A cost-benefit analysis of theft seems to me an immoral approach to the problem.

By your logic, we stand to gain by not stealing and I think being a good person is more about eliminating the self and personal gain from the equation. — TheMadFool

We're talking about the marginal choice to steal or not to steal, and the role of the good stolen in that marginal choice.

Unless you are saying that marginal decision making is not part of morally good life, I don't see where any conflict is.

Maybe this falls outside of your 'economical' theme, but what about stealing for a good cause?
For example, stealing plans from the nazis to stop their next attack? — Samuel Lacrampe

Then it is the good cause, not the thing stolen, that the choice to steal is based on.

Or if we eliminate the good cause would the theft of the particular item still occur?

All philosophical ideas spring from a socio-political-economic context. Often (most of the time) differences are the result of ultimate motives and goals. There is nothing rational or logical there, though people work hard to make it seem so. — Rich

Postmodernism!

Run!

That supposed distinction doesn't make any more sense in my view--what's the difference between "open to the possibility" and "could have been." — Terrapin Station

If one position does not allow you to entertain an idea and another does, that is at least one clear difference between those two positions.

Why do people steal even one thing? Because they think it's worth it, and sometimes it is. What is this item? It could be almost anything... — Sapientia

Look at the part that I bolded.

Are you saying, like I have been saying, that the good itself is not why people steal?

You say that the good could be almost anything.

And yes, in numerous cases, this has largely to do with the value of what is stolen... — Sapientia

Do you mean the choice to steal or the choice of what to steal?

Often, the obvious answer is the right answer. Compromised conscience? Nope, not necessarily, and not in some cases. Racked with guilt? Nope, not necessarily, and not in some cases. Great risk of being caught? No, not necessarily, and not in some cases. A lot of your downsides are merely possibilities or subjective projections attempting futilely to be something more than what they are.

The thrill theory is true of cases, as is - not instead of - the value theory, and I think the latter is more widespread and predominant in actual cases of theft... — Sapientia

But what role does a tangible economic good, G, play in the choice to steal?

Is it that G causes people to steal and anybody who has never stolen anything simply has not encountered the G that will make him/her do it?

Or is it, as I believe, that G plays absolutely no role in the decision to steal and at the most plays a role in deciding what to steal?

Or something in between?

(You might have noticed that I've not adopted your term "intrinsic value". That's because, like others, I don't think that that makes much sense with regards to what we're talking about). — Sapientia

If something possesses no value then it is not an economic good and is outside of the scope of this discussion. Maybe there's a discussion somewhere in Metaphysic & Epistemology about such a thing.

You might be partly right in your analysis, in that it is that which is PERCEIVE in the value of what one steals is more important than any ACTUAL value of the thing stolen; but this is the same with things acquired by either making something or buying it as well which would make it a moot issue in figuring out why people steal.

I think if you break it down it kind of looks like something out of game theory, such as the prisoner's dilemma, where they either decide to remain silent, or rat their partner out. In such a game/simulation there is no "right"/"wrong" beyond the sentence that one will get with either action. Although in game theory the actual values assigned to the choices are considered the same as how a prisoner PERCEIVES them to be, since game theory would become a lot more complicate if we didn't, it is accepted that in the real world the "actual value of a thing" (if there is even such a thing) and the "perceived value" are not always the same.

As far as I can tell, when you take away social indoctrination, taboos, etc., lying, cheating, AND STEALING are all actions that we either choose to do or choose not to do and moral matrix provided by either hedonistic calculus and/or some kind of game theory helps us to decide which to do much like we decide to perform any other action. — dclements

You bring up some good points.

What I am addressing is the folk psychology that basically says that the bottom line is that if somebody steals a tangible economic good, G, it was G that was the underlying cause of the choice to steal.

Not only am I saying that such folk psychology is highly questionable, I am going further and suggesting that G may play absolutely no role in the choice to steal. The only role that G plays, I am suggesting, is in deciding what to steal.

I think that the part that I bolded is important. I do not think that we can take cultural context out of the equation. Economic behavior is a cultural act. There is plenty of evidence from economic anthropology, the way that I understand it, that the behavior in the prisoner's dilemma is simply the way that some cultures socialize people to behave and is not universal.

I think the heart of your problem and the issue of this thread is that you tend to favor OBJECTIVE MORALITY where as many of us on this thread and forum likely favor SUBJECTIVE MORALITY.

As a person partial to nihilism, As far as I know neither I nor anyone else has access to OBJECTIVE MORALITY even if they pretend sometimes that they do. I really don't want to turn this into a objective verses subjective discussion, but unfortunately that seems to be where you are trying to split hairs with other people. — dclements

I do not see how objective or subjective morality makes a difference in the role of a tangible economic good in the choice to steal.

