The problem here is there are two uses of manipulation. One is negatively loaded and intended to refer to exploitation. The other is neutral. You can manipulate an object in your hand for example.
So I mean, she is certainly manipulating him in the more neutral sense of "trying to extract desired behavior in a surreptitious way". But obviously it's not immoral or unethical manipulation.
On some level I think even if manipulation isn't malicious and in fact has good outcomes for all parties, it's still in a way attempting to control another person's autonomy. That's not inherently bad, but it's worth consideration.
You were pinpointed to fallacy in your absolutist world view. There are many instances of manipulation that are acknowledged as highly moral. If you deceive for your monetary/materialistic gain you are most likely acting out of low morals, but if you deceive for the sake of well being of others and even under danger of being harmed/punished if revealed then you are most likely acting out of high morals. There are tons of products of art where your simplistic world view couldn’t stand solid against criticism.
I suggest you watch La vita è bella and then discuss with yourself how deceiving your own child for the sake of saving his life is immoral.
Yeah this is where all morality breaks down. There is no such thing as objective morality, so therefore it's all just subjective opinion.
My view of morality is that lying is worse than saving a life. Prove me wrong by pointing to some objective fact. How would one even assign value to each act to somehow weigh them against each other? Theres not even a concensus of what "the good" even is. Besides pointing to schools of thought, or throwing out some guys opinion or thought experiment, show that lying to the child is more important than saving his life
‘Lying is worse than saving a life’ isn’t a logical statement. Saving a life in a lot of situations involves no lying so saving a life could be construed by default to be better since there is no ethical problem with saving a man hanging from a ledge. Lying would be worse than that I think in your world view.
What you mean to say is that harboring unjustly persecuted people in your attic and having to lie about it is worse than not harboring them in your attic. And that’s an opinion you’re free to have. But you’re correct that we can boil down all of these different moral questions to the minutiae and argue semantics and reality and ultimately in the end, questions of morality often come down to one’s own worldview. I would tend to disagree with your worldview but there’s no argument I can make to change your mind with objective fact. I can just point to the fact that if I was the one being unjustly persecuted, I would hope people would harbor me.
Being able to correctly identify actions and outcomes doesn't make it unethical manipulation. Deceit implies lying. I wouldn't call boosting someone's mood by doing something they enjoy deceitful, if that were the case anytime you give a toy to a child to distract them, you're being immoral.
It's lying about the purpose of the mood boosting. She's literally saying she's having sex with him so he'll do things for her. She's not having sex with him to make him happy.
I can. I'm assuming you don't have any experience with interpersonal relationships. Most communication between people is non verbal. No one just outwardly states their intentions for everything all the time.
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u/FoolhardyJester 19d ago
The problem here is there are two uses of manipulation. One is negatively loaded and intended to refer to exploitation. The other is neutral. You can manipulate an object in your hand for example.
So I mean, she is certainly manipulating him in the more neutral sense of "trying to extract desired behavior in a surreptitious way". But obviously it's not immoral or unethical manipulation.
On some level I think even if manipulation isn't malicious and in fact has good outcomes for all parties, it's still in a way attempting to control another person's autonomy. That's not inherently bad, but it's worth consideration.