From: Emlyn O'regan (oregan.emlyn@healthsolve.com.au)
Date: Mon Jul 21 2003 - 22:49:04 MDT
Robert Bradbury wrote:
> On Mon, 21 Jul 2003, Mark Walker wrote:
>
> > One of the ethical issues that this might raise is whether
> it would be
> > permissible to discriminate on the basis of an angelic
> rating. Would it be
> > ok to hire on the basis of the candidate's angelic rating?
>
> The problem is that it is too easy to "bias" the rating -- I
> can be "good"
> for a decade with the intent of getting a high "angelic"
> rating and then coast
> on it.
>
A decade of "goodness" is probably a significant gain in many people's eyes,
maybe worth carrying the coaster afterwards. It's kind of like saying I can
work hard for a decade and get rich, then retire.
It also reminds me a LOT of university degrees.. work hard for a few years,
get a degree, never think again. (As an aside, I am really surprised that no
one makes you re-prove your worthiness for degreed status every so often.)
> So one has the problem that one selects based on high ratings that are
> in reality fraudulent. If you know of a system that can't be "milked"
> please show it to me.
>
Sure, it goes like this:
1. Kill everyone
2. Let google sort 'em out.
Anything more complex than this is all chicken entrails.
> > Would it be ok
> > for universities to set admission criteria in terms of an
> angelic rating?
> > I'm inclined to think that this shouldn't be a problem.
See above.
>
> For the first few years (when "natural" behaviors) were in effect yes.
> But as soon as people figured out how to milk the system the "ratings"
> would be of questionable value.
>
This is where you need a free market effect to step in; if one system of
ratings sucks, then others should crop up; the good, bad and ugly. May the
best system win, until it loses to another one. Personally, I think no-one
could effectively judge the long term effects of each candidate system, so
the choice would come down to all the usual crap that we choose from;
credibility of the system purveyors, market penetration, glossiness of the
pamphlets.
> It is interesting -- such an approach might produce group
> (tribe) supportive
> behaviors (above the average level) for a limited period of
> time -- that might
> be of net benefit to society for some period -- but one has
> to wonder about
> whether there might be a net downside once the cat is out of the bag.
> (e.g. "You mean you manipulated me into being a better person than I
> would otherwise naturally be -- how could you do that?")
>
> R.
As long as the system of ethics required isn't fixed, it would probably be a
good thing overall. Once you've released the concept to the market, then it
just becomes another facet of the market environment; a preference for
ethical investment over non-ethical, with the preference probably being the
most common ethical standard amongst all coexistent standards at any time.
Things like "Don't murder people" become defacto absolute morality, whereas
"Don't abort fetuses" or "Don't genetically modify organisms" would carry
far less weight.
However, a system of ethical investment kicked off by the churches is very
unlikely, imo, to devolve easily into a system of DIY Ethics. The churches
would have first mover's advantage, which you would see reflected in the
infrastructure; the systems of ratings are likely, for example, to come from
church sources, initially, and to handle a fixed moral code (commandments x
10 etc). Software to support ethical investment is likely to reflect those
early assumptions too. Also, and crucially, the churches suddenly have the
power of the big retirement funds, or other massive investors; how they
direct investment, in many cases, would control prices. So investing along
the lines that they invest becomes the right thing to do, purely from a
profit orientation.
Probably you'd need government intervention, establishing an Office of Moral
Competition, requiring that large churches not crush the smaller ones with
their massive market power. It could levy enormous fines for collusion
between the Catholics and the Protestants if they conspired to disadvantage
the Muslims (eg: maybe it would be found that they were telling their
followers not to invest in oil).
They might even force the Catholics to break up into smaller sub-religions.
Here's a question for those better versed in religion than moi: in what way
do you break up the Catholics for anti-competitive morality? What are the
new religious organisations? :-)
Emlyn
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