Well, if you judge that an action is good solely by its outcome and consequences, you're going to be lead to "good" actions that may be in conflict with values that are dear to you, whether its from your culture, your ability to feel pity or your reason.
Disregarding intentions to define righteousness is a mistake in my opinion. If you agree with what these people wrote in their article, then yes, your first statement might be true (but I don't agree with what's written in these articles). But if you judge an action by its outcome, why are you interested in intentions? If you want to apply moral judgments on intentions, don't mind the outcome to judge the decision. If you want to look at the consequences of an action to judge it, don't look at its intentions.
Also, what you said in the first post is incomplete. Good outcomes come mostly from good and then from bad intentions (and sometimes no intentions whatsoever specific to the outcome [an unexpected consequence, if you will]) and bad outcomes come mostly from bad intentions and then from good intentions and sometimes no intentions.
Define "opposite".
I think he meant it in the sense of "contrary" such as hell is opposite to heaven in that they are contrary. Or + is opposite to - in that they are contrary. "Carrot" is not opposite to "lettuce", in that both don't have anything that is contrary to them.
That is still false though, again having 4 wheels is not polar opposite of not having 4 wheels
not to mention some american cars dont have 4 wheels
car
noun
1.
an automobile.
2.
a vehicle running on rails, as a streetcar or railroad car.
A lot of american cars have more then 4 wheels
When it is cold outside I will browse mtgsalvation.
Therefore, when it is hot outside, I will not browse mtgsalvation. --> Untrue, I have browsed this site on hot days.
Even if we assume your "polar opposite", that method of argumentation does not hold.
For any inferential statement, the contrapositive is true.
What is the contrapositive you ask?
For any logical statement: If A, then B there are 3 other potential ways to arrange it.
If A then B
--------------------------
If not A, then not B this is called the inverse. It is logically incorrect to derive it from the statement.
If B, then A this is called the converse. On again, it is logically incorrect to derive it from the statement.
If not B, then not A this is called the contrapositive. This is a correct logical inference, and is properly deducible from the logical statement If A then B.
When it is cold outside I will browse mtgsalvation.
Therefore, when it is hot outside, I will not browse mtgsalvation. --> Untrue, I have browsed this site on hot days.
Even if we assume your "polar opposite", that method of argumentation does not hold.
If A then B
where A is cold outside
where B is browse MTG salvation.
Your statement
When it is hot outside, I will not browse MTG salvation is the inverse. and as you said, cannot be logically derived from your premise statement.
Why would the road to hell be paved with good intentions?
This is an expression. It refers to the fact that so often in life people can go so wrong, commit so many evils by trying to do right.
Here is an example. You steal bread to feed your family...but one night while you're stealing bread, the baker was present. The baker thinking you are an intruder attacks you. Scared and terrified for your life you fight back, accidentally killing the baker in the process. Now with a cold sweat, in the dark, blood running down your hands, you realize you're a murderer.
You look up at the sky, at your life, and think how did I arrive here?
All you wanted to do was to feed your family, your starving children. You never realized it could end up like this.
So it is said....the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
When it is cold outside I will browse mtgsalvation.
Therefore, when it is hot outside, I will not browse mtgsalvation. --> Untrue, I have browsed this site on hot days.
Even if we assume your "polar opposite", that method of argumentation does not hold.
Well, he didn't actually use any reasoning, to be fair. He only had a premise and a conclusion.
What he thought could have been (a) :
"If I go to Heaven, my intentions are bad;
My intentions are not bad (they are good);
Therefore I don't go to Heaven (I go to Hell)."
Or, as you said, he could've thought (b) :
"If I go to Heaven, My intentions are bad;
I don't go to Heaven (I go to Hell);
Therefore, my intentions are not bad (they are good)."
(a) is logically valid, (b) is not.
Unless, of course, I misinterpreted what he said. If what he said was clearly (b), then whatever. Won't be the first time I misinterpret someone.
If the road to hell is paved with good intentions,
then is the opposite also true?
The road to heaven is paved with bad intentions.
The original statement is just an idiom, not some deep truth. As far as I can tell, it either a reminder that good intentions don't guarantee good results, or worse; a religious device intended to subvert conscience in favor of dogma.
