From: Robbie Lindauer (robblin@thetip.org)
Date: Wed Sep 10 2003 - 11:31:07 MDT
>> 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?
>
> ### Of course.
then your moral system has no basis. My life is more valuable than the
fulfillment of your contracts.
>>
>>> A contract must be explicit to be enforced.
>> ...
>> ### Ashamed, perhaps. Blamed - well, it depends on the local customs
> regarding the duties of guardians of prepersons. Such customs should be
> sufficiently simple and well-known to allow expectations to form, and
> at the
> same time they should be subject (largely) to choice, by both parents
> and
> (to a lesser degree) their children, e.g. by the expedient of
> polycentric
> law.
Directly contradicting your statement above.
Rafal - Contracts are pretty far down on the morality chain.
>> Similarly economic contracts tend to
>> be backed by force and coercion either explicitly or implicitly.
>
> ### See medieval merchant law. Ostracism is not coercion, but is very
> effective at enforcing many contracts.
Ostracism is a form of coercion - "Leave your house OR ELSE".
If you want to redefine coercion for your little moral system, go for
it, just don't expect anyone else to follow you down the road.
> ### This would not be coercion, unless you are talking about
> non-market,
> monopoly situations - such as a communist economy, or a statist
> plutocracy.
Word games, entertaining to children, annoying to adults.
> -----------------------------------
>
>>> ### 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"
>
> ### My statement goes "Social goodness is whatever tends to get me and
> others most of what I and they want". For most well-informed,
> low-emotional
> persons this will mean absolute (not relative) economic success under
> conditions of personal liberty.
The project of defining morality by "what most people want" is hopeless
and silly, you can see yourself going down that path here.
> ### Nah, most people want to gain. Whether it occurs at other people's
> expense, is a minor secondary consideration. In fact, with the
> exception of
> egalitarians, who see the gain of others as an affront to themselves,
> and
> would prefer to even personally lose if it's needed to ruin others,
> most
> people would rather gain *and* profit others at the same time. It feels
> better, I can tell you that.
"Most People" are smart enough to know that if you take someone else's
job, they lose it. That's called gaining at someone else's expense.
If they're ignorant of this rule, they were poorly brought up. You may
ignorantly think that you can acquire billions and billions of dollars
without actually hurting anyone, but that just makes you ignorant,
certainly not moral.
>> "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.
>
> ### Certain procedures are good at finding out what people want. This
> includes the free market, demarchy, Borda count and a few other tricks.
> These define good much better than whatever you or I could elaborate
> on our
> own. Nothing abstract about it.
Well, we clearly don't agree on what most people want, do we agree that
it's bad to torture children?
>> Definitely. On the part of a few very wealthy and powerful people who
>> have had and continue to have extraordinary power.
>
> ### This world is not made for and by elites. Masses of all kinds of
> humans
> labored for centuries to build what we have, and AFAIK there are no
> Illuminati, effective conspiracies, and worldwide cabals.
>
> I guess we differ here.
>
> No Elders of Zion, either.
Stop being stupid.
Is there a Queen of England? A Bank of England? A Barclays? An FMR
Corporation?
I don't know anything about kabal/illuminati/etc. I do know that the
wealthy use their power to keep their power and that has NEVER EVER
CHANGED. Has it?
Can you site examples for us when the wealthy have decided voluntarily
to let the lower-and-middle-classes share in their power?
Best,
robbie
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