A moral, caring, necrophiliac, Is it possible?

New Yorker, I did not know that ethics is one of the subsets of philosophy. I have never been good at thinking. I become frustrated too quickly to dwell on any topic for long. However, I did zero in on your mention of Rand. Her definition of morality seems self-serving, which makes sense since that is pretty much what she was all about. I have some familiarity with her, and I'm not surprised to hear she was guilty of hypocrisy. Most people, including famous people, turn out to be big disappointments once you start digging.
 
Hey Alexonedeath

Please don’t ever feel like you are slow if you have a hard time processing these philosophical issues. These issues are very difficult even for people who have an inclination for philosophy. I toke Ethics and Metaphysics in college and I ended up with a “C” in metaphysis because the class was down right grueling.

I don’t think Rand was a hypocrite actually. She followed her ethical convictions to the letter. She believed people should take advantage of everything and everyone if it suits their needs and that is exactly what she did. I do think Rand was disingenuous though. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that a society that believes the individual has the right to do whatever they feel like will have no backup system to protect people when they are frail and old. I am traveling to South Korea in a few weeks and I learned that about 50% of the elderly population in South Korea lives in poverty. South Korea never had a retirement program like we have in most western countries. People just assumed their children and grandchildren would take care of them in their old age. South Korea has changed dramatically in the past decades and young people no longer feel like they should care for their elderly parents and now a lot of old people are finding themselves with no support of any kind in their twilight years. This is why I hate philosophers like Ayn Rand. They love to talk about theory, but they don’t consider the real-world consequences of their ideas.
 
That's a depressing report about South Korea. Old age in general is depressing, unless you have Oprah's money. Maybe you can take some photos of Seoul, or wherever you end up, and share them with us. I'd be interested to see what it looks like right next door to everyone's nuclear threat.
 
The debate between Alex and New Yorker is very interesting. While I was required to take philosophy in my undergraduate degree (two courses) I don't think I got much out of it - more history of Aristotle, Plato, right up to Mills etc. I have attended religious services all my 70+ years but do not feel the Bible can always be relied on for morality but I do not like the concept which some people espouse that whatever their conscience says is moral for our conscience surely is partly shaped by our very very early upbringing (prior to age 4 or 5. The former US President Jimmy Carter talked about our thoughts being sin but what if you don't put your thoughts into action? To me LOVE is what is important and sin is when we hurt someone. Words and promises can hurt someone so one has to be careful about promising something. Pretending to someone that you will do something for them is hurting them. That to me tells me fantasy is not wrong but actively putting fantasy into action is wrong.
 
Believe it or not, there is one thing about philosophy that helped me tremendously in a very practical and measurable way. Philosophy teaches you how to deconstruct any issue into its smallest possible essence. You learn to challenge things that you have always taken for granted like what is good? What is evil? This may seem like a trivial skill, but it made my life much easier when I learned how to program. When you write a code for a computer, you have to tell the computer how to do the most basic things. As an example, you have to write a for loop or a while loop, so the computer can do something as simple as count from 1 to 10. New programmers struggle with this because it is hard to see the world in its most basic form.

I think it is not fair to say someone who has thoughts that aren’t the most loving as sinful or immoral. I hate ethical codes that are too pious and completely ignore that humans aren’t perfect and cannot control what they think. The Abrahamic religions (I took theology in college too!!!!) are particularly harsh when it comes to judging people by their feelings and thoughts. I absolutely despised the job I got after college and EVERY DAY I went to work I wished a ball of fire would come from the heavens and turn that place and everyone in it into a pile of ash and goo. My disdain for that place however never crossed the line. Yeah, I wasn’t fond of that place and those people, but I would never hurt them if I had the chance.
 
Moral comes from Latin word mos/mores and it means (social) habit, custom, manner or usage. They consists of the rules that a society has for it's members to live by and these rules are seen by each society as ethically correct. In the western society necrophiliac behaveour is not seen as a moral conduct. Morals are changing and in some years necrophilia like homosexuality might become accepted as moral conduct.
 
I have really loved reading this thread. Thank you guys! In one way it creates even more dissonance in me to be reminded we are all intelligent, philosophical people able to have such thoughtful discussions and then in moments (speaking for myself at least) can click off this thread and have a spectacular orgasm wanking to pics and videos of dead and dying guys. But also this sort of answers popgoesthehead's original question we can be moral caring necrophile because we are! I am not a psychopath and sense I never will be. My necrophilia is firmly in the realms of fantasy either safely in my head or at most in consensual role play. I like the idea of breaking it down into smaller parts and indeed in my recent pondering on life the universe and everything, I am exploring with curiosity the very primal feelings and urges that I had (may be as early as 6 years old) that grew slowly and organically into the complex full fledged sexual fantasies of my adult years. These feelings were and are nameless. Libido in its purest and most abstract. They are not good or bad but just utterly 'human'. My consequent well worn neural loops that now give me a sexual kick developed beyond my control for whatever reason or none and so I have no 'choice' about being an necrophile just like I have no choice about being gay. This is all separate from my being a good moral person which I simultaneously am and may be at last in my life I am happy about this dichotomy.
 
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