That's trivially false. For example, I BELIEVE that I'm smug right now. How could a person ever form a belief like that except based on their feelings?
But feelings can also be used for more than just forming beliefs about feelings themselves. For example, if someone considers (non-statutory) raping a child and then feels bad most normal humans would take that as an indication that maybe (non-statutory) raping a child is bad.
Sure, a human's feelings could mislead them regarding normative beliefs, but can't feelings at least be a reasonable indicator of normative truths?
I'm curious, if we don't define good and bad in terms of the feelings of a human who is thinking objectively, then how else are we supposed to define good and bad? Can you come up with a complete definition of good and bad which matches people's usage of the term, but which isn't based on feelings in one way or another?
Scoundrel
npub14p…kxw3v
2026-07-07 21:17:56 UTC
in reply to nevent1q…rpz7
Author Public Key
npub14pa5q2kqs8ygfxuat02w88ezsle9wzwnu0meu7z2785t8rl0hhcspkxw3vPublished at
2026-07-07 21:17:56 UTCEvent JSON
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"content": "That's trivially false. For example, I BELIEVE that I'm smug right now. How could a person ever form a belief like that except based on their feelings?\n\nBut feelings can also be used for more than just forming beliefs about feelings themselves. For example, if someone considers (non-statutory) raping a child and then feels bad most normal humans would take that as an indication that maybe (non-statutory) raping a child is bad.\n\nSure, a human's feelings could mislead them regarding normative beliefs, but can't feelings at least be a reasonable indicator of normative truths?\n\nI'm curious, if we don't define good and bad in terms of the feelings of a human who is thinking objectively, then how else are we supposed to define good and bad? Can you come up with a complete definition of good and bad which matches people's usage of the term, but which isn't based on feelings in one way or another?",
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