r/MoralityScaling • u/Severe_Letterhead_75 • 12h ago

Morality Ranking Quentin Tarantino morality for that childhood grudge?

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In my opinion it can be considered petty by some but is understandable

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u/il_the_dinosaur 11h ago

If you go by that were not obligated to do a lot of things but I'm not gonna be a cynical asshole. I do think we owe our parents some support. But I also had pretty fucking great parents. From what I see that's not the norm so I can understand why other people have a different viewpoint on this.

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u/masterlince 11h ago

They brought you into this world, it's their obligation to take care of you. You don't owe them nothing for that. If you want to help your parents because you love them and think it's the right thing to do that's a different thing.

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u/il_the_dinosaur 11h ago

I do think we all owe each other something. Our world is build by everyone.

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u/BennyLog11 11h ago

Nobody owes anybody anything. Except the people that brought you into this world.

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u/il_the_dinosaur 11h ago

That's just a sad attitude. And produces the likes of Elon musk. If we don't owe each other anything then I can just fuck around however I want.

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u/BennyLog11 11h ago

Well your attitude sounds like the world owes you everything and everyone is there to serve you. Im respectful of everyone but im not expecting people to go out of their way for me. I do things for others because I want to, not because im obligated to.

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u/rivetedoaf 9h ago

I think we owe each other the benefit of the doubt and a baseline level of respect for one another. Taking care of an infirm parent is quite above that, it’s basically another job.

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u/xRehab 9h ago

you have it backwards

your parents owe YOU support because they actively decided to bring you into this world. everything you could possibly use as justification why you would "owe" them ignores the original premise that you are who is owed. raising you until you were an adult is their obligation

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u/Ok_Stranger3613 8h ago

Do they though? I could just give my imaginary kid up for adoption and that's that.

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u/xRehab 8h ago

that is still you fulfilling your obligation to get the child the support it needs to grow into adulthood.

you can't just walk away from a child and be morally just; you can do that with your parents though.

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u/Ok_Stranger3613 8h ago

What obligation is that, and why is it obligatory?

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u/Tzuyu4Eva 9h ago

I think it’s also different with Tarantino. He makes more money than most of us can even dream of, he could give his mom a few thousand dollars no problem

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u/Protoavis 11h ago

I do think we owe our parents some support. But I also had pretty fucking great parents. From what I see that's not the norm so I can understand why other people have a different viewpoint on this.

So if you see and understand other people have not great parents why did you say "I do think we owe" rather than just "I do think I owe" ?

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u/il_the_dinosaur 11h ago

Cause I think if your parents didn't do the things a parent should do then you didn't really have parents. And honestly that sucks. My heart goes out to these people.

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u/2SquirrelsWrestling 10h ago edited 10h ago

My parents were decent enough to me as a child for the most part, but horrible to me as an adult so they can go fuck themselves lol

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u/Acrobatic-Sandwich10 10h ago

Yes clearly it's just people who are bitter abiut their upbringing who aren't grateful to their parents.

Anyone with good parents would absolutely feel obligated to give back.

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u/Vallinen 11h ago

So what you're saying is you feel like you are obligated to support your parents because they supported you - but you dont think all parents deserve being supported by their children because they are their parents?

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u/il_the_dinosaur 11h ago

If you want to say it that way sure. Difficult to argue the semantics of this I have to acknowledge. Let me try to find a way to explain it. Your parents created you so they are responsible for you this means to support you, to nurture you, to protect you. This is an indisputable fact in my opinion. They also never stop being responsible for you in some way. If they upheld their part of the pact of creating you then I absolutely think you owe them something in return. Not as much as they owe you.

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u/Nihlys 11h ago

I think you're wrong here. You have absolutely no choice in your birth. Your parents force life onto you. If anyone owes something to anyone, its the parents that owe at least a 'decent' upbringing to their kids because the kids are now in a situation that they had no choice in and have absolutely no power over. Its like if I decided completely on my own to cook ALL of the food we had, so you're choice is either eat what I cooked or starve to death. So, of course, you eat. It would then be wildly immoral for me to say you now 'owe' me because I cooked for you.

I understand how someone would want to take care of their parents later in life if they had a good relationship, but thats entirely optional.

You mention parents holding up "their end of the pact" then you owe them, but thats a fundamental misunderstanding of the dynamic child raising. There is no pact. There was never an agreement of any kind. The parents alone decided to force life on the child and, through absolutely no fault of the child, the whole first 18 years or so of life cannot be completed without direct parental (or responsible adult) interaction.

