• Motivation For Labor
    many people think money is the root of all evil — GreenPhilosophy

    The Latin proverb is "Radix malorum est cupiditas" -- The love of money is the root of evil, not money itself.

    Currency is dirty, for sure (literally filthy lucre) but that isn't a huge problem. Sure, money can carry flu viruses, traces of drugs, and bacteria -- but as far as I know, NO EPIDEMIC has been laid on the doorstep of currency.

    "What about a robotic AI workforce capable of building more AI robots? People would never have to work again." — GreenPhilosophy

    What about it? Whether we have a robotic workforce or not (and don't hold your breath waiting for it) people still have desires to interact, cooperate, share, and do all those primate-group things we like to do. Besides, the idea that robots will insure plenty for all is strictly pie-in-the-sky. What is more likely to happen is that robotic factories will make goods for the small ruling class and the rest of the population can drop dead.

    Capitalism it it's current form is certainly not just. And Communism isn't the answer either because it doesn't adequately motivate people to help others. — GreenPhilosophy

    Capitalism isn't just, true, and it isn't the political economic system we have (communism, capitalism) that motivates people to cooperate. People cooperate under all circumstances because they like to cooperate (do stuff together) and because it is necessary to cooperate (else we'd all starve). As a species we've been cooperating hundreds of thousands of years.
  • How do I know you're not 'X'?
    people are free to reveal more of themselves, their deeper angry insecure selves. — Marcus de Brun

    The "deeper angry insecure self" gets more response from attacks than agreement. People like to get responses. What do you say to somebody who says they agree with you? Not too much. What do you say to someone who disagrees with you, and perhaps in a disagreeable way? Plenty.
  • Need a few books here
    Waiting for Godot — Marcus de Brun

    Waiting for Godot?
  • Need a few books here
    Power doesn't exist as a disembodied entity. Power comes from wealth, the control of wealth, force of arms, or the threat of using force of arms. Think of Michael Bloomberg, Mark Zuckerberg, banks, Mao Zedong, Adolf Hitler, Israel, or the United States. The facts of how power works reveals the philosophy of power. Less important is what power people imagine they have, or imagine other people having.

    • The Power Elite by C. Wright Mills
    • Who Rules America? The Triumph of the Corporate Rich by G. William Domhoff
    • Studying the Power Elite: Fifty Years of Who Rules America? G. William Domhoff
    • Class and Power in the New Deal: Corporate Moderates, Southern Democrats, and the Liberal-Labor Coalition by G. William Domhoff (Author), Michael J. Webber (Author)
    • The Color of Law: The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America by Richard Rothstein (not about 'power' per se, but an excellent and up-to-date presentation of how power was exercised in congress in the 1930s, and up to the present, to more or less permanently segregate and impoverish blacks.)
    • The Rich and the Super Rich by Ferdinand Lundberg

    Consider Hitler: in 1922 he was a nobody, in a state that was recovering from the costs of WWI and the terms of the Versailles Treaty. He didn't have any money himself, and initially he had no followers, either. 11 years later, in 1933 he took over the German State. How did he manage that? It was mainly through the threat of force (and some application), the money that conservatives donated to his cause, playing on deep hatreds, and a certain amount of crooked dealings. Plus, quite a few Germans (by no means a majority) deeply resented the terms of the Versailles Treaty, which provided a rallying point around which to organize. Hitler never won a majority of the votes in honest elections. Still, he vas dur fucking fuhrer for way, way, way too long.
  • How do I know you're not 'X'?
    So, this is a result of not playing devils advocate with every position or argument you make? — Posty McPostface

    Play devil's or angel's advocate as you wish, just don't tie your sense of personal worth to what you wrote. Take the view that someone is attacking what you wrote, not your person.
  • How do I know you're not 'X'?
    Why ask if it's a form of paranoia and not a form of love? — Πετροκότσυφας

    Chances are it's not love.
  • How do I know you're not 'X'?
    To summarize my post, above, we end up having disagreeable fights because too often we act as if a discussion is a contest upon which is riding a judgement of our personal worth. The solution? Write what you will and then let go of it.
  • How do I know you're not 'X'?
    how do I know you're not a murderer posting on here — Posty McPostface

    You don't -- which is why we don't post our telephone numbers and addresses. About 20% of the membership have intensely psychopathic, murderous, heinous-crime-inclined personalities--a common product of life in modern depersonalizing institutions, like Harvard or Wall Street. If we knew where each other lived, there would be more cases of the Socratic Serial Murderers. (The victims are engaged in lengthy philosophical discussion before they are "banned" as it were.)

    or a racist or a manipulative two-faced person — Posty McPostface

    Who isn't? Preferring one's own tribe, manipulating others, and kowtowing to the opinions of the dominant chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) in the troop is baseline primate behavior.

