degraded being
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So enlightening! I want to vote for the republicans now. Where do I sign up?
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So enlightening! I want to vote for the republicans now. Where do I sign up?
As regards good versus evil, to me, empowerment and control are a false dichotomy.
Good and evil are entirely relative, to some person or group. To a fanatical Muslim, it is "good" to send a busload of heathens to hell with a suicide bomb. A "good" Muslim fanatic "empowers" young Muslim kids with how to make the bombs.
I agree with TAJ that when you act out of the concerns of the other person or group, to help them, as long as they are not screwing somebody else over doing what they do, then that is "good".
This gets tricky because how any person views good or evil with usually depend on his or her set of beliefs, fixed ideas, philosophy, religion or political leanings. Often some dogma sets the framework for what is considered to be good or bad.
For example, a strict right-wing Christian fundamentalist might consider abortion "wrong", and empower a few friends to bomb the local abortion clinic ( to "help" the unborn fetuses). To them in their minds, they are "good". To them they are stopping "evil". If their assumptions are true, then their choices are correct (of course, the assumptions are not true).
This gets all so tricky, because ethics and morality are mostly relative to what one holds to be true. I don't see that there is ANY sort of absolute ethics or morality, at least not that most human beings will be able to grasp. To arrive at an absolute system of ethics or morality, one will have to make certain assumptions (that others will probably NOT agree with).
TAJ, you say, "Kant breaks it down to using people as a means to your end is bad but treating people as ends in themselves is good."
Okay, so my next door neighbor is addicted to pain killers. She comes over one night and wants about 50 bucks, and she is willing to do anything (she's really cute too). So, I don't treat her as an end for me, I don't take advantage of her, but I help her from her viewpoint - and give her $50 so that she can get her pain killers. I could try to talk her into what I think she should do, or even trick her into NOT doing the drugs, but per Kant, I should let her make a "decision based on her values", and just give her the information I have or understand.
To me there are so MANY wrinkles in this argument.
What would enable a higher morality or ethics to come about might occur IF there was an accurate understanding of what a person really IS, as a mind, as a spirit, etc. If each of us is 1) just some result of accidental evolution, where consciousness is some by-product of chemical and electrical reactions in a brain, and when we die that is it, then attitudes and choices will differ than if 2) Man were actually some more-than-temporary entity who traversed a great many lives and existences. If the latter were "the truth", then right and wrong would align with THAT set of facts. If there is a God in Heaven like some Christians think, and you wil go to Hell if you are "bad", then choices will again be very different. Determinations of good and evil always depend on the belief system held by any person or group. I am curious TAJ, have any philosophers tried to come up with a system of ethics that transcends that problem - that it is often so relative, based on the fixed ideas and assumptions of some person or group?
The problem is that the "set of facts about these great truths" is almost entirely OPINION. And thus, there are a great many different ideas of what "right" and "wrong" is. The Muslim fanatic sees western women in mini-skirts as "evil". And many in the west see women in long clothing that covers their entire body as "evil".
Hubbard was onto something when he talked about "mores" and "social habits". The determination of good and evil has much to do with those factors.
TAJ, I do agree mostly with what Kant said, but I see that there can be exceptions. Generally, I would say that acting to expand the awareness, understanding and knowledge of another, as applies to some relevant matter, concern or situation, is usually a good thing. Acting with trickery, lies, deceit, manipulation, control and force, to make others act or behave to benefit YOU, would be "evil". But I can conceive of situations where deception and trickery would be the right thing to do.
As Leon said, it often comes down to the right-hand versus the left-hand path. It is "love" as desire and a need for sensation versus unconditional (higher) love for others. It is concern for inflow versus giving (as outflow) and with no concern for what you get back "in return". Some notions of this "higher love" transcend "exchange" entirely.
This "good" versus "evil" thing is something that great minds have been pondering for centuries. One day I should give it more than a passing thought. :confused2:
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It's not so much a case of good and evil as I see it, but more a case of Priddy Good people, Bitches, Bastards, Really Neat people, Really Really Fantastic people, Fuckin Idiots, Arrogant Shitheads, Really Nice Guys, Really Nice Person, Bloody Fuckin Bastard, etc. Do you see that? If we ask a Degraded Being we get an answer to this question of Good versus Evil which has bewildered 50 thousand years of thinking Man.
guilt by association.Did anyone bother checking to see who this "Mike Adams, The Health Ranger" character is?
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/NaturalNews
The guy hangs out with Alex Jones, do I need to say anymore?
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2...anti-vax-altie-med-anti-gmo-birther-crankery/
guilt by association.
Good and evil are not permanent conditions of people.
People are not always good and people are not always bad.
Kant breaks it down to using people as a means to your end is bad but treating people as ends in themselves is good.
In other words you don't deceive or fool people or trick people or even use an irrational or purely emotional argument to convince someone to do what you want them to do.
You treat people as the one who should make his own decision based on his values and just give him the information you have.
This is Kant's way of saying empowerment is good and manipulation is bad.
The Anabaptist Jacques
Did anyone bother checking to see who this "Mike Adams, The Health Ranger" character is?
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/NaturalNews
The guy hangs out with Alex Jones, do I need to say anymore?
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2...anti-vax-altie-med-anti-gmo-birther-crankery/
but come on," this guy hangs out with alex jones, need i say more?" is ridiculous.Love this quote from the wiki link for Adams's site: "Even other quacks think it's a quack site."
If only life were so simple. Control versus empowerment.
I've got kids. Let them do anything they want? Control everything they do? Seems that a balance is best.
