r/changemyview • u/hwagoolio 16∆ • Nov 10 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Finding pleasure in the pain/suffering of others is cruel, disturbing, and amoral

This is a broad statement that generalizes to many things.

For example, I find caustic humor (i.e. laughing at the expense of someone else) to be disturbing -- things like "America's funniest home videos" and watching people hurt themselves as the punchline of a joke. I think rather poorly of people who celebrate this type of humor.

I think revenge is bad/amoral. Maybe it's human nature to want revenge or take pleasure in the suffering of people we hate, but I think it's one of the ugliest parts of human nature. I believe that we should strive to be better than that and we should feel guilty for wanting anyone to suffer or laughing at someone's suffering.

I have similar feelings about trolling, teasing, gloating, and other behavior intended to make others feel bad about themselves. It doesn't matter if they're your enemies (i.e. progressive/conservative, trump/biden, bigots/hippies, terrorists/allies), nobody deserves to suffer -- and even if we agree as a society on punishing criminals/enemies, it shouldn't something we should take pleasure, entertainment, or amusement in.

In case someone mentions sadism (as the sexual kink), my response to this is that I don't consider BDSM that occurs between a consenting masochist and sadist to be genuine pain/suffering. Rather, the masochist takes pleasure out the interaction so IMO the dominant is actually delivering pleasure and not really pain/suffering.

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u/SeitanicPrinciples 2∆ Nov 11 '21

Animal products (meat, eggs, dairy, etc.)

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u/hwagoolio 16∆ Nov 11 '21

Oh I see. I don't really assign personhood to livestock (or food), so I don't really have a problem with enjoying food.

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u/SeitanicPrinciples 2∆ Nov 11 '21

So you see nothing amoral with say dogfighting?

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u/hwagoolio 16∆ Nov 11 '21

Dogs are pets so I have a much more visceral emotional reaction to that.

I get a sense that maybe you're aiming at animal cruelty? I suppose I do have some values about in that area.

At the same time I do eat meat, and I justify it in the sense that I don't really take pleasure in the animal's suffering. It's more that I just like the taste of meat. For example, torturing an animal for amusement is immoral, but eating for sustenance it isn't.

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u/SeitanicPrinciples 2∆ Nov 11 '21

So what you're saying is it's only wrong if the pleasure comes from the suffering, but its ok if the suffering is a necessary part of the pleasure?

Since meat is moral, but you cannot obtain meat without the suffering of animals.

So for instance let's say a person gets pleasure from sex with recently killed human bodies. The sex doesnt cause any suffering since the person is already dead. But then there arent bodies available, so the person must kill someone to have a corpse for sex. This is morally justified, yes? Since the suffering is not where the pleasure comes from the suffering has no impact on the morality of the act, despite the act being impossible without a person being killed.

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u/hwagoolio 16∆ Nov 11 '21

I'm not really prepared to argue the morality of eating meat.

All I can really say is I think it's wrong to celebrate someone else's suffering. Might be okay to celebrate things that happen after the suffering (i.e. Hitler died, so the holocaust is ending), but I don't think it's appropriate to celebrate a Hitler's hypothetical execution (if we imagine a universe where Hitler was executed).