A person could objectively or subjectively believe that stealing is wrong, but choose to steal. A person could objectively or subjectively believe that stealing is not wrong, but choose not to steal.

I wouldn't phrase it that way, at least. I'm not denying value or saying that it's arbitrary. I'm just denying the category error of seeing value as something objective rather than something that we do as individual persons. — Terrapin Station

If an economic good does not inherently possess any value, then value is arbitrary.

Furthermore, it would not be an economic good. It would not even enter into economic functioning. It would be irrelevant to this discussion.

And before somebody makes the error again, let's not confuse price with value. Price is just one measure of value used for a certain class of economic goods: commodities. Economic functioning is not limited to things exchanged in formal markets and assigned a number called price.

Realizing the subjectivity of value, though, it's easy to imagine this. Someone could simply (a) not put much if any value on not stealing, and/or they could have views whereby their conscience, moral value, integrity, etc. aren't compromised by stealing, and they have no worries about their reputation being destroyed or getting caught, while (b) they put a lot of value on possessing whatever it is they're going to steal, or possessing the money they'll acquire from selling it. — Terrapin Station

None of this addresses the role of a tangible economic good in the choice to steal.

If certain tangible economic goods, such as an iPhone, cause stealing, then if we eliminate those goods stealing would cease to exist?

Or is stealing an act independent of any tangible economic good that is chosen with other things in mind, such as rebelling against authority?

Again, it looks like the role of tangible economic goods in stealing is that they are considered when deciding what to steal, not when deciding to steal.

No one said that no one has those views. What I and others have pointed out is that not everyone has those views, not everyone values things the same way, and there is no objective value.

The reason we've pointed that out is that you're acting as if there is objective value, and that everyone does or at least should value everything the same way... — Terrapin Station

And I said that no matter what anybody's values are the role of tangible economic goods in the choice to steal is not clear.

In addition, the post I'm responding to here makes a ton of completely unsupported--and frankly rather absurd--empirical claims. In my opinion, there's no place in philosophy for garbage like that. — Terrapin Station

If you've got something specific that needs to be clarified or criticized then point it out.

Otherwise, the above quote contributes absolutely nothing to answering the question at hand.

And what I'm asking is how there could have been a different past or different laws under determinism? What is the answer to that? Simply claiming that it's the case isn't an argument for it (or an explanation of it). — Terrapin Station

I don't know how anybody else is reading it, but I think that I have misread the statement "Determinists hold that the present and future are causally determined by the past and the physical laws, but there could have been a different past or different laws."

Maybe when I originally read the book several years ago I read it the right way, but in this thread I think I have been reading it the wrong way. I think that it is saying that determinism allows for open possibilities such as a different past or different laws.

I was reading it as the author, Conee, saying that there could have been a different past or different laws.

The reason I say this is because Conee continues by saying "The metaphysical fatalists’ view is that, even if determinism is not true, there are no open possibilities at any point in history. Their claim is that each thing in the past, present, and future has always been fixed and settled, whether or not it was causally determined."

In other words, the difference between determinism and fatalism is that determinism allows for open possibilities and fatalism does not.

The statement, therefore, is not that there could have been a different past or different laws, but that determinism is open to the possibility that there could have been a different past or different laws. Fatalism is not open to that possibility. With fatalism, if things are causally determined by a past and laws, it is set in stone what past and what laws do the determining.

In other words, anybody who thinks that the possibility of a different past or different laws is unfounded needs to take it up with determinists.

I am not a determinist, so I am the wrong person to ask.

It is like almost none of the respondents in this thread have any concept of acquiring goods without stealing them being honorable, enhancing one's self-esteem, creating healthy lifelong relationships built on trust, etc., etc.

It is like they have no concept of there being benefits to choosing not to steal.

It is like they have never heard the notion that if something has to be stolen it is not worth having.

One respondent suggested that none of this has any merit and that a scholarly investigation of it would be a waste of resources. I beg to differ. Here is just one example of research that could be done to learn more about how economic actors weigh the benefits of choosing not to steal against the costs: People in prison for stealing--that's right, people in prison for choosing to steal--choose not to steal while in prison and therefore form networks of trusted friends that help them survive better than prisoners who choose to steal, it might be found. We won't know if we don't investigate it.

People refuse financial assistance and other forms of assistance because it threatens their sense of self-reliance/individualism and therefore their self-image. Similarly, it might be found that people even in the most desperate situations refuse to steal because nothing they can gain, such as a meal, economically justifies what they would lose, such as their honor.