    What -- do you think we are made in God's own image, or something? The Garden of Eden? Any one of us could play the snake.

    But, what about biases and assumptions about other people, you can't entirely remove those can you? How do they manifest into attacks on the person or in a misconstrual of an actual situation? — Posty McPostface

    No, you can not eliminate biases or assumptions about other people.

    The reason why innocuous discussions of what are fairly esoteric matters become scenes of mayhem is straightforward:

    Jack says, "If a tree falls in the forest, it make no noise if nobody hears it" and invests his statement with his personal line of credit. "Because I am saying this, it is important and must not be disrespected."

    Mary comes along and says, "Phenomena are not dependent on our perception. Every 6 year old knows that, imbecile!" Mary also invests her statement with her personal line of credit.

    Jack responds by calling Mary an asshole because he feels (and was) disrespected. Mary also feels (and was) disrespected, and we're off on another riot in a demitasse cup.
  • What is the character of a racist?
    Most of us luxuriate in being part of our own in-group. It feels good. It's comforting, supportive, nourishing. It's probably also in our genes to like being in our own in-group.

    Yes, true enough, each in-group results in everybody else being in the out-group. We are all out-group members, even if we are lucky enough to have a comfy in-group.

    Class, national origin, race, language group, home-town, olympic league, sexual orientation, and more -- all are fault lines along which we build our in-groups. Being in an in-group doesn't ipso facto mean we hate everybody else. Working class, Turkish speaking, gay guys would have to go out of their way to find reasons to hate middle class, Russian-speaking heterosexuals. They are both out-groups to each other, both in-groups to themselves.

    If you wanted to make middle class Russian-speaking heterosexuals and working class turkish gay guys dislike each other, an intensive program of integration, endless sensitivity training, harangues about equal opportunity, and so on directed at each group, would probably be sufficient for each group to finally loathe that out-group that they had never interacted with but were now supposed to be accepting of -- hell, celebrative over.
  • Losing Games
    My dog usually barks on Wednesday — Hanover

    If that damn dog doesn't stop barking every Wednesday, it's going to have an unfortunate accident.
  • Losing Games
    I appreciate that and feel the same way. Although the big risk with me is that I'm not nearly as charming in person. — T Clark

    Who is?
  • Human nature vs human potential
    ↪frank
    It's not a solo ballet, it's a waltz. Nature leads, culture follows (or you can have it culture leads and nature follows. Either way somebody is stepping on sensitive toes). Our common biological makeup is what makes it possible (and necessary) for culture to fill in the many niches and long stretches which biology couldn't anticipate.

    I'd put it that the piano is nature that culture can play with, but the piano only has so many keys to strike, won't sound like a violin no matter how you play it, and is capable of autonomous actions and reactions. "Pianos" have been known to strike back with considerable force. To twist the metaphor a little more, the piano always bats last (meaning, nature has the last word in the game).

    Still, essentialists, or nature firsters, can't ignore that "Heidegger's focus on the way that a person is [reasonably] free to play their own unique song on this communal instrument" is also correct. Most animals are individuals; even ants and bees, who don't have a lot of leeway, but display minor performance differences.

    I didn't quite follow: what is so embedded in American culture that it makes you chuckle and is totally missing from your own culture?
  • This place is special.
    my daily activities of mucking horse shit — ArguingWAristotleTiff

    Blessed are they who shovel real horse shit. Their horses will be happy and their children will inherit clean stables.
  • Losing Games
    How sad.
    It's just an internet forum (i.e., an anonymous group of people playing all sorts of different games for all sorts of different reasons). Occassionally, someone writes something worth reading.     — Galuchat

    There are all sorts of people playing various games in the world, and on the Internet. You might be playing a game here as well. I wonder what your game is.
  • Losing Games
    Fact is: nobody is truly (or genuinely) here. Hello! It's an internet forum; where usually the only thing you learn from other members is:
    1) Who they want you to think they are, and
    2) What kind of games they like to play under a cloak of anonymity.     — Galuchat

    "I" am here. Some people may project a prettified image of themselves, but most people "here" don't, as far as I can tell. Pretty much I operate on a "what you see is what you get" basis, whether here or face-to-face.

