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| Re: Orange Is the New Black actress vs. Homophobic moron preacher on uptown (M) train (1322544) | |||
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Re: Orange Is the New Black actress vs. Homophobic moron preacher on uptown (M) train |
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Posted by Nilet on Fri Nov 7 04:22:54 2014, in response to Re: Orange Is the New Black actress vs. Homophobic moron preacher on uptown (M) train, posted by New Flyer #857 on Thu Nov 6 11:48:57 2014. Is the system actually different? It seems to me that you've offered a different chain of reasoning that leads to the same outcome.That everyone wants to be happy is true, but it is not necessary that a system of morality be based on that statement. Well morality will always require one subjective element— what do we value? Since happiness is the thing we all want, it seems like that's the thing we should value. As you point out, relying exclusively on that statement causes some outcomes that need correcting (hence your added clauses). But even if I step back and agree that the "pursuit of happiness" is a real thing -- that is, that there actually exists this non-material, non-quantifiable happiness to be pursued, and even go a big step further and say it should be pursued, that still leaves open the question of authority or reasoning for the added clauses. In your first clause, we recognize that the worship of happiness outright without anything else said is unfair for some people and so we need this clause. There is no reason at all why fairness is necessary, unless one recognizes in the individual some supernatural dignity (you can probably tell where I'm going with that). There's nothing supernatural about it. If the goal is to increase happiness overall, then fairness is necessary towards that goal. This is where the social contract aspect comes in. Imagine that people were created in some netherworld and then offered the choice of which real world they wanted to be born into. They were offered the choice of millions of worlds, identical in every respect except for the morality system used. In the netherworld, these individuals were perfectly rational but risk-averse and they did not know exactly where in their choice of world they'd be born - they could be born into a family of billionaire New Yorkers or a family of Peruvian subsistence farmers - and they would not know what might befall them in life, from lottery wins to catastrophes. Being rational, they would want to choose the world where their chances of success and happiness were the highest regardless of circumstances, so a world whose moral system requires fairness is a better bet— a more equal society means a lower risk of being impoverished and unhappy. A good moral system needs to work for everyone regardless of circumstances because if a large group of people are condemned to poverty by birth alone, they have no incentive to participate in the moral system, and if it is in the rational self-interest of a large group of people to flout a moral system then that system just isn't workable. In your second clause, we recognize the need for correction for those who go too far. But who's to say when someone goes so far? Just about everyone's "pursuit of happiness" almost always takes away from my own, right? If I'm in traffic, those other cars are preventing me from where I need to go. But likewise a car can't just deliberately idle in the middle of the road. Who's to say when the line has been crossed though, from pursuing happiness legally to pursuing happiness illegally? Does that just come down to opinion? You mention education, but, for example, why isn't the woman the property of the rapist? Just because we all agree on it? What if a country decides not to agree on it? We may have to go back to that whole individual-dignity-from-above thing to reconcile it all. So you've probably already identified my own moral system, which is heavily related to a dignity that, if you don't want to use the supernatural realm, then at the very least is inherent in our nature. And so we would want to act in accord with that dignity. We would not deliberately take a life because it is not in our authority to determine that a life is worthless. But to avoid recognizing such dignity and instead make the "practical" goal the "pursuit of happiness," you have to come up with amendments that basically assign the dignity I'm starting with people may or may not agree on. Well here's how I look at it. Science is objective. Something is true or it isn't— it's not subject to individual opinion. Morality always requires one subjective piece— we have to decide what we value, since "should" is only meaningful with respect to an end goal. However, once an end goal has been decided, the rest of morality is objective. If we all agree that we want X, then whether a particular policy or rule gets us closer to X is true or it isn't— it's not subject to individual opinion. I propose using happiness as the value of X because it's the lowest common denominator of human motivation; we all want it, and it's the only thing we want entirely for its own sake. If we agree on that X, then the rest is just science. Does proposing innate human dignity get us closer to X? Yes. So throw it in. That's why I said a supernatural explanation for human dignity is not required— human dignity is an emergent property of our mutual pursuit of happiness, much like how centrifugal force is an emergent property of Newton's laws of motion. Also, I'd very much like to thank you for your own post. I wasn't expecting a philosophical discussion to arise out of this thread. :) |
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