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 Originally Posted by BorisTheSpider
if people must be compelled to do things for others, that implies that without that compulsion we'd live in a fundamentally selfish world where no-one would give a shit about anyone but themselves, I'm more optimistic than that about people on the whole.
I think there is another option: what people don't understand, they don't change. Humans could be the most naturally charitable organisms there ever was (which I believe we largely are), but the more disconnected a circumstance is, the less able to empathize we are. This is why most of us would physically do something to stop an animal get tortured in front of us, but will think little of eating an animal that may or may not have been abused someplace else during its life.
We have very strong tribal instincts, not to be confused with objectively moral instincts. The ability to do good beyond what our tribal instincts provide is how welfarism can work in ways charity can't.
Do you see my point? It's about how the more disconnected a group is from another group, the less appeal there is for charity. People can suffer but if it's not right before us, we tend to not have strong enough empathy to do something about it. Welfarism tries to fix that
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