    Yes, the format provides a cloak of anonymity. Two things: the "cloaking feature" fades over time, over many interactions. "Real people" emerge from anonymity after a time. Some people here have been interacting for 10 years. The anonymity feature protects forum users from the ill-intentioned visitor, or the snoop. True, we don't list our actual names, addresses, telephone numbers, places of employment, and so forth. But if Tiff or T. Clark wanted to visit me, I'd hand over the information to them.

    I mean, Tiff and T. Clark in person would have to be less of a risk than the hundred guys I brought home from the bar (one at a time) after the briefest of introductions.
  • This place is special.
    ↪VagabondSpectre
    If some people here are bottoms, you're a top! Which you should take as high praise. Posty: If you don't stop to think about it, it won't seem lewd.

    Reveal
    At words poetic, I'm so pathetic
    That I always have found it best,
    Instead of getting 'em off my chest,
    To let 'em rest unexpressed.

    I hate parading my serenading
    As I'll probably miss a bar,
    But if this ditty is not so pretty,
    At least it'll tell you how great you are.

    You're the top! You're the Colosseum,
    You're the top! You're the Louvre Museum,
    You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss,
    You're a Bendel bonnet, a Shakespeart sonnet,
    You're Mickey Mouse.

    You're the Nile, You're the Tow'r of Pisa,
    You're the smile on the Mona Lisa.
    I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop,
    But if, Baby, I'm the bottom,
    You're the top!

    Your words poetic are not pathetic
    On the other hand, boy, you shine
    And I can feel after every line
    A thrill divine down my spine.

    Now gifted humans like Vincent Youmans
    Might think that your song is bad,
    But for a person who's just rehearsin'
    Well I gotta say this my lad:

    You're the top! You're Mahatma Ghandi.
    You're the top! You're Napolean brandy.
    You're the purple light of a summer night in Spain,
    You're the National Gall'ry, You're Garbo's sal'ry,
    You're cellophane.

    You're sublime, You're a turkey dinner.
    You're the time of the Derby winner.
    I'm a toy balloon that is fated soon to pop.
    But if, Baby, I'm the bottom,
    You're the top!

    You're the top! You're a Ritz hot toddy.
    You're the top! You're a Brewster body.
    You're the boats that glide on the sleepy Zuider Zee,
    You're a Nathan Panning, You're Bishop Manning,
    You're broccoli.

    You're a prize, You're a night at Coney,
    You're the eyes of Irene Bordoni,
    I'm a broken doll, a fol-de-rol, a blop,
    But if, Baby, I'm the bottom,
    You're the top.

    You're the top! You're an Arrow collar.
    You're the top! You're a Coolidge dollar.
    You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire,
    You're an O'Neill drama, You're Whistler's mama,
    You're Camembert.

    You're a rose, You're Inferno's Dante,
    You're the nose of the great Durante.
    I'm just in the way, as the French would say
    "De trop, "
    But if, Baby, I'm the bottom,
    You're the top.

    You're the top! You're a Waldorf salad.
    You're the top! You're a Berlin ballad.
    You're a baby grand of a lady and a gent.
    You're an old dutch master, You're Mrs. Aster,
    You're Pepsodent.

    You're romance, You're the steppes of Russia,
    You're the pants on a Roxy usher.
    I'm a lazy lout that's just about to stop,
    But if Baby, I'm the bottom,
    You're the top!

    You're the top! You're a dance in Bali.
    You're the top! You're a hot tamale.
    You're an angel, you simply too, too, too divine,
    You're a Botticelli, You're Keats, You're Shelley,
    You're Ovaltine.

    You're a boon, You're the dam at Boulder,
    You're the moon over Mae West's shoulder.
    I'm a nominee of the G.O.P. or GOP,
    But if, Baby, I'm the bottom,
    You're the top!

    You're the top! You're the Tower of Babel.
    You're the top! You're the Whitney Stable.
    By the River Rhine, You're a sturdy stein of beer,
    You're a dress from Saks's, You're next year's taxes, '
    You're stratosphere.