An evil person might very well empower those who are inclined to harm themselves or others. Why, that boy should have a gun if he wants one. Give him some extra clips. Sure he's thinking of shooting everyone in his school, but...heh...
Your kid wants to play video games instead of anything else, such as growing as a person? Hmm. Just needs to be a bit of control.
Your workers want to go out speed skating instead of installing the framing....
The question is always "empowerment to do what?" Without that answered, empowerment can become tremendously evil.
Control to do what? Prevent others from encroaching on the rights of others? Not such a bad thing to control. Empowering the CofS certainly isn't good.
Ability is always dependent on control. Part of coaching or teaching demands conveying the ability to control whatever media you're dealing with, whether it's writing, painting, dancing, pitching, whatever. You have to control.
What good is it to be empowered without the ability to accomplish? What good is it to empower someone to be weak? isn't that another term for enabling?
Is enabling a good thing?
I find the author biased and superficial in his reasoning. Certainly what he proposes has some merit, but his examples are just plain silly: Liberals are evil because they want to control?
Almost all of my good friends are liberal (without being Democrats) and every single one of them wishes the best for others, wants others to live the most successful lives they can muster to the degree they can stretch their abilities.
Empowerment while teaching control seems a better balance. As Gaddie writes, the two things are not dichotomies. Empowerment and control seem almost inextricably intertwined in practice.
I think your post is excellent but I would caution that the road to hell is paved with good wishes and good intentions. Wishing the best for others and wanting them to be successful really does not count for much because virtually everyone who does anything believes that he/she is acting for the common good. How many people openly state that they hate mankind or individuals and want to destroy them? It's rare and the agreement in society is that such that such a person is considered mentally ill and is usually removed from society and often given mental treatment.
The vast majority of us believe we have good intentions for both mankind and individual people. No one is suggesting that liberals as a group are evil. The OP is just focusing on the best way to improve conditions and in particular about which means to improve conditions is best; to do it with the emphasis being on control of individuals or to place more of the emphasis on empowerment of individuals. I agree that this may be an oversimplification but that's one major reason why I put the OP up for discussion.
Lakey
In his "Critique of Pure Reason" he basically asked if in a rational world based on science, is there a place for moral law?
His answer was his Categorical Imperative. That stated: "Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law."
For example, if you want to break a promise you made to a friend.
The categorical imperative (categorical means in all cases and imperative means what you must do) tells you to imagine a universe were everyone broke promises.
You will see that this would be a very undesirable world to live in. In fact, promises would be useless.
This, of course, means that even little white lies are unacceptable, because a universe made up of people lying would be very undesireable and unworkable..
The Anabaptist Jacques
Uh, how about Louis Farakahn?
Lakey
Helena, it sounds like the empowerment of all people in a society is the antidote for believing that SOMEBODY has to be in charge. If NOBODY is in charge then there is anarchy which leads to chaos. I believe the American Founding Fathers were on the right track. Simply stated, for usage in the real world, they devised a system which attempted to empower each citizen to a collective state sufficient for the citizenry to vote in leaders who would further look out for the common interest.
Lakey
It is very interesting to see how ideas have been absorbed without complete inspection in society.
Helena, it sounds like the empowerment of all people in a society is the antidote for believing that SOMEBODY has to be in charge. If NOBODY is in charge then there is anarchy which leads to chaos.
I believe the American Founding Fathers were on the right track. Simply stated, for usage in the real world, they devised a system which attempted to empower each citizen to a collective state sufficient for the citizenry to vote in leaders who would further look out for the common interest.
Lakey
Well, isn't that pretty much how it has been ever since the beginning of time? :confused2:
Also, a "society" doesn't adsorb an idea; it can't because the idea of a "society" is an abstraction, and not a real existing thing (and it changes every moment into something else it wasn't a moment before) - an individual thinking mind does "absorb ideas" (metaphorically speaking). It seems to me that accepting ideas without complete inspection is more the rule than the exception. Simple observation shows that to be true.
I mean look how Hubbard setup Scientology so that a great many ideas would be accepted "without complete inspection". For example, read History of Man. How the hell can ANYBODY verify what Hubbard states and claims? You can't EVER perform any sort of inspection of the data to decide whether the ideas are correct or not. Con artists and scammers are good at taking advantage of that very real human weakness. With regards to much information given in Scientology, all one can do is "think about" the ideas, and leave these ideas largely disconnected from any possible observation of relevant data.
Is this Kant's example or yours?
The idea of never lying ignores CONTEXT. Also, the notion of "universal" law applied to human beings regarding morality is TOTALLY ABSURD. This is such an abstract idea, and it has almost no possible correlation with any version of reality.
For example, when my neighbors wife asks him if her ass looks too large with the new dress she just bought, he sure had BETTER LIE, or he will be in deep shit. All lies are NOT created equal. Not at all. The context CHANGES the MEANING of a lie. To treat all lies as equal ignores immense differences. To make such an identification of different thing is . . . well somewhat "insane". Just as Hubbard (and Korzybski earier) said, the inability to perceive and recognize differences, identities and associations is a sign of "mental illness". Failing to take context into account is also equally nutty.
Of course, once one accepts context as a key factor in ethics and morality, it gets taken out and away from "universality" and placed entirely into the realm of the "relative" (moral relativity). And while Scientology is a version of moral relativity, there a great many varieties, and I see that a decent version might be able to exist.
This is all fine and well, but as you said, "imagine a world". To me, too often philosophers IMAGINE worlds that have little or nothing to do with any actual world. I suppose that is because they are locked in some "ivory tower" (or in some ascetic room at the University of Königsberg).