Jet
Uncultured
Malphaestus
That's not the definition of malicious though. I don't understand why a simple definition has become a sticking point. Malicious relates to intent, if someone lies for a good reason, like an army officer telling a family "Your son died a hero defending his brothers" when the soldier died of a disease, then its not, by definition, malicious. You can't say that lying is malicious in and of itself, because lying isn't a person. Lying is an action. For the lie to be malicious, there must be malicious intent behind it, which varies depending on the lie and the person. Though this argument has many subjective points, this is an objective one. You can't add a bunch of clauses and extra words onto an established word in the English language.
Also I got to that conclusion because you're saying it's a vile and wicked thing. If you don't want me to make that conclusion, use softer words like distasteful.
You claim two things. Lying is bad, which goes against my point, and lying is bad because it causes harm, which is tangential. Those two beliefs are mutually exclusive. I feel like you should think about your position. If lying is inherently bad then the outcome is irrelevant. But if lying is bad because of the outcome, then some lies are good and some are bad. The two beliefs are at odds, so pick one. I've seen both ideas represented in your posts, which shows a level of disorganization. You gotta pick a point and stick with it.
Also I simplified your point to its core truth, then applied it to other things, illustrating its weakness. You can't base morality on outcome. You can make a bad choice and have a positive outcome, or make a good choice and have a negative outcome. The nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki led to a good outcome, but slaughtering 200K innocent civilians is morally reprehensible. You can certainly say that doing a bad thing is worth the payoff in some cases, but that doesn't absolve the original sin.
You're also confusing bad moral choices with mistakes. You can make a mistake without being morally reprehensible. You went on a tangent about how bad outcomes come from bad decisions, but that ignores the existence of mistakes. Sometimes very forgivable mistakes done in good faith, based in good morals. That also ignores bad choices leading to good outcomes.
Also this quote, "This is due to my belief that one cannot attribute unknown factors unto the evaluation of anyone's actions, intentions, or general behaviour. As this would result in guesswork, guesswork of which is endless, and without definites."
Shows you aren't good at evaluating people. You can most definitely understand actions through lenses of psych, evo-psych and social aptitude. Also when you know someone, you can make reads of their personality. You might be incapable of understanding actions, but others are.
I call you an "ends justify the means" person, because you believe that bad moral choices aren't bad if the outcome is good. Instead of my view where bad moral choices can have good outcomes. You fail to understand that both can co-exist. You can do horrible things and it can work out just fine, i.e the nuclear bombings, where a horrible moral choice saved lives in the long run. You're stopping short of a complete understanding by over-connecting choices and outcomes.
Next I want to address another issue in your argument. You are basing everything on personal experience, not a grander understanding of people. Lying for you, in your RPs has been negative, therefore they must all be negative elsewhere. You're also discounting the absolute fact that you've been lied to many, many times without catching it. You're also ignoring the plethora of lies that don't have a negative impact, like saying "I'm busy with work" when someone asks you to go drinking. Or saying "School is taxing me" when you want to take a week off writing. Do I do these things? No, and I'd rather people didn't, but are these malicious actions? No. They arent done to harm people, which is the only thing I'm arguing about.
Bringing me to a meta discussion about this debate. My only point was, and is, that lying isn't necesserily malicious, meant to harm others and cause negative outcomes. It can be harmful but so can the truth. Telling a bad writer "Yeah so you gotta leave the RP because your writing sucke." Can have serious emotional impact, ruining their self esteem.
I have no ill-will towards you, but I don't like how you've hijacked a simple discussion (Is lying always malicious or not) with a number of deeply philosophical questions and statements, which really muddies the water. I feel like you misinterpreted my original point, because you added extra concepts to the definition of malicious, but you won't stop arguing after thats been cleared up. Furthering thar point, you've agreed with me multiple times now, saying that lies have no innate malice and that outcome decides if they're good or bad. My position is slightly different, that intent decides malice or not, but even though we aren't in complete agreement, we have a similar take on the debate topic. Neither of us believe that lying is always bad. Because of that, I don't see why we're still going at it.
The only part we truly disagree about is outcome vs innate morality. I think actions are good or bad on their own merits, you think they're based on outcome. I've provided plenty of thought experiments to challenge your stance, you disagree with them, and that's fine. We can have that disagreement and move on with our lives.
I'm glad you got no problem with me cause I don't with you. I may not like your debate style, but there's more to people than how they argue. As far as who you are, there's no need to censor yourself, more power to you. With that I'm gonna step away from this debate, I have other obligations and these debate posts take too damn long.
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