    You're my thoist, You're a Drumstick Lipstick,
    You're the foist in the Irish swipstick,
    I'm a frightened frog that can find no log to hop,
    But if, Baby, I'm the bottom,
    You're the top!
  • This place is special.
    If you are overweight and sitting at home all day doing nothing but eating soft cheese and I said that I went hiking yesterday and spent most of last night stargazing and now terribly sleepy, if you turn around and start attacking me for being a show off — TimeLine

    You do show off in that way.
  • This place is special.
    When people fling insults and ignore fallacies, it is because they feel threatened on a personal level. The philosophy they have internalized and used to orient themselves in the world is under fire and must be protected. Insults are conjured up... — darthbarracuda

    That, and then there is the fact that we are primates, after all. We have progressed far enough that we don't fling feces at each other, but the urge to fling something unpleasant is still there, and insults are less contaminating that a wad of moist fecal matter in hand.

    Philosophers should be more able than most to bear in mind that we are closely related to pan troglodytes whether we like it or not, and the same urges that roil a band of chimpanzees roil us as well--except that OUR list of potential roil-making incidents is far, far longer than the chimps' list.
  • Human nature vs human potential
    I'd like to use this thread a little bit of a touchstone to explore how one might come to the conclusion that human nature is thing that's severely limited and it's human potential that's wide open. — frank

    Human potential can't be wide open if human nature is limited.

    Human nature is limited--maybe not limited enough (he said, sarcastically). For instance, we are capable of rearranging some physical features of the planet -- like the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. At first we didn't realize what we were doing. People didn't like the vast amount of smoke from all the coal being burnt in the Industrial Revolution, but they didn't realize the particulate matter dirtying Manchester and Pittsburgh was the least of it. Once we discovered that there were negative long-term consequences to all the coal and petroleum burning, and all the plastic we were throwing away, we ran into a human limitation: It is very difficult for humans to think in global, long-term ranges. In order to solve the problem of global warming which will be come critical in 30 to 80 years, (the end of the century at the outside) we have to change behaviors now.

    We have to change behavior now for a future (2101) that is a bit further out than we can effectively "grock". We can't respond to what we can not "grock". (Grock = something we understand and can respond to.) 2101 is just too far away.

    Trillions of plastic bits are in the oceans, some tiny, some as big as a car, are beyond coping. I have no feel for how many a trillion is, and there are many trillions. That plastics will never disappear is just not thinkable. The descendants of cockroaches that have degrees in science will discover the Antropocene formations of hardened sediment that are larded with plastic bits, still in the same molecular form that they were when we tossed them out the window.

    We can wield more technology today than yesterday, this century than the 12th century, this millennium than in the second millennium BC, this age than in the stone age, but we aren't much more forethoughtful now than we were 300,000 years ago.

    Wide open human potential? Pffft.
  • Human nature vs human potential
    Example: if I see a person as genetically determined, then I see that person's potential as very limited. — frank

    A great deal of "humanness" is determined by our genetic inheritance, just as a great deal of "whaleness", "dogness", and "fruit flyness" is genetically determined.

    Our physical features are gene expressions. Our brain structure is a result of gene expression. In turn our brain structures, through the language specialization, allow for cultural transmission. Memory, perception, proprioception, physical boundedness, spatial/temporal management, bi-pedalness, opposable thumbs, etc. are all bound up in gene-directed brain structure and capacity.

    Personality traits are more susceptible to environmental influence than say vision or hearing, but as parents of several children know, babies are different at birth -- they have different personalities before we have had a chance to shape them.

    You think biological determinism limits people; sure enough. But biological determinism can set the bar of performance very high: geniuses, olympic athletes, people who do hard work their whole lives and live to be 95, and so forth -- as well as people who are biologically limited by a bar set very low. And IF one's genetic limitations include strong determination, people can overcome some limitations, just as fecklessness can spoil potentially high achievers.
  • Motivation For Labor
    In a moneyless society, what could motivate people to make goods for others? — GreenPhilosophy

    Humans are pushed by desires toward cooperation. An individual can accomplish only so much alone. Only through working together can surpluses be created which allow for greater satisfactions.