Both are true in a sense (intention and outcome aren't necessarily correlated), but the latter isn't useful as a "pearl of wisdom" because voluntarily adopting bad intentions is probably a poor strategy in any event.
If you mean the road to success is to lie, cheat,steal and generally don't give a crap about anyone except to increase your own wealth/power, you're probably right.
This is an expression. It refers to the fact that so often in life people can go so wrong, commit so many evils by trying to do right.
Here is an example. You steal bread to feed your family...but one night while you're stealing bread, the baker was present. The baker thinking you are an intruder attacks you. Scared and terrified for your life you fight back, accidentally killing the baker in the process. Now with a cold sweat, in the dark, blood running down your hands, you realize you're a murderer.
You look up at the sky, at your life, and think how did I arrive here?
All you wanted to do was to feed your family, your starving children. You never realized it could end up like this.
So it is said....the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
My question was almost rhetorical. I think I justify my position a little more in my second post. What I meant was, why would God send you to Hell if you had good intentions? Of course, if you kill someone, it may be punishable by laws, because how would we, human beings, sort out the liars? How would we be able to tell someone's intentions? You have, to some degree, see what the results of actions were.
God (it's hard not to bring him in, because he makes the final judgment, he sends people to Heaven or Hell) does not have this limitation. He can always tell the intentions of acts, to their purest form. He can also tell if you used an intermediate means that is not righteous to achieve an end that is righteous (such as killing someone intentionally to save others).
In the example you mention, though, the person do want to feed his family. That's his intention. He ends up killing someone in self-defense, which may be justified and God would know his intentions and blame him or not depending on them. However, to feed his family, he intentionally steals something, something that is reprehensible by some moral theories and defies a commandment ("Thou shalt not steal"). If intentionally stealing is bad, the means do not justify the end.
Your statement
When it is hot outside, I will not browse MTG salvation is the inverse. and as you said, cannot be logically derived from your premise statement.
I think what he meant by "polar opposite" was not so much a formal logical term but rather a subjective definition on one of the clauses. For example, he did not consider "not American" to be a "polar opposite" despite it being the negation of "American".
I think what he meant by "polar opposite" was not so much a formal logical term but rather a subjective definition on one of the clauses. For example, he did not consider "not American" to be a "polar opposite" despite it being the negation of "American".
The negation is not always the polar opposite or contrary. It is in the case of number (e.g. -2 is the opposite of 2), but in language, the negation may include something that is not a polar opposite. For example, take the concepts "table" and "chair." A table is not a chair, but they are not contrary. Also, if you say something is a "non-table" it doesn't automatically means that it is a "chair", a "keyboard" is also a "non-table".
In order for something to be American, it needs to have a certain amount of properties that are necessary for it to be American. If it fails to have one of these properties, it is "Non-American." That doesn't automatically mean that it is Japanese or German, especially since something can be Non-American and American at the same time (such as a treaty between the U.S. and the Japanese), while a number cannot be equal to both -2 and 2, and something cannot be Heaven and Hell, Good and Bad, True and False, etc.
The negation is not always the polar opposite or contrary. It is in the case of number (e.g. -2 is the opposite of 2), but in language, the negation may include something that is not a polar opposite. For example, take the concepts "table" and "chair." A table is not a chair, but they are not contrary. Also, if you say something is a "non-table" it doesn't automatically means that it is a "chair", a "keyboard" is also a "non-table".
In order for something to be American, it needs to have a certain amount of properties that are necessary for it to be American. If it fails to have one of these properties, it is "Non-American." That doesn't automatically mean that it is Japanese or German, especially since something can be Non-American and American at the same time (such as a treaty between the U.S. and the Japanese), while a number cannot be equal to both -2 and 2, and something cannot be Heaven and Hell, Good and Bad, True and False, etc.
I agree, but there is no formal way (as far as I know) to define a polar opposite. It is by nature purely subjective. Some people think the polar opposite of love is hate. Others think it is indifference.
[QUOTE]What I meant was, why would God send you to Hell if you had good intentions?
If we're talking about the Christian God, Biblically no one has good intentions, but people think they do, simply because they have very low standards to fit themselves. Hence the need to rely on Jesus/Yeshua's goodness/sacrifice, etc.
Talking about the actual idiom, I always took it to mean that a lot of people will do the "good" thing, so as to appear good, but as they're doing it for self serving reasons, they don't take the consequences into account, and as a result do far more harm than good.
