From: Robbie Lindauer (robblin@thetip.org)
Date: Sat Aug 30 2003 - 02:09:43 MDT
On Friday, August 29, 2003, at 04:51 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> ### It is necessary to be brave only when fulfilling contracts, a
> subtle yet
> important distinction. Non-contractual bravery may not be demanded -
> only
> freely accepted obligations, such as in a contract (by definition, a
> contract exists only in the absence of force or fraud) can be enforced.
Couldn't I be brave solely in relation to familial and filial
relationships and be a complete coward when it comes to fulfilling my
contracts?
Example: if I fail to deliver a piece of equipment to you on monday
because some troglodytes were cutting off the road and I didn't feel
like running the gauntlet, then according to your moral system I should
be blamed because obliged due to contract?
> A contract must be explicit to be enforced.
However, lacking any explicit agreement with my children about when I
will be there to save them, if II fail to pass the road due to
cowardice on my part and my son dies as a result with my full
knowledge, I'm not to be ashamed or blamed?
But we're very close. There is a familial and filial contract implicit
in human-being but state-enforced contracts almost always arise as a
result of coercion. Similarly economic contracts tend to be backed by
force and coercion either explicitly or implicitly. An example of an
IMPLICIT form of coercion might be forcing people to take minimum wage
jobs and drive three hours to their work because that's the only work
available for them - and because the education system set up to provide
them with necessary skills to either provide for themselves or get
better jobs has utterly failed them, but apparently deliberately.
Have you heard of the "Learn to Work" program?
> ### I'd rather think that what I refer to is not bravery, just
> rationality.
> "Bravery" is a term too burdened with tribalistic, gory images. The
> Invariants in "Golden Age" (John C. Wright) are not brave, merely
> calmly
> rational, incapable of fear, incapable of bravery. This is my ideal.
It's another word-game, apparently directed at emotivism. I suggest
that your attempts to curb the use of emotionally laden words in this
context is just ridiculous. Cowardice and Bravery and Goodness are
emotionally laden terms. If we didn't CARE about what we were doing,
then there would be no good, no bad, no cowardice, not bravery, not
even any "calmly rational". All words are value laden, some of those
values are more emphatic than others.
All you really do by setting up such dichotomies is to change the word
game, the question then becomes WHY are you changing the word-game?
What does it gain you to change the word-game? Why not adopt bravery
and help people see bravery "your way"?
> ### It is not my prerogative to define other sentients' self-interest
> for
> them. I can however hypothesize that it is, similar to mine, the
> achievement
> of whatever goals they act to achieve, ideally in the presence of
> sufficient
> information needed to evaluate those goals in reference to other goals
> they
> strive for. Therefore, "goodness" is for me getting what humans really
> want,
> and the ideal society is the one that best serves the achievement of
> the
> average Rawlsian human's goals, including my own personal goals.
> Goodness is
> then defined in the context of my self-interest, not the other way
> around.
Getting what WHICH humans really want? If your predictive statement
"Goodness is what tends to produce good results in the long-run" is to
have any force, you're going to have to say which humans, since
different humans want very very different things. It doesn't help to
move it up to "on the average" at the societal level since it may be
that 1) people don't have large-scale agreements about what is good
and 2) "on the average" what people want isn't very good.
"Most People" want to gain at other people's expense. It's the first
rule of capitalism - buy low, sell high. We can call this the modern
equivalent of original sin.
"Most People" don't agree about what they want - shoot, most people
don't even know what they want themselves. But just about EVERYBODY
can tell you whether or not you should torture children. Good is much
more concrete than this abstract "what people want" thing.
>> Doubtful. Calm rationality and long-term outlook has made this world
>> the way it is NOW. Is this the best world there can be? (in something
>> more than a tautological sense.)
>
> ### Today's world the result of calm rationality and long-term
> outlook?!!!!!
>
> You really meant it?
Definitely. On the part of a few very wealthy and powerful people who
have had and continue to have extraordinary power.
It's the explanation for why the same group of people, generation after
generation, enjoy privilege and rank while their counterparts though no
less intelligent, talented, ambitious and cunning, fail to ascend to
the ranks.
This group of people changes occasionally during revolutions (usually
followed immediately by an equally terrifying bunch, sometimes by the
same terrifying bunch that was just ousted), but by-and-large, yes,
calm, collected, coldly rational self-interest drives the ruling
classes methods for controlling the rabble. This is why, for instance,
George H.W. Bush didn't have his son sent to war but was perfectly
happy to send lots of other people to die there.
Best,
Robbie Lindauer
robblin@thetip.org
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