i would say that the sins and virtues sections of this site more than adequately lay out the precepts of the church.
conduct isn't, i don't think, under central control of the church. that's the beauty of this concept, but you've touched on an interesting issue: morality. how do you define "good"/"evil" or "right"/"wrong"?
conduct isn't, i don't think, under central control of the church. that's the beauty of this concept, but you've touched on an interesting issue: morality. how do you define "good"/"evil" or "right"/"wrong"?
I would define an act as "good" and "right" if it can be rationally justified in accordance with the virtues, otherwise it is "evil" or "wrong". I would probably reserve the term "evil" for acts that are at the far end of the spectrum of "wrong".
it's difficult to escape from the morality of a paradigm you were born into, i have this ingrained image of baby killing and devil worship that comes to mind when i think "evil," and angels singing when i think "good." when, really, one could justify the killing of babies rationally*, and the existence of angels or devils is highly unlikely.
it's nice to find a belief system (if that's what CoV is considered) that isn't scared of answering questions, or asking them.
"If human value could be measured outside the skewed perspective of the collective ego it might look something like this; if only one individual existed on planet Earth they would be the most important human. If two people existed their individual significance would be divided in half (1/2). If six thousand million people existed on Earth what would the individual significance of each one be? A simple equation shows the value as the fractional percentage of the whole population plus any incidental, conjectural additives from education, training, intelligence etc. Presupposing this Marxian values system of universal equality the formula for individual human value is:
1/p + (E/p) p = current world population E = years of education, training, work experience.
So in a world of six billion people your uneducated mass is 1/6000000000 or 1.67 x 10^-10 of that whole. Your significance is 0.0000000167%. With a 12 year education your significance rockets upward to a factor of 2.167 x 10^-9 or 0.0000002167%. "
so, if the significance of that baby is so small, the killing of it would be equivalent to the stepping on of an ant, which i would write off (along with brushing my teeth this morning, and driving to the grocery store) as a non-event.
Yes, of course it's easier to personify behavioral patterns like "evil," rather than leave them as abstract concepts.
On the mathematical approach to infanticide: due to the pattern of human development, Marx's slick little equation doesn't work all that well. Here's why:
Almost by definition, retirees have the most work experience of anyone, even if they may not have been educated thoroughly, or may have forgotten their training. Yet they're useless. They produce nothing, and in many cases consume more than their share, in the form of medical treatments for the ravages of age.
Unless retirees start going back to work in mass numbers, it would seem that aborting a child is more destructive than terminating a spent retiree. The opportunity cost of aborting the child is its *potential* to become educated, trained, and experienced, and thus to become valuable. The retiree has used all his potential, and just takes up space; his education and experience are useless.
Just to clarify, by this logic are values do not gradually depreciate until by retirement they're negative. Rather, our experience continues to accumulate throughout our working lives, causing us to appreciate in value (although age may start to decrease our efficiency after a while); retirement is a sudden massive depreciation that brings a person's net worth immediately into the negatives.
Perhaps some day, medical science will "cure" aging, and retirement won't even happen. But until then, I propose that we let our elders live through just a few years of retirement (as an incentive to work), and then euthanize them, as their negative net production makes their existence counterproductive.
P.S. I don't know by what ratio humans and ants are weighted, but I'll tell you that there are many more ants than humans by some orders of magnitude, so anticide is much less of a crime relative to the population size than infanticide. Let's not even consider the comparative worths of members of different ant castes.
A related concept is the difficulty of fitting ethics and objectivity together. It's difficult to think of ethics objectively, but they fit with relative easy into the realm of subjectivity. A common error is that subjectivity needs to be discarded in lieu of a more logical, more objective reality but the subjective must be included in any objective world view. We can't, when searching for a world view, ignore the subjective just because it isn't always logical. That's like avoiding a truth because it runs contrary to your beliefs. Subjectivity exists, period.
Firstly, I agree with nmai_1's point on subjectivity. As we are, in an ontological sense, purely subjective beings, it seems to me entirely missing the point of human existence if we purely treat humans as cogs in a greater machine. I agree with those who highlight the fact that this is one of Marxism's great flaws: surely the point behind all ideologies, no matter if they are inherently irrational (as with religions) or rational but based on an unprovable or mistaken premise (as perhaps, Marxism is), is that they all wish to make the subjective human condition better. It seems to me that this can often be forgotten.
Another point: there are good rational reasons for blanket rules that say, in effect, that individual human life is priceless. By refusing to commodify human dignity, it provides a buffer against the strong victimising the weak for their own convenience. Our own human nature is essentially our own worst enemy. Imposing this hard and fast rule prevents the dark, frequently xenophobic and short-sighted side of our shared nature from being able to emerge.
In the end, if we agree that human nature exists, then there is an unavoidable trade-off between the individual and the community (or should I say tribe?). We should look at the facts and attempt to make rational decisions based not just on short-term benefit. We have evolved a sense of morality for a very good reason. It allows us to live together in a peaceful way that protects all our individual interests. Properly conditioned, by a rational being aware of the moral senses evolved flaws, it can aid reason, not hinder it.
Morality is, or at least can be, a rational concept.
so, if the significance of that baby is so small, the killing of it would be equivalent to the stepping on of an ant, which i would write off (along with brushing my teeth this morning, and driving to the grocery store) as a non-event.
I don't see how this argument is logical, let alone rational1. The significance of a single baby may be a tiny percentage of the whole, but what is the value of the whole? The value of all ants put together would have to be astronomically higher that the value of all humans put together for there to be an equivalence between one human and one ant, given that there are a lot more ants than humans.
