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ThunderPeel2001

Do you have the right to hurt someone?

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I'm asking you to give a different answer to the question. Your current answer says "it's wrong to hurt people when it's wrong to hurt them," basically. You don't seem to have answered the question of WHEN it's wrong to hurt others. Is it ALWAYS wrong? SOMETIMES wrong? In what circumstances? Etc.

I'm not sure what you're missing here, so I'll try and restate what I've already said in a different way:

It's possible to hurt someone NOT out of spite. It's possible to hurt someone out of spite.

So, IMO, it is wrong to hurt others when you are motivated by spite. That is not saying "it is wrong to do something when it's wrong".

Deterrence is another POSSIBLE reason. In reality we don't have ONE justification - people are split. I have spoken with a former chief prosecutor of like Missouri or something (can't remember) and asked him whether he sent people to fry in the electric chair for deterrence, retribution, or both. He said he does not believe that punishing people deters any criminal behavior. He thinks the only reason to punish people, even to execute them, is retribution. Is he wrong?

This has nothing to do with what's being discussed, so I'm going to skip it.

I'm looking for a justification for hurting someone JUST TO HURT THEM. This is the only case that can answer your original question, which is "do you have the right to hurt someone?" I take it basically everyone on EARTH would answer "yes" if the question is "is it okay ever to hurt someone for the greater good, including their own greater good." The more interesting question is "do you have a right to hurt someone in other cases" because that's the ones about which there can be dispute.

Well, let me know when you find one. (I'm not convinced that one exists.)

Since you insist on a realistic example rather than a thought experiment, though, how about this: throughout most of history in western civilization, people have married largely for economic reasons and for other reasons that have nothing to do with love. Your parents want you to marry some dude you don't like because your older brother will get to work in the dude's business and eventually take it over when the dude dies. Is it OK for you not to marry the dude? He'll be crushed - he's totally smitten with you. You won't really mind the marriage - all of your siblings, your parents, your friends, etc. are pretty much all married for economic reasons, and that's totally normal. You know you'd have a fine life with this guy, and it would be sweet for your brother's business prospects. You still have the right to refuse marriage, right? Even though you do it just out of spite because you are a jerk and hate this guy.

This is where I think we're not seeing eye-to-eye. Even in the example you've given, it does not encompass all the variables you think it does. Would it be wrong for the person to refuse marriage solely out of spite? Yes, of course it would. You plainly state this yourself when you describe the person in your scenario as being a "jerk". (If you want to talk about tautology, there's a great example!)

For your example to stand, the alternative would have to be a happy (or functional, at worst) marriage (and not, as you stated, marriage to someone you "hate"). For even this example to be of any merit, it has be assumed that if the "spite" didn't exist, that the person would say "yes" (otherwise your default alternative of accepting marriage wouldn't stand -- there would be a third option of, "Don't marry for another reason.") So let's go with that. The alternatives are:

1. A reasonably happy/functional marriage -- i.e. not to someone you hate.

2. Refusal of a happy/functional marriage solely out of spite.

(I actually already gave this as an example to you in one of my other replies, but never mind...)

Given everything I've just explained, do you now see why, even held to these stricter rules, your "thought experiment" doesn't say what you think it does? It's not that it's ethically wrong to refuse marriage, it's that it's ethically wrong to refuse marriage out of spite, when actually you would otherwise say "yes".

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I'm not sure what you're missing here, so I'll try and restate what I've already said in a different way:

It's possible to hurt someone NOT out of spite. It's possible to hurt someone out of spite.

So, IMO, it is wrong to hurt others when you are motivated by spite. That is not saying "it is wrong to do something when it's wrong".

But what is "spite?" When I think of spite, I think of someone acting from no motive other than to do something that is wrong to someone else, simply BECAUSE it is wrong. So you're just saying that "it is wrong to do something wrong." That's tautological.

Well, let me know when you find one. (I'm not convinced that one exists.)

Okay, sure, but you started this thread for a reason, right? You're asking whether someone ever has a right to hurt someone else? Surely you expected more interesting answers than "no," right? Have you ever heard anyone say anything other than "no?" Why would anyone go for anything other than "obviously not?" I've given some examples, like the marriage case, but you then proceeded to change the question, so that instead of asking whether we can ever have a right to hurt anyone, you've instead asked whether we can have a right to hurt anyone from spite. You've claimed the answer is no, but that strikes me as an empty claim. You're not really saying anything that any sane person could disagree with. We don't have a discussion. Or if you claim the answer is yes, I still think I've provided a counterexample.

This is where I think we're not seeing eye-to-eye. Even in the example you've given, it does not encompass all the variables you think it does. Would it be wrong for the person to refuse marriage solely out of spite? Yes, of course it would. You plainly state this yourself when you describe the person in your scenario as being a "jerk". (If you want to talk about tautology, there's a great example!)

Well, WHY is the person a jerk? Because they're acting solely out of spite! So this is wrong, sure, but it's well within their rights, is it not? So this seems like a good counterexample to the notion that we can never have a right to act out of spite, which means we can have a right to hurt someone else. But as I mentioned in I think my first post, rights talk is perhaps not what you're looking to get at.