    Questions: Is a lack of currency the critical factor here, or is it a lack of social organization?
  • Am I being too sensitive?
    I also don't like the sexual jokes in the Shoutbox for some reason. — Posty McPostface

    The main problem with dirty sexual jokes in the Shoutbox is that they are quite often not as funny or as dirty as we would have hoped for. Discriminating connoisseurs of dirty jokes should be in charge of censoring jokes which do not make it over the low bar established here.

    Similarly, the thoroughness with which oxen are gored is unsatisfactory. Since posters are reluctant to perform seppuku, somebody else has to do it for them.

    I hope these reforms will improve your user experience.
  • The only problem to be solved is that of the human psychology?
    We do have strong instinctual drives to eat, to be warm, to have sex, to live in groups, to exercise our intellectual capacities, and so forth. Our psychology is driven by instinct, and by experience and our environment (human and physical).

    The way that "The only problem to be solved is that of the human psychology" is the main problem is that it is very difficult to get people to do what we want them to do, especially if the individual people are not prepared to do it, or don't want to do it.

    Take global warming, or climate change. We'd better do something about it--something pretty drastic and something pretty soon, or it might be curtains for us all. There are good reasons (human psychology) why this isn't happening. Those who control economic and environmental policy are, for the most part, rather deeply invested in the status quo. Those who read about climate change in the newspaper can't do more than sort their recycling, drive less, and maybe dial down their home energy use -- which, individually, seems feckless.

    Petroleum is still the basis of the economy, and making a change to a much, much smaller energy footprint still faces the mountain-sizes obstacle of "The only problem to be solved is that of the human psychology". It isn't an impossible barrier, but it is difficult.
  • What is an incel?
    Several weeks ago we had a thread about relationships between women and men where I said that our society treats men with fear and contempt. This is a very good example. Lonely, socially awkward men are suddenly narcissists and psychopaths. — T Clark

    One, your post did not get a fair response.

    Two, right you are. I don't know any "incels", but I have known disappointed unsuccessful men all my life--indeed, I've been one at times. I don't think it's about sex. Even down and out men seem to be able to find sexual partners when they want to. It's more about not having a reasonable opportunity to gain self-respect. It's about lack of work, or bad work. It's about being devalued and not being treated as a worthwhile person. It's being discarded.

    "Failure" smells bad and a lot of people shy away from the unsuccessful, and justify their distance by projecting negative characteristics onto them.
  • What is an incel?
    I was reading a bio of Joseph Goebbels yesterday; Goebbels became the Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. He wasn't an 'incel'; he was never long without a woman and he didn't lack for power and glory, either. He was, however, in search of a savior BEFORE he became a nazi. He even thought he might be one himself--talk about narcissistic delusions of grandeur. When he finally met Hitler, he knew he found the real savior he was looking for. It was apparently a transfiguration for Goebbels, a bromance at first sight, for real.

    My point is this: hateful, retrograde movements have formed before without the assistance of electronic media or the internet. The National Socialist Party had a disgusting ideology, certainly, but it also a lot of strong ordinary person-to-person glue to bond it together.

    This internet-based "incel movement" is a virtual community which likely aggravates isolation, alienation, and anomie more than reduces it. There isn't much of that person-to-person chemistry which holds a PTA, Rotary, Republicans, or the Socialist Workers Party together.
  • Mental illness, physical illness, self-control
    ↪praxis
    That all sounds good. Keep it up.
  • Welcome to The Philosophy Forum - an introduction thread
    Have I disclosed too much? — allan wallace

    I'm not embarrassed yet, so apparently not.
  • Welcome to The Philosophy Forum - an introduction thread
    ↪allan wallace
    As James Thurber concluded at the end of the very short story, The Very Persistent Blood Hound, "The paths of glory at least lead to the grave; the paths of duty don't lead anywhere at all."

    Welcome to THE Philosophy Forum. 51! I vaguely remember being 51. Decades ago.
  • Welcome to The Philosophy Forum - an introduction thread
    penance in countless gulags being exploited in many different ways — allan wallace

    I too was apparently destined or required to serve time in various air-conditioned brightly lit satanic mills of bureaucracy, wherein I was as unproductive as possible.

    I have never been ambitious. — allan wallace

    I have been transitorily ambitious on several occasions. Ambition is a drag. Or a drug? It must have been blind ambition because so few of my efforts payed off.