Will.i.am from Black Eyed Peas riding his bicycle a few yards to reduce co2 emission, but using a private helicopter to get there in the first place for example...
If we're talking about the Christian God, Biblically no one has good intentions, but people think they do, simply because they have very low standards to fit themselves.
You will have to explain that one to me, it's not as evident as you might think.
If we're talking about the Christian God, Biblically no one has good intentions, but people think they do, simply because they have very low standards to fit themselves.
You will have to explain that one to me, it's not as evident as you might think.
Fair enough
The requirement for getting into heaven is keeping the entirety of Gods law (the 10 commandments). From a perfect point of view, anyone who breaks any of them is a sinner who deserves punishment.
Keeping the entire law is slightly harder than one would expect - if we look at Jesus's sermon on the mount, our intentions are also taken into account. I.e. if we at any point feel like killing someone, we're guilty of murdering them in our hearts. If we look at someone with lust, we're guilty of adultery. On judgement day, from Gods point of view, generally all of us will be murdering lying adulterous thieves, deserving of punishment.
So keeping the entire law is impossible for a normal human, which is a very big problem for humanity.
Then Jesus comes, and lives a perfect life, fulfilling the entire law and also takes the place of those who should be punished by being crucified on the cross.
Thus when Christians are baptised, their old self is symbolically drowned along with their sins, and a new self is born who is symbolically one with Jesus, making them children of God, even though they don't deserve it.
And that sums up the basics of Christianity. I left a lot of details out sorry, but I thought the post was long enough as it is.
If we're talking about the Christian God, Biblically no one has good intentions, but people think they do, simply because they have very low standards to fit themselves.
You will have to explain that one to me, it's not as evident as you might think.
Fair enough
The requirement for getting into heaven is keeping the entirety of Gods law (the 10 commandments). From a perfect point of view, anyone who breaks any of them is a sinner who deserves punishment.
Keeping the entire law is slightly harder than one would expect - if we look at Jesus's sermon on the mount, our intentions are also taken into account. I.e. if we at any point feel like killing someone, we're guilty of murdering them in our hearts. If we look at someone with lust, we're guilty of adultery. On judgement day, from Gods point of view, generally all of us will be murdering lying adulterous thieves, deserving of punishment.
So keeping the entire law is impossible for a normal human, which is a very big problem for humanity.
Then Jesus comes, and lives a perfect life, fulfilling the entire law and also takes the place of those who should be punished by being crucified on the cross.
Thus when Christians are baptised, their old self is symbolically drowned along with their sins, and a new self is born who is symbolically one with Jesus, making them children of God, even though they don't deserve it.
And that sums up the basics of Christianity. I left a lot of details out sorry, but I thought the post was long enough as it is.
Oh yes, Matthew 5:27.. I guess that's why Catholic confession makes sense. Having enough willpower to not act upon your inclinations or desires is virtue in my opinion. To each his own, I guess.
I always interpreted "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" to mean that almost all evil actions taken by mankind were actually someone attempting to do good, and just not doing a good job about it.
Therefore, I have no problem with "the road to heaven is paved with bad intentions" since the same logic applies. A good number of the positive actions that have lined history were actually people attempting to do horrible things, but failing. (Chewing gum, microwaves and the internet were all invented to by the military with the intent to kill people.)
Acting with the intention to do good doesn't mean you are.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"If you're Havengul problems I feel bad for you son, I got 99 problems and a Lich ain't one." - FSM
"In a world where money talks, silence is horrifying."
then is the opposite also true?
The road to heaven is paved with bad intentions.
Wanna hear what I think about restaurants?
Check out my http://damancy.blogspot.com/
Trust me! IM FAT!!!!
for example price gouging is good http://mises.org/daily/1593/Price-Gouging-Saves-Lives-in-a-Hurricane
greed is good http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505125_162-37441183/greed-is-good-why-you-need-to-tap-into-your-inner-gordon-gekko/
for profit charity does better job then not for profit charity groupshttp://www.forbes.com/sites/evangelinegomez/2012/01/13/the-rise-of-the-charitable-for-profit-entity/
United states was formed because a bunch of people refuse to pay tax
a lot of technologies were founded in war (microwave, computer etc)
Wanna hear what I think about restaurants?
