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It was Nazi ideology that exterminating what they saw as dangerous and disgusting people would be improving the world. It was very well propagandized into popular thought, and antisemitic views were held by many worldwide at the time. The Nuremberg Trials are very eye opening because you see that most everyone tried was normal, sane, and reasonable, but many had committed atrocities beyond our imagination. The ideology is obviously flawed from our modern standpoint, but it serves as a warning that regular and otherwise moral people can be susceptible to dangerous views.

Idk about happiness but building resilience in the face of hardship and suffering might be a worthy goal. To that end I think a daily mindfulness and gratitude practice goes a long way.

I'm an amateur philosopher who has watched a lot of philosophy podcasts and so forth.

I tentatively think Russellian monoism / panpsychism is a good theory of consciousness. It recently occurred to me that, if Russellian monoism is correct, cosmology suggests there was an extremely high density of all of the universe's matter/consciousness at the time of the big bang expansion.

I don't know much about this density:

1. All of the universe's consciousness condensed in one density prior to the big bang expansion.
2. When the expansion happened, the consciousness spread out all over the place in space (and perhaps time).
3. I don't know if the density has or had any will or caused the expansion.
4. I have no reason to attribute moral attributes to the density.
5. I don't know if the density had any knowledge (probably not much else going on for it to know about?).
6. I don't know if the density had powers. Just a heck of a lot of consciousness.
7. I don't know if the density or echoes of it continue to have any influence on our universe now.

Two questions:

A. I didn't previously consider myself a theist, but does this density qualify as a god?

B. Does anyone know of other people who went down the same line of thought and may have resources (papers, videos, whatever) that would address what I'm thinking? Does anyone know of a label for this line of thought? It seems sort of like a naturalistic pantheism perhaps?

Martha Nussbaum, a leading contemporary philosopher and legal scholar, has some great stuff on the philosophy of disgust and the law. It isn't strictly or exclusively about scent, but I think her general discussion of disgust might be useful. She is also definitely sensitive to how this all can be particularly impactful towards women.

The book is "Hiding from Humanity", and you can probably find some talks and readings online as well searching for "Martha Nussbaum on Disgust"

>Psychologists consider psychopaths as broken individuals in regards to society, and so they should be considered evil.

I'm sorry, but did you just say broken people are evil?

I think one of the biggest problems in this treatment are the contradicting suppositions that are not squared then subsequently used as parameters for defining "absolute evil". Forget about who's the biggest, baddest, evilest comic book villain.

First there is the definition of good and evil which is distilled down to that which WORKS and that which is BROKEN. That's fine and for the sake of discussion I can conditionally accept that definition. However, where the argument begins to collapse is the silent establishment of free will as an unassailable virtue and representation of good (or that which WORKS) and subsequently establishing philosophical libertarianism as the representation of freedom. That is, "there is no greater evil than slavery".

The problem is that free will is neither the agent of good nor the agent of evil. It falls in the realm of the kalon/kakon polarity and we're now back to moral relativism as the treatment suggests is inadequate for defining good and evil; i.e. we're no longer talking in terms of what WORKS and what is BROKEN. At this point the argument for what comic book villain is absolute evil is no longer working within the parameters established from the outset.

I will try to abbreviate this post by including my initial criticism of philosophical libertarianism as the representation of freedom by stating that it falls apart in practice because that which pleases me but does not please you ultimately results in might makes right and the subsequent denial of freedom to those with less power.

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I am saying it's done so poorly, it's not even neolib.

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It costs them a lot to pay for HR departments, which then discriminate in an "anti-racist" way instead of hiring fairly, cause PR fiascos, waste time with DEI meetings, add various other frictions to a business. The problem is that they're effectively mandated by the government.

Have you read the comics? Nothing neolib there. He was literally trying to impress a deity. It was not because he believed in anything or because he had any political goals, opinions or intentions.

The movies were the moment when I genuinely gave up on them because to this day not a single character has called out the ridiculousness of killing poor people because of the negative consequences of capitalism (or whatever disbalanced power dynamic is present in the other worlds where there were the same issues at late-stage capitalism).

I have to admit, I don't see the movies as neo-lib, because that would imply an attempt at a political analysis or understanding. Which there isn't. It was even more obvious in the Falcon and the Winter soldier.

I'm glad we agree that the logic of the nazi's was flawed.

I was making an analogy and representing what Nazi's thought, I was not advocating for it. Reading comprehension is important you know?

Please read: Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt. Then you will understand what I am trying to do. Maybe.

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The logic here is flawed. Nazis are NOT relatable because killing jews doesn't make the world "better".

Explain how Nazism and master race ideology makes the world a better place.

There's a cogent point in there, relevant by reasonable standards, but it definitely falls afoul of the "either say something or stop talking" rule.

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Lol there are no philosophers here, just children,most of whom would probably fail a 101

How sad is it you're getting downvoted for pointing out moral relativism is a thing? That good and evil are cultural values and not inherant? If you grew up with different parents or in a different culture on in a different time your idea of what "good" and "evil" are would not be the same as it is now.

I guess the fact that every few posts are about capeshit mcu characters should have tipped me off as to what the typical mental age of the people in here are but oof.

People in here talk as if their own philosophy is the truth and some even cite "sources" (which is really their own shitty blog post loll ) to "prove" good and Evil are a thing 🤦🏼‍♀️

Based off your article, I feel like you have a disconnect between characterization and the banality of evil.

Just because a character is relatable doesn't make their evil paltry. Thanos is evil and his actions are in no way paltry. We understand why he's doing it, and it seems reasonable and he can justify it. We understand that justification, but the result and method are undoubtedly evil. Which makes his actions even scarier because he's thought it through and done the calculus.

I am bringing up the Nazis, sorry, but they provide the best analog to real life and thanos. The nazi's had strong justification for their genocide, they were making the world a better place, like Thanos. Individual Nazi's can be relatable, like its recorded that the Nazi's were "normal" and relatable at a personal level. But committed horrendous crimes. Can you say that the Holocaust was paltry, because we can relate to those that perpetrated it? Because from the view of the Nazi's their actions were justifiable? That they had a "good" reason to kill jews? Hell no.

Another example is Ed Kemper, he was extremely well liked, had a good "character," too him, and made friends with guards and cops. He also had a justification for his actions. Yet was his evil paltry?

Also, you seem to be making an ends justify the means argument with Thanos, which....eh? You want to go down that road?

Thanos' plan is downright evil. You take any system, deontology, utilitariasm, virtue ethics, etc. He's evil, not just his "indiscriminate killing," but all his actions to get to his goal of mass genocide for the "greater good"

It’s really analytic vs continental

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I really don't see anything here but a label that still applies.

That's just one of the wrong suppositions. Thanos's snap was completely random and indiscriminate, "perfectly balanced, as all things should be." He was enacting at the cosmic level what he was doing world by world, dividing into two groups, the living and the dead.