    I went on a blitzkrieg through the nightclubs for a few years — allan wallace

    I was more the occupying army. 1001 nights in a gay bar and what I saw there. (Some were standing, some were walking around. A minority were sitting down. Everyone was drinking; most people were smoking; some people weren't. Much longing and many unsatisfied desires. The odds? Good results 2.6 nights out of 7.
  • Reversible progress: Gay rights, abortion rights, the safety net...
    ↪SherlockH
    The reason that abortion, family planning, and birth control are linked together is that there are two underlying issues: One is the 'fetus fetish' which deems a fertilized egg a person from the moment of conception forward. The other issue is 'women's control over their own fertility'. Banning abortion, and making it difficult to obtain birth control or Plan B pills reduces the autonomy women have to make their own decisions about bearing children.

    One could argue that the father should have some say in an abortion or the use of birth control or 'day after pill'. I think they probably should, in the case of a strong relationship between the two people producing the pregnancy. That said, the opinions of other males -- like a bishop, pope, mullah, potentate, enlightened passport, or what have you -- should not have any bearing on women terminating pregnancy. The same goes for other women: IF woman X wants to terminate a pregnancy, it's no business of other women.
  • The Social God
    Don't get "environment" confused with "society" as it's used philosophically. Think social forces inclusive of cultural forces, i.e. the sociocultural as used also in social science, because you can't really separate out the two. Society is the bricks, culture is the mortar. — Baden

    I'm not sure you can even separate "society" and "culture" like bricks and mortar or warp and weft. Society is a culture. Culture shapes society -- the two are too intermingled to separate them out.

    So biology<--->culture<--->society. Biology comes first and lays down the basic floor plan of individual persons and furnishes the appliances. culture<--->society brings in the carpets, the couches, the tables, the chairs, and the drapes, but can't do too much about the floorpan or the appliances. Biology makes the culture in society it's own. Once it's committed to it, change becomes difficult--but not impossible.
  • Phil in Shakespeare
    ↪Cavacava
    There you go! Shakespeare's shade has been muttering, "What the hell are these knaves nattering on about?" Meanwhile Marlowe's shade has been muttering , "Why the hell don't these knaves ask me--I wrote that section, and NEVER got credit for it. I'm still bitter and resentful about it. Where is a ouija board when we need one?"
  • Is it really morally right when we act according to Jeremy Bentham´s utilitarianism?
    And who even says that it would be good if medicine that prevents death is bringing more pleasure. Wouldn't this lead to more and more people exploiting the planet and leading to more hardship to those that are already on the planet? — LittleLisa

    If the doctors are short sighted, they will happily make everybody live longer, even though the earth can't support 7 billion people living 20 years longer.

    One of the problems of consequentialist ethics is "which consequences are we going to favor?" This is a big issue, because consequences which favor many in the short run may also doom many more in the long run. You have to test consequences against moral priorities.

    In terms of global warming, we should definitely reverse many policies, like building and maintaining roads to make car usage easier. For the sake of the planet's ecosystems, we should stop fixing roads, stop building new ones, build no more cars or car factories, and start recovering the metal and rubber from cars and make people use mass transit.

    What are the consequences of this policy? 1, mass unemployment; 2, massive over-crowding of mass transit systems that are not large enough, deterioration of infrastructure which will probably never be rebuilt once it all falls apart.

    On the other hand, the consequences of worsening global warming (due to car use, road building, etc.) are dire too. Not only does global warming mean more extinction of species, it means a lot more people dying from heat stroke. Animals and plants too suffer from too much heat.

    Who is going to make the necessary long-term consequential decisions about global warming? What way will 'they' decide? I'm in favor of more suffering now by rolling back industrialization and energy use and having a feasible future, over a more vigorous economy now, and billions dying in global warming later. But... I'm not making the big calls on policy.
  • Is it really morally right when we act according to Jeremy Bentham´s utilitarianism?
    Bentham says that pleasure and pain are the only two drivers of human nature. — LittleLisa

    There are "lumpers" and "splitters". Bentham is 'lumping' everything together in two categories: pleasure/pain. Splitters are not going to be happy with that. They will want lists of positive and negative factors to consider.
  • Is it really morally right when we act according to Jeremy Bentham´s utilitarianism?
    "What is the greatest possible good for the largest number of people" is a question much more appropriately considered by 'collective' agents such as governments, planning councils, or public health agencies than individuals.