Check out my http://damancy.blogspot.com/
Trust me! IM FAT!!!!
This inference is formally invalid. It's like saying "American cars have four wheels, therefore Japanese cars do not have four wheels."
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
and the opposite of 4 wheels is not dont have 4 wheels
there are no polar opposites for both
Wanna hear what I think about restaurants?
Check out my http://damancy.blogspot.com/
Trust me! IM FAT!!!!
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Disregarding intentions to define righteousness is a mistake in my opinion. If you agree with what these people wrote in their article, then yes, your first statement might be true (but I don't agree with what's written in these articles). But if you judge an action by its outcome, why are you interested in intentions? If you want to apply moral judgments on intentions, don't mind the outcome to judge the decision. If you want to look at the consequences of an action to judge it, don't look at its intentions.
Also, what you said in the first post is incomplete. Good outcomes come mostly from good and then from bad intentions (and sometimes no intentions whatsoever specific to the outcome [an unexpected consequence, if you will]) and bad outcomes come mostly from bad intentions and then from good intentions and sometimes no intentions.
I think he meant it in the sense of "contrary" such as hell is opposite to heaven in that they are contrary. Or + is opposite to - in that they are contrary. "Carrot" is not opposite to "lettuce", in that both don't have anything that is contrary to them.
American cars have 4 wheels. Therefore, non-American cars do not have 4 wheels.
Still incorrect. And "non-American" is the inverse of "American".
That is still false though, again having 4 wheels is not polar opposite of not having 4 wheels
not to mention some american cars dont have 4 wheels
car
noun
1.
an automobile.
2.
a vehicle running on rails, as a streetcar or railroad car.
A lot of american cars have more then 4 wheels
Wanna hear what I think about restaurants?
Check out my http://damancy.blogspot.com/
Trust me! IM FAT!!!!
When it is cold outside I will browse mtgsalvation.
Therefore, when it is hot outside, I will not browse mtgsalvation. --> Untrue, I have browsed this site on hot days.
Even if we assume your "polar opposite", that method of argumentation does not hold.
What is the contrapositive you ask?
For any logical statement: If A, then B there are 3 other potential ways to arrange it.
If A then B
--------------------------
If not A, then not B this is called the inverse. It is logically incorrect to derive it from the statement.
If B, then A this is called the converse. On again, it is logically incorrect to derive it from the statement.
If not B, then not A this is called the contrapositive. This is a correct logical inference, and is properly deducible from the logical statement If A then B.
If A then B
where A is cold outside
where B is browse MTG salvation.
Your statement
When it is hot outside, I will not browse MTG salvation is the inverse. and as you said, cannot be logically derived from your premise statement.
Your reasoning was this:
If A then B.
Therefore, if not A then not B.
This is a logically fallacious statement. We call it the inverse. The inverse of a premise statement is always logically fallacious.
Lets review your reasoning here.
You may be right about japan not being america's opposite. So let's use the rules of logic to figure out what we DO know.
Assume this true:
--------------------------------------------------------------------
If the car is American, it has Four Wheels.
Therefore, if the card does NOT have four wheels, we can be assured the car is not American.
This is an expression. It refers to the fact that so often in life people can go so wrong, commit so many evils by trying to do right.
Here is an example. You steal bread to feed your family...but one night while you're stealing bread, the baker was present. The baker thinking you are an intruder attacks you. Scared and terrified for your life you fight back, accidentally killing the baker in the process. Now with a cold sweat, in the dark, blood running down your hands, you realize you're a murderer.
You look up at the sky, at your life, and think how did I arrive here?
All you wanted to do was to feed your family, your starving children. You never realized it could end up like this.
So it is said....the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Well, he didn't actually use any reasoning, to be fair. He only had a premise and a conclusion.
What he thought could have been (a) :
Or, as you said, he could've thought (b) :
(a) is logically valid, (b) is not.
Unless, of course, I misinterpreted what he said. If what he said was clearly (b), then whatever. Won't be the first time I misinterpret someone.
The original statement is just an idiom, not some deep truth. As far as I can tell, it either a reminder that good intentions don't guarantee good results, or worse; a religious device intended to subvert conscience in favor of dogma.