I have rehearsed what I will say the next time I am suspected of shoplifting and stopped by store loss prevention personnel or the police. I will laugh and say, "There is nothing in that store that is worth stealing".

I do not know what it is like outside of the U.S., but I know that Americans buy a lot of junk, watch it sit around their homes or offices and collect dust, and then bury it in landfills. It would not surprise me to find that a large percentage of shoplifted items suffer the same fate: they barely get used and they end up buried in a landfill. That's right, the thief does not pass the stolen item on to his/her great-great-great-grandchildren as a family heirloom. The thief does not sell the item and invest the profit in the stock market and build wealth. Most of the time the item at best is exchanged for drugs, contributes little to anybody's economic life, and ends up buried in a landfill, probably.

Even people who do not steal do not have much invested in a lot of their possessions. They acquire stuff because we have an economic system that requires perpetual economic growth and therefore finds ways to manipulate people into consuming stuff that they do not really need or want.

Yet, apparently we are supposed to believe that utility, aesthetic beauty, workmanship and other intrinsic qualities/properties of, say, an iPhone tempts people to steal it.

I have been saying that I don't believe that. I have said that something besides the value of the intrinsic qualities/properties of a good is worth enough to some people to justify the losses that they sustain by choosing to steal.

Or is the physical product of an iPhone--not the social status that comes with owning it; not the psychological benefit of feeling like you hold in your hands the culmination of centuries of technological progress; or anything else like that; just the physical product--worth the loss of one's honor?

That may be what you and some (or perhaps even most) people believe, BUT there have been acts of larceny since probably before recorded history, there has been acts of larceny nearly in every country and nearly every point in time in human history, and even today there are acts of larceny being committed every day in countries around the world. Perhaps it is because some people don't have enough resources to survive and steal because they need to and others think it is easier to get what they want by stealing it. Also it is possible that the only way to get some item is to steal it if it is one of a kind; such as OJ tried to do when he was trying to..um..'liberate' one of his trophies from someone who bought it and didn't want to give it back.

To take this even one step further, there are people out there with enough money that they can use their money in order to cause other people to lose money one way or another and or ruin their lives. Obviously this is not done for profit but for purely for personal reasons. The reasons I mention this is that such a person might be willing to pay someone else to steal something of value from some other person or group, just to make things more difficult for them.

On top of that you have corporate and government espionage which is more or less the activity of countries and organizations in the business of stealing each others information. For me it seems if there was absolutely no rational for it than nobody would do either larceny, espionage, etc but because so many do it I would think there is some kind of logic/rational/mentality for so many getting involved in such things; although I could be wrong. — dclements

All of this seems to support what I have been saying.

It is not the intrinsic qualities/properties of the good itself, but things other than the good itself--the belief that the good is rightfully yours and you are taking it back; the desire to hurt people; the wish to survive, etc.--that in people's minds economically justify stealing.

The intrinsic qualities/properties of the good itself are probably at most used to decide what to steal, not to decide to steal.

Or are there intrinsic qualities/properties in some good somewhere that make people decide to steal?

But how, exactly, could the causes have been different? Didn't they have causes that determined them? — Terrapin Station

Saying that the distinction is that fatalism doesn't involve causality, and that under it, everything is simply set in stone as a brute, more or less unconnected fact would at least make some sense conceptually, but saying that determinism doesn't amount to everything being set in stone doesn't make sense. — Terrapin Station

"Finally, the necessity that metaphysical fatalists attribute to everything is not the necessity of causes to produce their effects. Clearly, many things are determined in advance by physical laws and prior conditions. If everything that ever happens is determined in this way, then what philosophers call determinism is true.1 The melting of some ice that is heated above water’s freezing point is inevitable. This seems enough to say that the heating makes the melting ‘fated’ to occur. But the truth of determinism would not be even partial support for metaphysical fatalism. Fatalism is not about being physically or causally determined. It is about something more abstract, something that does not depend on how things go in nature. Determinists hold that the present and future are causally determined by the past and the physical laws, but there could have been a different past or different laws. The metaphysical fatalists’ view is that, even if determinism is not true, there are no open possibilities at any point in history. Their claim is that each thing in the past, present, and future has always been fixed and settled, whether or not it was causally determined..." (emphasis mine) Riddles of Existence (2005), 23-24, Ted Sider and Earl Conee

G = a good.

No matter if you steal G, beg for G, solicit a donation of G, or use some other method to acquire G, you get G.

Therefore, something other than G must motivate people to choose stealing over non-stealing.

That would be a waste of money, in my opinion, because value is subjective. — Terrapin Station

There are two sets of choices:

1.) Stealing.