    Individuals are usually not in a position to affect the outcomes for many people through a decision we make. Most of our decisions affect only a few people, at any given time. If you are the pilot of a passenger liner at sea with 3500 people aboard, you as an individual might have to make a decision which will benefit the greatest number of people. The 3500 individuals on board will do well to focus their attention on what they, individually, should do.

    Similarly, public health officials are concerned with getting as many people vaccinated as possible to prevent an epidemic: the greatest possible good for the largest number of people. It makes moral sense for you to decide whether you (and your children) should be vaccinated.

    Should you buy a handbag or not? You can certainly apply consequentialist ethics here: Handbag A is made out of plastic, handbag B is made out of leather. The plastic in handbag A will be a nuisance for the next billion years. The leather in handbag B can be composted and can be returned to the soil. Or you could decide to keep your old handbag and give the money for the new handbag to the poor, or me, or cancer research, or... whatever.
  • The Social God
    ↪frank
    If society is a god (which is very odd concept), then there are some other contenders for godhood like heredity/natural selection, environmental factors apart from society, and so on. We don't have to accept social constructionism to acknowledge that society--other people--influence us in myriad ways.

    Culture, which has to be continuously maintained, is so central to human life that it is difficult to imagine what we would be like without it. Take culture away, and we are taken back a million years to a presumed time when we were scavenging for food and grunting at each other. But culture has biological roots (it's how we meet both basic and complex needs as large-brained organisms).

    It is usually a mistake to think that whatever the current wrinkle is, it's the hottest thing that ever happened.
  • Phil in Shakespeare
    ↪Pronsias del Mar
    Well, it could be the case that Shakespeare utilized this scene to explicate a philosophical problem, granted. In a paper, one would take up the larger question of whether this was a line of thought being bounced around in Shakespeare's day, and whether Shakespeare was interested in the topic. Does he show such interest elsewhere, for instance, and what sources might he have used.

    Granted, that Gloucester perceives the glaring inconsistency in Simpcox's performance (identifying colors and pieces of clothing from sight, rather than touch, as would be the case if he had really been blind). One could further note that this scene would have perhaps fit better in Chaucer, at whose time this sort of chicanery was more common. So, the scene itself is a bit anachronistic. Not that there weren't fake miracles in Shakespeare time (fake news and fake miracles are still with us).

    Are you, perhaps, looking for a paper topic? (fresh topics in Shakespeare are very hard to come by, after all these years). One would need to dispose of the question as to whether this scene might have served any other function in the play. (It could serve more than one function).

    I haven't read this play, or anything else by Shakespeare in a long time (50 years, at least) and I probably won't circle back to read much more--time is getting short at my age, and libraries are full of interesting books.

    Press on with diligence.
  • Phil in Shakespeare
    ↪Pronsias del Mar
    (the episode is meant to show how, unlike all around him, the courtier is supersmart) — Pronsias del Mar

    What is your point? That Shakespeare proved that a character was "supersmart"? So what? What is this scene's significance in the play?
  • should we erase FASFA?
    ↪SherlockH
    Not so fast, Sherlock:

    What are a Parent’s Legal Responsibilities to a Child?

    Parents must meet their children's basic needs for food, clothing, housing, medical care, and education.

    A parent must meet a child’s basic needs and parent in a way that serves the child’s best interests. Parents also have a financial duty to support their children, which typically continues until each child reaches the age of 18 or graduates from high school. In most cases, a parent doesn’t have a financial responsibility to a child over 18, unless the child has special needs.

    Granted, the law does not require the parents to actually love their child(ren), or even find them sort of likable and/or amusing. Society generally considers parents who do not at least LIKE their child(ren) to be BAD PARENTS.

    But in general the law requires parents to care for their children and prepare them to be productive citizens.
  • What do you think "American" or "European" means?
    The future will look back on Boomers with a great deal of contempt, as a generation of clowns: the generation that threw away centuries of accumulated culture and tradition that had been passed on down the generations, that took so long to build up. All thrown away in what amounted to a fit of adolescent rebellion by the first most spoiled generation in history. — gurugeorge

    You have said this before, so I guess you're not joking. Do you really think that 75,000,000 baby boomers are all clowns? Come now! After all, a lot of these boomers are conservative culture keepers rather than leftist culture flushers. I'm a boomer, and I don't think I am clown like and haven't thrown away centuries of accumulated culture. (Besides, many of the types you are complaining about aren't even baby boomers.
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