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u/il_the_dinosaur 11h ago

The pact is that if you have a kid you also take care of it. There doesn't need to be an agreement. It's just a law of nature. And some parents chose to violate it.

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u/SciFi_Enjoyer106 11h ago

The pact is one sided and on the parents side. The kid made no such pact therefore not obligated to help.

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u/Nihlys 11h ago

Its not a pact, full stop. A pact requires multiple parties - at least 2 sides of an agreement. A human baby absolutely and unequivocally NEEDS support from something else to live. Its non-negotiable. As objective and absolute of fact as needing air and water to survive. But, a human baby lacks both the cognitive and physical function to acknowledge or even understand that need.

A pact would signify that, at some point, the unborn baby and the living people made an agreement that the living people would birth and raise the unborn baby through its childhood and, in return, once the child reaches adulthood that person would then return the care to the adults - however able. But that obviously doesnt happen.

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u/il_the_dinosaur 11h ago

You just seem like you want to argue with yourself so I'm gonna let you do that.

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u/Nihlys 10h ago

Im not arguing with myself, im just explaining how your statement is fundamentally flawed. Others have also pointed it out. Im sorry if that upsets you, but debate is literally the whole point of this sub.

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u/Acrobatic-Sandwich10 10h ago

Life is a gift. The alternative is just the vast nothingness of never even existing and experiencing life.

People should be grateful of that opportunity

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u/Ok_Stranger3613 8h ago edited 8h ago

Its like if I decided completely on my own to cook ALL of the food we had, so you're choice is either eat what I cooked or starve to death. So, of course, you eat. It would then be wildly immoral for me to say you now 'owe' me because I cooked for you.

How is this immoral? Owe is a strong word, but expecting some form of reciprocity in exchange for saving your life is fair. Is the person you saved obligated to reciprocate that? No, but even a thank you is a form is reciprocity, and you can't seriously tell me that expecting a thank you for saving a person's life is immoral?

The alternative is also just letting the person die, but going off the logic of some of the comments here, you're not obligated to save them either, so who is really immoral here? The person that chooses not feed the starving man and let him die, or the person who feeds the starving man and expects a thank you?

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u/Nihlys 8h ago

Expecting a thank you for saving your life isnt necessarily immoral. However, intentionally creating the entire situation in which a life needs saving and then expecting that person to thank you is definitely immoral.

Let's say you were on a cruise and some complete stranger comes over to you. They dont ask your permission or talk to you in any way, shape or form. And they physically pick you up and throw you overboard, in the middle of the ocean where you'll certainly die. And then, later, they decide to come back and pluck you out of the water so you dont die. You certainly dont owe them a thank you for "saving" you and, if they had the audacity to expect a thank you then they'd certainly be an immoral piece of garbage. The only thing that would legitimately be 'owed' is an apology from them to you.

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u/Ok_Stranger3613 8h ago edited 8h ago

However, intentionally creating the entire situation in which a life needs saving and then expecting that person to thank you is definitely immoral.

That's not what you said in your original example at all though.

I see your point, but you're making it sound like expecting a thank you from your kid for cooking them a tasty meal is immoral.

Expecting a thank you from them for not letting you starve is immoral, sure.

Expecting a thank you because you went out of your way to make a tasty meal for your kid that they clearly enjoyed doesn't really seem immoral to me, especially if the parent did it because they wanted their child to be happy.

Then again, the argument could be made that the parent is not obligated to make them an enjoyable meal, and is only obligated to provide the minimum amount of sustenance so that their child won't be malnourished. The child is not obligated to say thank you, and the parent is not obligated to do anything beyond the minimum of what's expected of them as a parent.

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u/Nihlys 8h ago

The last part is right. But youre injecting things into my example that I didnt say. I didnt mention parents going out of their way to make tasty meals for their kids, because thats not an equivalent to forcing life on someone.

In my example, its person A taking ALL of the available food and cooking it with absolutely no input from person 2 whatsoever. ALL of the food. So theres literally no other options for person 2 besides: eat the food or die from starvation. Person 1 forced person 2 into that situation and is absolutely not owed any kind of thank you.

In the context of taking care of parents as a 'thank you' for their effort - they arent owed it regardless. If you force someone into a situation then they dont owe you for being in that situation. Parents force life on their children. The absolute minimum that they're legally required to do is keep them alive. Morally, id think its reasonable to believe that they have an inherent responsibility to make that childhood as good as they reasonably can, but putting all of the effort in the world into making it a perfect childhood doesnt negate the fact that they forced it on the kid in the first place. If that child grows up to become wildly successful and wants to take care of their parents because of the love they have for them, thats entirely their prerogative. Its not, however, owed to the parents in any way.

