Deserving

Ethics, Morality, and Sin

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nobspeople
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Deserving

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Post by nobspeople »

An email notice came to me today, saying 'People deserve clean water'. I wondered: do they, though?

Do people deserve clean water? Health care? Affordable health care? A 'roof over their heads'? Do people deserve anything simply because they're a human?
Have a great, potentially godless, day!

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Tcg
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Re: Deserving

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Post by Tcg »

nobspeople wrote: Wed Nov 03, 2021 12:31 pm An email notice came to me today, saying 'People deserve clean water'. I wondered: do they, though?

Do people deserve clean water? Health care? Affordable health care? A 'roof over their heads'? Do people deserve anything simply because they're a human?
I don't think that deserve is the right word here. Deserve would imply doing something to earn a right to these things. It would be nice if all humans had these, but it's doubtful we'll accomplish that.


Tcg
To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.

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nobspeople
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Re: Deserving

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Post by nobspeople »

Tcg wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 12:02 am
nobspeople wrote: Wed Nov 03, 2021 12:31 pm An email notice came to me today, saying 'People deserve clean water'. I wondered: do they, though?

Do people deserve clean water? Health care? Affordable health care? A 'roof over their heads'? Do people deserve anything simply because they're a human?
I don't think that deserve is the right word here. Deserve would imply doing something to earn a right to these things. It would be nice if all humans had these, but it's doubtful we'll accomplish that.


Tcg
Instead of DESERVE, what word would you use? Or is there not a better one?
Have a great, potentially godless, day!

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Tcg
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Re: Deserving

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Post by Tcg »

nobspeople wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 9:32 am
Tcg wrote: Thu Nov 04, 2021 12:02 am
nobspeople wrote: Wed Nov 03, 2021 12:31 pm An email notice came to me today, saying 'People deserve clean water'. I wondered: do they, though?

Do people deserve clean water? Health care? Affordable health care? A 'roof over their heads'? Do people deserve anything simply because they're a human?
I don't think that deserve is the right word here. Deserve would imply doing something to earn a right to these things. It would be nice if all humans had these, but it's doubtful we'll accomplish that.


Tcg
Instead of DESERVE, what word would you use? Or is there not a better one?
I'm not sure really. Perhaps, "should", people should have these things. That doesn't seem quite right either. Not that I don't think it would ne nice, I just don't see it as a right. It'd be a great goal.


Tcg
To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.

- American Atheists


Not believing isn't the same as believing not.

- wiploc


I must assume that knowing is better than not knowing, venturing than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit.

- Irvin D. Yalom

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Re: Deserving

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Post by Purple Knight »

nobspeople wrote: Wed Nov 03, 2021 12:31 pm An email notice came to me today, saying 'People deserve clean water'. I wondered: do they, though?
This is why I try not to use deserve in the positive: I don't think it means anything. It would trigger the reaction it triggered in you, in any reasonable, thinking person, precisely because positive deserve falls apart if you think about it even a little.

I generally only use deserve in the negative, and I will certainly tell someone who defecates in the well that they don't deserve clean water.

I think I have a sort of latent agreement with TCG here, that I have never thought about but understood it his way nonetheless, because when someone tells me, some person deserves clean water, it implies (to me) that they took whatever measures were appropriate and possible to make it clean or keep it clean, and someone or something took the clean water away from them.

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