me this is like saying "green dream" or "sour alphabet". category error.
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Replying to @warm_horizons
there is a temptation to judge the quality of deaths, and to see the taking of life as a means towards justice. I think this is a mistake. everything that lives also dies. we ought to judge a life by its living moments not its manner and time of death.
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Replying to @danlistensto @warm_horizons
if the white supremacist's life was not virtuous (and it probably wasn't since we're talking about a hypothetical baddy) then there is no redemption of that life in any kind of death.
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Replying to @danlistensto @warm_horizons
if the hypothetical baddy wanted to redeem himself, he should have chosen to live and work to ameliorate any harm he was responsible for, and then work more to ameliorate harm in a more general sense.
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Replying to @danlistensto
would just a change in mindset suffice? What if his moral conclusion is that the world would be a better (more just) place without him regardless of his effort?
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if the only harm he ever caused was by thinking harmful thoughts then a change in mindset would suffice. in that scenario he would have only harmed his own mind and so simply changing his mind repairs that harm. if he did more than just think about it he has a greater debt.
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Replying to @danlistensto @warm_horizons
the world would not be a better place without _him_, it would be a better place with _his hateful and destructive thoughts and actions_. he should preserve himself and reform his actions to make a better world.
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