Both are true in a sense (intention and outcome aren't necessarily correlated), but the latter isn't useful as a "pearl of wisdom" because voluntarily adopting bad intentions is probably a poor strategy in any event.
My question was almost rhetorical. I think I justify my position a little more in my second post. What I meant was, why would God send you to Hell if you had good intentions? Of course, if you kill someone, it may be punishable by laws, because how would we, human beings, sort out the liars? How would we be able to tell someone's intentions? You have, to some degree, see what the results of actions were.
God (it's hard not to bring him in, because he makes the final judgment, he sends people to Heaven or Hell) does not have this limitation. He can always tell the intentions of acts, to their purest form. He can also tell if you used an intermediate means that is not righteous to achieve an end that is righteous (such as killing someone intentionally to save others).
In the example you mention, though, the person do want to feed his family. That's his intention. He ends up killing someone in self-defense, which may be justified and God would know his intentions and blame him or not depending on them. However, to feed his family, he intentionally steals something, something that is reprehensible by some moral theories and defies a commandment ("Thou shalt not steal"). If intentionally stealing is bad, the means do not justify the end.
I think what he meant by "polar opposite" was not so much a formal logical term but rather a subjective definition on one of the clauses. For example, he did not consider "not American" to be a "polar opposite" despite it being the negation of "American".
The negation is not always the polar opposite or contrary. It is in the case of number (e.g. -2 is the opposite of 2), but in language, the negation may include something that is not a polar opposite. For example, take the concepts "table" and "chair." A table is not a chair, but they are not contrary. Also, if you say something is a "non-table" it doesn't automatically means that it is a "chair", a "keyboard" is also a "non-table".
In order for something to be American, it needs to have a certain amount of properties that are necessary for it to be American. If it fails to have one of these properties, it is "Non-American." That doesn't automatically mean that it is Japanese or German, especially since something can be Non-American and American at the same time (such as a treaty between the U.S. and the Japanese), while a number cannot be equal to both -2 and 2, and something cannot be Heaven and Hell, Good and Bad, True and False, etc.
I agree, but there is no formal way (as far as I know) to define a polar opposite. It is by nature purely subjective. Some people think the polar opposite of love is hate. Others think it is indifference.
If we're talking about the Christian God, Biblically no one has good intentions, but people think they do, simply because they have very low standards to fit themselves. Hence the need to rely on Jesus/Yeshua's goodness/sacrifice, etc.
Talking about the actual idiom, I always took it to mean that a lot of people will do the "good" thing, so as to appear good, but as they're doing it for self serving reasons, they don't take the consequences into account, and as a result do far more harm than good.
Will.i.am from Black Eyed Peas riding his bicycle a few yards to reduce co2 emission, but using a private helicopter to get there in the first place for example...
You will have to explain that one to me, it's not as evident as you might think.
Fair enough
The requirement for getting into heaven is keeping the entirety of Gods law (the 10 commandments). From a perfect point of view, anyone who breaks any of them is a sinner who deserves punishment.
Keeping the entire law is slightly harder than one would expect - if we look at Jesus's sermon on the mount, our intentions are also taken into account. I.e. if we at any point feel like killing someone, we're guilty of murdering them in our hearts. If we look at someone with lust, we're guilty of adultery. On judgement day, from Gods point of view, generally all of us will be murdering lying adulterous thieves, deserving of punishment.
So keeping the entire law is impossible for a normal human, which is a very big problem for humanity.
Then Jesus comes, and lives a perfect life, fulfilling the entire law and also takes the place of those who should be punished by being crucified on the cross.
Thus when Christians are baptised, their old self is symbolically drowned along with their sins, and a new self is born who is symbolically one with Jesus, making them children of God, even though they don't deserve it.
And that sums up the basics of Christianity. I left a lot of details out sorry, but I thought the post was long enough as it is.
Oh yes, Matthew 5:27.. I guess that's why Catholic confession makes sense. Having enough willpower to not act upon your inclinations or desires is virtue in my opinion. To each his own, I guess.
Therefore, I have no problem with "the road to heaven is paved with bad intentions" since the same logic applies. A good number of the positive actions that have lined history were actually people attempting to do horrible things, but failing. (Chewing gum, microwaves and the internet were all invented to by the military with the intent to kill people.)
"In a world where money talks, silence is horrifying."
Ashcoat Bear of Limited