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The human condition.

#1 User is offline   Deucaon Icon

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Posted 17 April 2008 - 06:56 AM

Do ethics restrict the development of human society and the ability of a single human?
"I felt insulted until I realized that the people trying to mock me were the same intellectual titans who claimed that people would be thrown out of skyscrapers and feudalism would be re-institutionalized if service cartels don't keep getting political favors and regulations are cut down to only a few thousand pages worth, that being able to take a walk in the park is worth driving your nation's economy into the ground, that sexual orientation is a choice that can be changed at a whim, that problems caused by having institutions can be solved by introducing more institutions or strengthening the existing ones that are causing the problems, and many more profound pearls of wisdom. I no longer feel insulted because I now feel grateful for being alive and witnessing such deep conclusions from my fellows."
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Posted 17 April 2008 - 12:05 PM

No.
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Posted 17 April 2008 - 10:44 PM

QUOTE (Ninja Duck @ Apr 18 2008, 03:05 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
No.


Care to elaborate?
"I felt insulted until I realized that the people trying to mock me were the same intellectual titans who claimed that people would be thrown out of skyscrapers and feudalism would be re-institutionalized if service cartels don't keep getting political favors and regulations are cut down to only a few thousand pages worth, that being able to take a walk in the park is worth driving your nation's economy into the ground, that sexual orientation is a choice that can be changed at a whim, that problems caused by having institutions can be solved by introducing more institutions or strengthening the existing ones that are causing the problems, and many more profound pearls of wisdom. I no longer feel insulted because I now feel grateful for being alive and witnessing such deep conclusions from my fellows."
-Jimmy McTavern, 1938.
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Posted 17 April 2008 - 11:15 PM

...

No.

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#5 User is offline   BigStupidDogFacedArse Icon

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Posted 18 April 2008 - 01:12 PM

There needs to be solidarity and an understanding of good and evil or else society wouldn't work.


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Posted 18 April 2008 - 02:41 PM

Good and evil are entirely subjective constructs designed to promote what the people in control of a culture during it's impressionable years want and attack what it they don't want. I side with things that let people grow and develop while maintaining respect for other humans and the world in general.

A development of ethics is at the very core of what it is to be human and a responsible moral agent that is capable of engaging in complex interaction with its environment. A lack of ethics would be a degradation of the human condition.
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#7 User is offline   ion eon Icon

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Posted 18 April 2008 - 03:00 PM

that's rediculous
ethics limit you only by your societal standards
if you're a free thinker, and not a conformistic fascist, then nothing should limit you
OH NO!!!
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Posted 18 April 2008 - 05:29 PM

conformistic?

Yeah, let's not be restrictivized by linguistical fascismo! Let's makeuporate words when ever we want! Then we'll know truthalistic freedomtude!
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#9 User is offline   Deucaon Icon

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Posted 19 April 2008 - 01:34 AM

QUOTE (BigStupidDogFacedArse @ Apr 19 2008, 04:12 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
There needs to be solidarity and an understanding of good and evil or else society wouldn't work.


QUOTE (Slade @ Apr 19 2008, 05:41 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
Good and evil are entirely subjective constructs designed to promote what the people in control of a culture during it's impressionable years want and attack what it they don't want. I side with things that let people grow and develop while maintaining respect for other humans and the world in general.

A development of ethics is at the very core of what it is to be human and a responsible moral agent that is capable of engaging in complex interaction with its environment. A lack of ethics would be a degradation of the human condition.


If ethics by design help a society develop then do they limit the abilities of individuals or does the development of society help the abilities of individuals? If so, how?

QUOTE (ion eon @ Apr 19 2008, 06:00 AM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>
that's rediculous
ethics limit you only by your societal standards
if you're a free thinker, and not a conformistic fascist, then nothing should limit you


So can a society exist/work if every individual of that society is looking out for themselves first and foremost? Does a society require most of the individuals belonging to that society to cooperate?
"I felt insulted until I realized that the people trying to mock me were the same intellectual titans who claimed that people would be thrown out of skyscrapers and feudalism would be re-institutionalized if service cartels don't keep getting political favors and regulations are cut down to only a few thousand pages worth, that being able to take a walk in the park is worth driving your nation's economy into the ground, that sexual orientation is a choice that can be changed at a whim, that problems caused by having institutions can be solved by introducing more institutions or strengthening the existing ones that are causing the problems, and many more profound pearls of wisdom. I no longer feel insulted because I now feel grateful for being alive and witnessing such deep conclusions from my fellows."
-Jimmy McTavern, 1938.
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#10 User is offline   ion eon Icon

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Posted 20 April 2008 - 06:46 PM

the "ic" accidentally got added onto the conformist lol

and society is a commodity, not a necessity.