2.) Alternatives to stealing, such as begging.


I think that it would be a great contribution to psychology and/or sociology to investigate to see if people think that they have something from both sets of choices available to them but choose something from 1.) instead of something from 2.), and why.

Here's the problem I have with your argument: in my view there is no intrinsic value. There is no real, objective value. Value is subjective. It's simply a matter of how much an individual cares about the thing at hand. How important it is to the individual. — Terrapin Station

That sounds like Baudrillard's simulacra. There is nothing with value, there are only values arbitrarily being assigned to non-value entities.

The point is that whatever value the intrinsic qualities of a good have, it is unimaginable that that value could ever be thought of in economic terms by anybody as being greater than whatever value the choice of not stealing has. Something extrinsic, such as the social status that will come with possessing the stolen good, must be what people thinks justifies missing an opportunity to choose not to steal.

This is a purely subjective point of view, isn't it ?... — Julian

No.

It is objective. If I had the credentials and the funding I might investigate it and publish the results, so it is something objectively verifiable/falsifiable.

If you were in front of a fierce kleptoman who feels absolutely nothing, let alone guilt, and who in addition to all this would not be at all affected by the possibility of making prison, would you say the same thing ?... — Julian

Kleptomania is defined by Wikipedia as "the inability to refrain from the urge for stealing items".

Just because a person does not have the ability to refrain from something does not mean that he/she does not think refraining has any value.

I mean there is a finite number of reasons that could dissuade you from stealing... — Julian

And I made it easy by zooming in on one: the value of not stealing.

when there is an infinite number of reasons that could push you to do so... — Julian

And I made it easy by zooming in on one: the intrinsic value of the good being stolen.

Once the possible causes of deterrence are eliminated, your theory is no longer available. — Julian

According to thefreedictionary.com, deter means "To prevent or discourage (an action or behavior)".

It does not make any sense to me to think of the value of an alternative to what is being deterred as a deterrent. The value of upholding life deters people from committing murder? No. The value of upholding life encourages people to uphold life.

You are weighing things with monetary value (gold bullion, art work, buildings, luxury cars, airplanes, ships, land, etc.) against things that do not have monetary value

We can determine the intrinsic value of objects (gold is about $19,422.4 a pound, a Boeing 777 goes for about $320 million, a loaf of good bread is about $4.90). Just how much is your compromised conscience, compromised moral value (whatever that is), compromised integrity, destroyed reputation, freedom being in jeopardy, and so on worth? I couldn't find a listing for the dollar value of your integrity--or anybody else's. If there is a dollar value for integrity, it probably varies from person to person... — Bitter Crank

Economic decision making is not limited to commodities exchanged at prices set by markets.

IF one does not value the "moral goods" that you value, THEN it is entirely conceivable that whatever one could steal would be worth it -- including the loss of freedom for a period of time. Perhaps a year or two in prison balances favorably with stealing an assortment of high value goods--provided one could liquidate the undiscovered objects later. — Bitter Crank

It is conceivable.

But I don't think that it happens.

I think that it is things like how one's social status will change, how one's friends opinions of him/her will change, rebelling against authority, etc., not the good being stolen itself, that makes stealing economically justifiable to people.

Harmony.

I am not a theologian or a philosopher of religion, but I--and also people who know more about it than me, it is my understanding--see people's personal testimony as a form of evidence.

You know, "I was a homeless drug addict kicked out of the home of the girlfriend I regularly battered. Then I met Jesus and...".

It is my understanding that that is why it is called witnessing--you are giving your own first-hand account of Christ like a person on a courtroom witness stand is giving his/her personal account of events as evidence to be considered.

Well, I think the difference between fatalism and determinism is that the former is an attitude... — TheMadFool

But the fatalism I am talking about is not an attitude. It is a metaphysical theory that says that everything is set in stone. Whatever happened yesterday, happens today, and will happen tomorrow was/is already set.

Determinism is different. With determinism, in order for Donald Trump to be elected President of the United States of America in November, 2016 there had to be causes.

With fatalism, it was always the case that Donald Trump was going to be elected President of the United States of America in November, 2016.

With fatalism, what is going to happen tomorrow is already set--no causes needed to make it happen.

Fatalism reminds me of what I am hearing some physicists now say: time is an illusion, and we live in a static universe.

Is it wrong to identity someone by their biological sex? i.e. is it wrong, not only ethically but metaphysically as well, to identify someone as "male" or "female" or "intersex"?...In my opinion, ethics aside, it is not incorrect to identify someone by their sex. The distinction is not arbitrary... — darthbarracuda

But the distinction often is arbitrary.