For your example to stand, the alternative would have to be a happy (or functional, at worst) marriage (and not, as you stated, marriage to someone you "hate"). For even this example to be of any merit, it has be assumed that if the "spite" didn't exist, that the person would say "yes" (otherwise your default alternative of accepting marriage wouldn't stand -- there would be a third option of, "Don't marry for another reason.") So let's go with that. The alternatives are:

1. A reasonably happy/functional marriage -- i.e. not to someone you hate.

2. Refusal of a happy/functional marriage solely out of spite.

(I actually already gave this as an example to you in one of my other replies, but never mind...)

Given everything I've just explained, do you now see why, even held to these stricter rules, your "thought experiment" doesn't say what you think it does? It's not that it's ethically wrong to refuse marriage, it's that it's ethically wrong to refuse marriage out of spite, when actually you would otherwise say "yes".

I agree that it would be ethically wrong to refuse the marriage solely out of spite. If you do it you are to that degree a bad person. But you still have a right to do it.

Your question in the title of the thread and the first post mixes together a lot of things, but two distinct issues are what we have a RIGHT to do and what is RIGHT or WRONG, ethically. Whether we can have a RIGHT to do something that is WRONG is a heated question. Is that what you are asking? Or are you asking a different question? A different question you might be asking is "is it ever RIGHT to hurt someone?" The answer to THAT question is also difficult but I think it's easier in the abstract - the answer is yes, if your reason is good enough, and no, if you have no reason (and are thus acting from spite, etc.).

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TychoCelchuu, why the hell are you not in my topic?

This question touches upon a lot of the core philosphy of justice. Justice is a tricky thing! I'm sure, Tycho, that a lot of people would actually not choose to hurt someone for the greater good, because not all people are utilitarian.

I think most people here will get a kick out of the freely distributed Harvard class on Justice by Michael Sandel:

It's a fantastic primer on the topic and will both answer a lot of questions and widen your horizon.

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A different question you might be asking is "is it ever RIGHT to hurt someone?" The answer to THAT question is also difficult but I think it's easier in the abstract - the answer is yes, if your reason is good enough, and no, if you have no reason (and are thus acting from spite, etc.).

Ding ding ding! We have a winner. The last thing I wanted to do was drag this topic down to the level of "what is right? How do we define right?"

You seem to think that my (comparatively) light question has little merit, but you're missing a key component: Although, as you say, the average person would agree that hurting someone out of spite is unethical, everyone does it.

I've done it. And I've had it done to me. Lots of times.

Someone who is angry, hurt, upset will often lash out for no other reason than to try and exact some form of revenge. ("You've hurt me, I want to hurt you back.") I'm sure you've done it yourself.

And that, to me, is where the interesting part lays. This question was not asked in order to try and justify hurting someone, it was asked to make people think about typical, everyday behaviour.

Behaviour which, according to you, is pretty much unanimously seen as a bad thing, but which continues every day. If people think it's bad, but still engage in it, maybe there's something worth examining there...?

Sorry if it wasn't a particularly deep discussion, it's just something that was on my mind!

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Rodi: Many people would of course choose not to hurt someone for the greater good, but it's harder to get people to agree that it's WRONG to hurt someone for the greater good, especially in cases where the hurt is small and the good is great. Since this topic is about whether it's EVER okay to hurt someone, I take it that a case of "smack someone to save four lives" is a counterexample to one possible response, which is "it is never okay."

Ding ding ding! We have a winner. The last thing I wanted to do was drag this topic down to the level of "what is right? How do we define right?"

You seem to think that my (comparatively) light question has little merit, but you're missing a key component: Although, as you say, the average person would agree that hurting someone out of spite is unethical, everyone does it.

I've done it. And I've had it done to me. Lots of times.

Someone who is angry, hurt, upset will often lash out for no other reason than to try and exact some form of revenge. ("You've hurt me, I want to hurt you back.") I'm sure you've done it yourself.

And that, to me, is where the interesting part lays. This question was not asked in order to try and justify hurting someone, it was asked to make people think about typical, everyday behaviour.

Behaviour which, according to you, is pretty much unanimously seen as a bad thing, but which continues every day.

Sorry if it wasn't a particularly deep discussion, it's just something that was on my mind!

Well, yes, people do bad things. And people don't just do the worst bad things, like torture, rape, murder, enslaving people, child molestation, cruelty towards animals, and circumventing the DRM on a product they've purchased in order to use it without a constant connection to the Internet. They also do moderately bad things, and slightly bad things. If you're really asking "is it okay to do these bad things? Because people sure as heck do them all the time! I even do them sometimes" then the answer is "no" because just because people do something doesn't make it okay to do.

If you want to get people to think about everyday behavior and how they hurt people then that's a noble goal, I guess, but I don't think you're going to cause any amazing revelations in people by getting them to admit that hurting others is wrong. Everyone agrees with that. The problem is that people still do it, not that they pretend that it's okay to do.

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