Should you give up something you love because it is bad (for humanity)?
Pro: Yes. Love is a desire, and is not inherently justified in any way. Think of Mammon in the most recent episode of Helluva boss, episode 7 season 2? Fizzarolli is obsessed with competing in Mammon’s clowning pageant despite the fact the obsession is bad for him. By the end he learns his lesson. Give up what you think you love to be better for yourself and the world.
Con: No. Love and passion are the basis for morality, it would be ridiculous to give up something you love for a false idol. If you love something you’ll live for it. The whole basis of most morality is love because you love humanity. So you should always choose what you want most.
Pro: Maybe that is the case, but generally you can escape your love for something small. If I give up watching YouTube then I may miss it deeply, and feel nostalgic for YouTube, but ultimately I will gain more from leaving it behind. This is because nostalgia is misleading and rose tinted. Love isn't actually that good. You could gain a new love. But if something gets in the way of your love for humanity than you must always choose humanity, otherwise is suicide, because you are a human. Imagine if everyone did what they loved, instead of what was good for humanity. We would all die.
Con: What if it is too hard to give up what you love?
Pro: Come on. That’s a horrible argument. You have to at least try to give up what you love.
Con: What if I hate humanity and I want to let everything burn for my passion, and then die with it. Let’s follow the inevitable death drive to the end of time!
Pro: I don’t think you actually want that. You probably would miss humanity more than you would miss the object of your affection.
Con: No, I do want it. I’m not an idiot or a child, but you dismiss me as if I was one. People need to love the idea of their own destruction, and we as a human populace do as well. We have so little time on earth, why not throw ourselves to the fire, to die like a colorful firework, rather than a pathetic coal at the bottom of a campfire.
Pro: I do not think you are an idiot or a child, but you are a teenager without direction. Your skepticism of morality is because of your lack of experience. If you had lived life for as long as I had, then you would know why we need to love humanity. It’s impractical to kill ourselves, which is the alternative to love of humanity. Adults make better long term decisions, because we have experience living. Morality, order, and long term decisions go along with each other, whereas short term thinking is amoral and wild.
Con: I know my purpose and it is to love my object of love (YouTube) moment to moment. Children have more passion and creativity, so we are more moral than adults. Because love is the basis for morality.
Pro: We are going in circles now. But you don’t know your purpose yet. How could you? You learn by doing things, by living. In the video Frameworthlessness*, the father points out to the son, how you don’t marry the first framework, or worldview you meet. You typically hop from worldview to worldview for a while.
Con: Well. I’m unconvinced. I don’t understand what you are saying. I don’t think you get me either, I’m a little bit complicated. That video also argues that you should avoid worldview hopping too much, which does not help your point. Also it’s just as amoral and cliche as I am? So I’m going to stick to what I love! What do you love anyways that makes you so great? Loving humanity, such an abstract statement? How could you possibly love and care for all of humanity at once? Each and every person on the planet? Loving humanity is like loving god, you’re in love with an idea, not an actual thing. Maybe your argument is right, but I haven’t seen evidence yet. I’ll live my life with short term decisions until I learn why I ought to make long term ones, otherwise I’m just listening to you unscientific adults.