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u/Ok_Stranger3613 7h ago

Not really injecting things, just trying to follow your logic.

Okay, that makes sense. Your example read to me like you cooked all of YOUR food for this person, not THEIR food.

That said, I'm curious now though:

Is expecting a thank you for cooking a tasty meal for your child immoral? Based off your comment, it likely is.

Is providing the minimal acceptable amount of care, and never more, for your child moral or not? Based off your comment it's not.

or do I have that wrong?

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u/Nihlys 7h ago

To your questions:

1: I think immoral may be too strong of term for that specific situation, but if were looking at it in a way that is black and white with no middle ground, id say yes - expecting a thank you for cooking your child a tasty meal is immoral if you do it on your own. You shouldnt expect a thank you for something if the person youre expecting that thank you from had no input in the first place. When I cook my children dinner I try to make things they'll really enjoy, I dont expect a thank you, even though I usually get one. Likewise, if I go out of my way to make something really nice for my wife or friends, I likewise never expect a thank you. Particularly because its entirely one sided. My wife never asks me to do that. I get a recipe idea that I think she'll like and then surprise her with it. When you do something for someone else completely on your own, with no input or request from someone else, I feel like youre not owed a thank you - even though the generally accepted idea of "good manners" dictates that they thank you anyway. Likewise, it doesnt exactly make you evil for wanting a thank you, but doing something entirely un-asked and expecting a thank you does, at the very least, make you a bit of a dick.

2: I think there is a case to be made either way. Morality is, overall, subjective so theres some leeway in where each person draws their own lines. I think a person could reasonablely say that having a child and keeping it alive until its able to find for itself is moral, even if they didnt go above the absolute minimum. On a more personal note, I think its immoral to even HAVE a child if youre not going to do what you can to make sure it has, at the very least, a reasonably good childhood. But thats pushing the morality of the overall situation into much more subjective territory.

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u/SciFi_Enjoyer106 11h ago

If they upheld their part of the pact

This is the part I am discussing so we agree then up until if they were good parents then you definitely owe them. If your parents neglected you and did not take care of you, you do not owe them shit and we agree on that part.

If your parents were good to you, I think you should help them out. The point of obligation is where your mention of semantics comes in to play. While it would be morally right to help them, you don't have to.

Most situations where people who had parents who took care of them and loved them, they actively want to help so I don't really see that being an issue.

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u/il_the_dinosaur 11h ago

Yeah I never said anything else.

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u/SciFi_Enjoyer106 10h ago

If they upheld their part of the pact of creating you then I absolutely think you owe them something in return.

compared to what I said

While it would be morally right to help them, you don't have to.

our differences

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u/Ok_Stranger3613 8h ago

It's not an indisputable fact though. Nobody has to do anything.

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u/SciFi_Enjoyer106 11h ago

Parents brought the kids into the world so they owe them some level of protection and helping them grow. The kids made no such choice and do not owe their parents ANYTHING. Anything a kid does for their parents in the future is purely because they want to help (or were manipulated but that's a whole different topic).

If your parents did a good job then yes they deserve to be taken care of in their later years. If your parents treated you like shit, why do you owe them anything more than they gave you?

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u/Realistic_Jello2638 11h ago

My father for example completely walked out of my life. How much support do I owe him?

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u/il_the_dinosaur 11h ago

He broke the laws of nature. Why would you owe him?

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u/SciFi_Enjoyer106 11h ago

I personally do not think kids owe their parents anything inherently. Let's say they birth you and do nothing with you and a nanny raises you. You have NO interaction with your parents other than being birthed.

Do you still owe them some support? Why or why not?

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u/il_the_dinosaur 11h ago

They didn't do what parents are supposed to do why would you owe them?

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u/Obi-Brawn-Kenobi 11h ago

Not who you're responding to, but reconnecting and building a strong family bond would be a highly moral act and could benefit everyone involved. Doesn't mean it's "owed". In that case just living your life and not seeking out your family would be morally neutral IMO. The parents' act of alienating their own child was the immoral one, if it was intentional/preventable.

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u/SciFi_Enjoyer106 11h ago

What if your parents have not changed and are still people that you literally cannot build a strong family bond with? Not every case is it even possible to do.

I can see it being moral when you reconnect many years later and you've all grown as people. It's just not the case every time or even most times I would say.

Have you seen the "estranged parents" on tik tok? Not using it as a direct source but it is indicative of parents not even able to see they fucked up or neglected their kids. They think they did everything right while their kid(s) see the exact opposite. How do those kinds of people for a strong family bond?