OH NO!!!
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Posted 20 April 2008 - 11:25 PM

Silly. Society is what happens when you get millions of people living near one another in community. It's not a social construct; it's a naturally-evolved state of being. Regardless of the form society would take, it would take some form or another.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#12 User is offline   BigStupidDogFacedArse Icon

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Posted 21 April 2008 - 04:11 PM

Slade, I think we need a word for it and since 'evil' is the best negative superlative in the English language; we might as well use it. I'm sure you'll agree we need an antithesis to evil so let’s use 'good' since it's been around for a while.

I don't believe in tolerating moral relativism. It would be immoral to do so. There is something innate in all of us which says murder is wrong. If you find a credit card on the ground you'll know using it to purchase DVDs is immoral. It may not stop you from doing it, but had you been caught in the act or perhaps faced the card holder or an officer, you'd feel a sense of guilt. We understand that extreme poverty can blur ethical boundries so we've set up institution within our western countries to help combat poverty.

There are other topics such as torture. Is it right to torture an enemy for information? Is it on the same grounds as torturing a victim for pleasure? The latter would be leisure play for a psychopath with which I have no problem labeling as evil. Torture for information gain depends on a few things. I'm not sure what the statistics are on pain:information ratios. From what I can tell, the west uses relatively lax methods such as water board, loud music, and vicious threats. It's a far cry from mutilation and family slaughter. So while the society I live in may delve into torture out of desperation, I highly doubt there is any enjoyment involved. That extra sadistic bit, the needless psychotic aspect, is not added on for kicks. I'll leave it up to the professionals on this one, and trust they're not running amuck. I would like to see how much worthy information is attained through torture (not sure if we ever will see a stat). I've read all the papers on how torture merely forces a captive to confess whatever it is the captor want to hear. While this is a likely case, I'm not sure if it's a knock down argument against it. There are individuals on this planet that will not cut deals or happily wait out their existence in a cell. But again, I'm not convinced our special agents are the cowboys we make them out to be when water boarding pops up in the papers. At risk of sounding like a twat, we are as humane as one can be when dealing with torture. I think that distinction is worth noting.

Any how, moral absolutism does not help us conclude anything and is a lame duck philosophy.

Society would not be possible without ethics and ethics demands the observation of good and evil. Every society on earth has come to this conclusion, ages ago. Perhaps our ancestors slowly learned that killing your family and neighbors’, for a piece of mammoth meat, would come back to haunt them in some form. Examples: being alone in the world with no comfort; sleepless nights in fear of your own mother clubbing you over the head for not collecting enough sticks for the fire. These are just the fundamentals.

In short, society evolved as we tried to better ourselves. If you think ethics impedes social progress, then you're mildly cretinous.

This post has been edited by BigStupidDogFacedArse: 21 April 2008 - 04:40 PM

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#13 User is offline   BigStupidDogFacedArse Icon

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Posted 21 April 2008 - 08:35 PM

Sorry about the torture paragraph. I can see now I went off on a tangent. What I was trying to say is that we strive to do the ethical thing. Perhaps a worst case scenario might bring about some unethical practice, but even then we don't mutilate or destroy or captives. So there is a line we won't cross. So ya, ethics played a roll. If you feel you must respond to the torture bit, and I know some one will, that was my point. Not sure why I got all patriotic about it.

This post has been edited by BigStupidDogFacedArse: 21 April 2008 - 08:37 PM

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#14 User is offline   civilian_number_two Icon

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Posted 21 April 2008 - 09:36 PM

Not sure either. A country's refusal to use torture would be a strong international message of propaganda, and it might lead to less torture internationally. Use of torture may earn information of short-term value, but it would also encourage enemies to use torture. The knowledge that prisoners are treated with basic decency was a key factor in mass surrendering in the first Gulf War (as well as the amicable final several months of WWII, in the European theatre); knowing that capture means waterboarding, racist humiliation and threats to one's genital area will make soldiers more likely to consider death preferable (and that's the situation we have today). So, ethical treatment of prisoners is good strategy in warfare. In order to ensure that prisoners will not be treated ethically, all a leader need to do is to take psychotics who have never seen a day of battle and put them in charge of prisoner care.

Anyway, I still don't entirely understand the question that started this thread. I think ethics don't restrict the development of society; I think they're necessary for it. Without ethics we might all be brutes. And with neverending conflict, I doubt we'd develop anything.
"I had a lot of different ideas. At one point, Luke, Leia and Ben were all going to be little people, and we did screen tests to see if we could do that." -George Lucas, in STAR WARS: the Annotated Screenplays (p197).
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#15 User is offline   barend Icon

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Posted 21 April 2008 - 09:49 PM

Society has already failed.

People can't even master walking to one side of a footpath. Mankind needs to be wiped out. Epic fail, mankind, epic fail.
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