View Poll Results: Would you push the magic button?

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  • Yes

    3 42.86%
  • No

    4 57.14%
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Thread: You could be Phineas Gage, minus the massive brain injury

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    mutton mutton's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gwahir View Post
    Who wouldn't be happier without that shame-foisting guilt-mongerer's unseemly mitts all over their anterior prefrontal cortex? But if you said no, why did you say no?
    I don't think this is a clear-cut good or happy dilemma:

    - Choosing to have a conscience doesn't mean choosing to be good.
    - One may push the button merely to be rid of certain feelings, not to be more happy.
    - One may feel compelled to abide by ethical guidelines even after pushing the button, for purely theoretical reasons.
    - Pushing the button doesn't make you automatically crave power or wish to harm people. It's not like we feel so restricted in our every day lives that we can't do certain bad things, or that the only thing stopping us is our conscience.

    - You'd miss out on all the happiness that arises from having a conscience, both from doing good things and from the contrasting effect that the suffering you receive from guilt/shame/etc makes your happiness seem that much more amplified.
    - Getting everything you want is commonly thought to not be the way to increase happiness (I imagine there are many plays with this moral), though maybe this is true only for people with a conscience.
    Last edited by mutton; 02-07-2010 at 11:28 AM.

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