From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rafal@smigrodzki.org)
Date: Wed Aug 13 2003 - 10:35:03 MDT
Olga Bourlin wrote:
>
> My ethical system begins with Bertrand Russell's quote: "Remember
> your humanity and forget the rest." Then we make progress from that
> point.
### OK, I know where it starts, but what does it mean?
My ethical system begins with "The qualium of desire may not be denied", but
I bet you might be surprised that it leads me to e.g. advocate compulsory
liability insurance in certain situations.
What practical injunctions do you derive from the good professor's dictum?
------------------------------------
>
> Any economic progress is good? Al Capone's? Kenneth Lay's? Dennis
> Kozlowki's?
### I don't know who is Dennis Kozlowski. Al Capone's progress came at the
price of losses to a lot of people, and represented a net loss to the
economy. Therefore, in agreement with what I wrote above, it was not
progress, and he was a bad thing to happen.
-------------------------------------------
>
>> Economic progress must be maximized, within a coherent, volitionist
>> ethical framework. This might mean using moral symmetry, Rawlsian
>> reciprocity, and a few other heuristics which have been found to aid
>> economic progress, while rejecting egalitarianism, tribalism,
>> male/female chauvinism, taboos, and everything else that interferes
>> with economic growth.
>
> You mention Henry Ford below. He violated almost every "good" point
> you are making above.
### Well, his workers kind of liked the way he paid them, and the customers
liked his cars, there were no bodies dumped in the river (AFAIK), so I
couldn't judge him harshly, although I am sure that if his greed and
ambition were not acting within something resembling a free market, he would
be happy to be a very bad person, as exemplified by his collaboration with
and support of the Nazi party. I've known it for a long time, but for me
it's the outcome, not the intention, that matter in social analysis (which
is different from daily life, but this is a different story).
-----------------------------------
>
>> It is good to be rich. Therefore, anything that interferes with the
>> growth of the average sentient's income, is bad. It doesn't matter
>> if you share with others, or if you hoard. The only thing that
>> matters is how much you contribute to the average increase in
>> wealth. Feelings of fairness, justice, are wrong, if they interfere
>> with the growth of average income of the Rawlsian observer.
>
> Fairness and justice are paramount. "Remember your humanity and
> forget the rest."
### Define "fairness" and "justice". And every two-bit dictator, preacher,
demagogue, or union boss has his own private definition, too.
My "Average income in constant dollars", "Rawlsian observer", are about as
clear-cut as it gets. You cannot hijack them to your own benefit, because
they are much more observer-independent, reason-based, than the
feeling-based categories of justice and fairness. This is why I suggest
using them in the formulation of ethical systems which are supposed to serve
large numbers of people, in fact, all people who want to live long and
prosper.
--------------------------------
>
>> All the emotionally rousing images you quoted, for the rational
>> thinker, are yet another reason to support economic growth, while
>> maintaining individual freedom. Henry Ford did more for American
>> children than the nameless bureaucrats who drafted child labor laws.
>> Once the children's parents became rich enough, children's labor
>> stopped being a problem. World War II did as much for women as
>> feminism - once women entered the labor pool, they
> learned> that economic competition gives them the power that comes
> from financial> independence.
>
> Henry Ford didn't do squat that someone else would not eventually
> have done ... but without being such an asshole:
>
> http://history.hanover.edu/hhr/99/hhr99_2.html
>
> http://lisatote.diaryland.com/ford.html
### Yes, I know he was. So what? Is the world worse off because of him?
They say Torquemada had the makings of a saint. Is the world better off
because of him?
I am a consequentialist.
--------------------------
>
>> The working conditions of the 19th century were wrong, because most
>> people were then poor, and it is wrong to be poor. Concentrate on
>> creating wealth, not righting wrongs, and all wrongs will right
>> themselves.
>
> If you lived in the 19th century, is this what you would be telling
> to half of the population in the USA (women), to the (mainly) Chinese
> laborers who built the Transcontinental Railroad, to the slaves, to
> the children laboring in the factories: "Concentrate on creating
> wealth, not righting wrongs ...?" Is this what you would be telling
> them?
>
### One of the best methods of creating wealth is to free slaves (so they
happily work and enrich themselves and everybody else, instead of having
labor wrested out of them by overseers). A good method of making the tenth
child of poor parents richer, if you don't have the money to pay for his
schooling, is to give him work (rather than have him starve). As I mentioned
above, removing the legal and customary impediments to economic progress of
women, allowed a great creation of wealth, and righted a great wrong at the
same time. Racial and ethnic discrimination is one of the major limits to
wealth creation and is ruthlessly punished by a free market.
Rafal
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