[1] I think it is useful to distinguish between arguments that are logical (they are true given the premises), and arguments that are rational (they are logical and the premises are true, meaning that it is reasonable to provisionally accept them as true given the available evidence). Should we adopt this convention, or are there better terms to use that mean the same thing?
Another point: there are good rational reasons for blanket rules that say, in effect, that individual human life is priceless. By refusing to commodify human dignity, it provides a buffer against the strong victimising the weak for their own convenience.
There are even better rational reasons for placing large but finite values on human life. If one human life is priceless then it would be rational to spend all available resources to save one and to pass laws preventing all risky behavior (like driving). In the bigger picture that is very irrational.
"If human value could be measured outside the skewed perspective of the collective ego it might look something like this; if only one individual existed on planet Earth they would be the most important human. If two people existed their individual significance would be divided in half (1/2). If six thousand million people existed on Earth what would the individual significance of each one be? A simple equation shows the value as the fractional percentage of the whole population plus any incidental, conjectural additives from education, training, intelligence etc. Presupposing this Marxian values system of universal equality the formula for individual human value is:
1/p + (E/p) p = current world population E = years of education, training, work experience.
So in a world of six billion people your uneducated mass is 1/6000000000 or 1.67 x 10^-10 of that whole. Your significance is 0.0000000167%. With a 12 year education your significance rockets upward to a factor of 2.167 x 10^-9 or 0.0000002167%. " </snip> Or you could look at it another way. The Zulu have an expression which translates to something like "The only reason you are a person is because of other people." Best Regards ]
"So this is hell. I'd never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the "burning marl." Old wives' tales!There's no need for red-hot pokers. HELL IS--OTHER PEOPLE!"
See also: http://slate.msn.com/id/2088648/ Anything with a title like "Exit, Pursued by a Lobster" clearly has a great deal to commend it..
There are even better rational reasons for placing large but finite values on human life. If one human life is priceless then it would be rational to spend all available resources to save one and to pass laws preventing all risky behavior (like driving). In the bigger picture that is very irrational.
I'd tentatively agree on this point. Certainly, in western culture this does seem to be the case. As I said, there is a trade-off between the individual and the colllective. We certainly do not side with the individual in all cases, just as we do not side with the collective in others.
I'd argue that it is rational to impose unlimited value on some areas of human existence, while in others we might rationally set a finite but large (or even in some areas quite low) value. The specifics should be set according to a rational trade-off between individual and communal values in the society.
Its certainly something I think needs further discussion.
I just read this whole thread. Interesting, but kind of all over the place. You start out talking about morality and good and evil in general, and end up talking about the value of a human life. I think this is a dead-end question. How can the value of a human life (be it that of a retiree or a baby) be measured? Who values my existance? Obviously I do, so it has value to me. Is that enough? It is to me, but to the community? This is a scary thought, especially for a group that is the minority. What if the Christian majority of this country decided that atheists have no value? I guess what I am trying to say is that I admire your attempt to discuss this question rationally, but it isn't a rational question. How can it be when it involves irrational people? Anyway, I think that the big question as far as morality goes is not "What is good and what is evil?", but "Who should decide?". Also, for whoever suggested killing off the retirees-there are many different types of value. You seem to be discussing the question economically, which is a whole different discussion. Just as the subjective can't be ignored, neither can emotion. I don't think that rational means the same thing as stoical. Retirees serve a purpose; in my mind they are there to remind us what we all must come to eventually. Just my opinion, for what it's worth (not much, obviously, as neither is my life).
I think the whole basis of this discussion is to discuss morality in terms of reason and rationality. Indeed, I think its the entire CoV's ethos as such to move away from animal-evolved and evolutionarily-flawed forms of thinking to a more rational world view.
At least, thats how I see it. Some may disagree.
I take your point about stoicism. Indeed I argued previously that we should be aware of instincts/drives such as the moral sense, which evolved for some damn good reasons. We are not machines or engines of pure reason. However, as many psychologists have pointed out, the human moral sense is flawed due to its evolved nature (I'd recommend reading Stephen Pinker's "The Blank Slate" for a succinct roundup of these flaws).
If we value reason we need to know how the brain is flawed in its reasoning.
On the point on morality: how else would you begin to define an ethical framework, except by first setting out the first principle of all ethics- the nature and worth of the human condition?
Marxism, for example, has its own set of ethical values, based on the premise that human nature is a side-effect of history, and as such the individual must take second place to the forces of history. Individuals have no worth, except as economic cogs in a machine.
Christian ethics are based on the notion that humans are innately immoral, "fallen angels", at the mercy of nature, and require obesiance to their divine creator in order to live 'good' lives and escape divine punishment. Individuals have no worth, except by accepting the Christian meme.
My point in this is a simple one: morality can be pragmatic and rational. We do not need unthinking obedience to a system/deity. If we wish to balance the individual and the community interest, then a system of ethics, based on a realistic and compassionate view of humanity is a very rational and effecient way of doing so.
We need to get our view of human nature right, though.
If morality wasn't so fundamentally pragmatic for a social animal such as ourselves it wouldn't be such an integral part of our innate psychology.
By the way, I do think your life has worth. It could just be my moral sense talking though (kidding).
Seriously, though, I would argue that any system which placed such a low value on human dignity was essentially irrational and doomed from the outset. Thankfully, the history books seem to agree with me.
Author
Logged
