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Originally Posted by Medusa
I find that the golden rule is a good rule to live by. I've began teaching my son this as well. As far as actual "morals", as long as whatever you are doing doesn't hurt anyone and is happening with/between consensual adults, it's ok by me.
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This is mildly tangential, but I thought I'd ask anyway:
1. Do you find the golden rule helpful in situations where someone has done something that you have never done before? (For example, provided you are not yourself a murderer, is it helpful to think of treating a murderer the way you would like to be treated if you were in their shoes?) I find that in most cases of evil, I have no idea how I would like to be treated were I the evildoer. Do you think this drawback is surmountable?
2. Do you think there are circumstances in which it is permissible for you to harm others? In which you are obligated to harm others? Or is it truly the case that you should always refrain from harming others?
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The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
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