this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2025
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Philosophy
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You need the cognition to care in order to be uncaring; you need the volition to have intent in order to be cruel.
A rock is uncaring because it is incapable of caring.
A rock falling on your head can still be cruel because it is incapable of feeling anything about the pain it inflicted. Cruelty does not implicitly imply intent. It's defined by indifference towards suffering.
You would need cognition to care. You would only need volition to act with intent; cruel or not.
These are words that describe mental states and behaviors. They don't have meaning when applied to things which do not have mental states. It's the difference between 0 and ∅.
One of them is. To care requires the mental capacity to care. If it cannot care, "uncaring" still applies.
Cruelty, again, is defined by a lack of giving a shit toward a specific event (suffering).
Because the world is not a sapient being, it can only be uncaring and cruel.
"Uncaring" I do admit can go either 0 or ∅. I still personally think it implies the ability, and conscious decision not, to care, but that's an admittedly subjective perspective.
"Cruelty", however, has an implicit malicious intent. Cruelty implies that the cruel individual is aware of the suffering their decisions cause, and proceeds nonetheless.