The most powerful illustration is biological race. Biological race does not exist. Race is a cultural construct. I haven't read it lately, but I remember the American Anthropological Association Statement on Race making these important points:


1.) If you want to demarcate biological races in the human species, what do you use? Where do you start? Anything you use--skin color, free-hanging or attached ear lobes, stature, belly stars ("You can't teach a Sneetch")--will be arbitrary.

2.) The genetic variation within the biological races that we have constructed is greater than the genetic variation between such groups. In other words, the genetic variation within, say, the African-American population is greater than the genetic variation between African-Americans and, say, Caucasians.


Categories like "African-American" and "Caucasian" that are based on arbitrary points/lines of demarcation do not tell us as much of anything useful or reliable about the people we put in them as we act like they do. They might tell us something trivial, such as what continent a person's ancestors so many generations back lived on. But they are not predictors of much of anything that the average person can use in the typical, everyday social interaction in the most common contexts.

What use do most people on most occasions have for categories like male and female other than to differentiate for the purposes of unjust discrimination, manipulation, oppression, etc.?

And categories too often get taken out of their original, appropriate context and used in contexts and ways that they were not intended to be used. Therefore, we get things like the category "narcissist" being taken out of the scientific and clinical contexts it originated in and being applied in many different ways to many different behavioral patterns.

Meanwhile, I don't have time to refresh my knowledge of it, but, going by memory here, Labeling Theory says that people are told that they are things like mentally ill and then they behave according to that label--the label becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Your choice of words kind of betrays what I am talking about. The question asked was not if it is wrong to categorize someone by their biological sex. The question asked was if it is wrong to identify someone by their biological sex.

I would say that a biologist doing research simply categorizes.

When we take categories out of the context they were created for and make them identities, all kinds of problems ensue.

There is no failure. Everything is a experiment and learning experience. This allows us to become more skillful navigators in life. — Rich

If the goal was an about-face but you end up in the same direction on the same path, the effort failed.

Maybe I am misunderstanding what is meant by "change direction".

We all can choose to change direction but often we don't. — Rich

Or we resolve to change direction but our subsequent efforts fail.

2. This is the full-blown version of fate where we're totally not in control of our life. Everything has been predetermined. This is controversial and I think it's called determinism. It leads to fatalism - a surrender of the self. — TheMadFool

In Riddles of Existence: A Guided Tour of Metaphysics, by Earl Conee and Theodore Sider, the authors say that fatalism and determinism are not the same.

Fatalism, they continue, says that everything is set in stone. Determinism, on the other hand, says that everything is an effect of antecedent causes. The difference is that with determinism the causes could have been different--the temperature could have risen and therefore the water would have evaporated rather than the temperature dropping and the water freezing--but with fatalism they could not have been different--the temperature was going to drop and the water was going to freeze; it was set in stone.

I think that most people do not know the difference and what they call determinism is really fatalism.

However, my point is that religion is based on evidence and the role of faith doesn't exceed that in other spheres of human knowledge. — TheMadFool

What is your reaction to the statement "There is no evidence for the existence of God"?

Have you ever wondered why it is sometimes so hard to get people to change their mind? Sometimes, it seems that no matter how much evidence you provide for someone against their views, they refuse to acknowledge it. Well, this is due to a cognitive bias that is hardwired into all of us, namely, Confirmation Bias. It is a tendency to filter out information that contradicts our assumptions, and exclusively pay attention to evidence in favor of them. It is truly amazing how this shortcoming in our reasoning affects us on all levels of communication, politics, social media, the news, and more. — rickyk95

A problem with this is that just because one person says "I believe A to be true" and another person says "I believe A to be true" doesn't mean that the two experiences are identical.

I could say that I like the taste of vanilla bean ice cream and you could say that you like the taste of vanilla bean ice cream, but the taste that I experience is not necessarily the same as the taste that you experience.

The whole idea of the existence of confirmation bias seems to assume that a belief experience by one person is a neurological and spiritual carbon copy of a belief experience in one or more other persons and that we can therefore observe confirmation bias by presenting evidence to all persons that contradicts some random person's (the researcher, maybe?) belief experience. But are they really the same? How do we know?

In other words, faith is to believe, something without proof. — TheMadFool

Let's assume that that is an accurate characterization of faith (I'm not saying it is). Is it limited to "religion"?

Beiser cites Kant as believing that all rationalist philosophy must, if followed to its logical conclusion, result in Spinozism; which in turn must result in atheism. — John

Atheism as a proposition/conclusion, or atheism as a subjective emotional/rational/spiritual experience?

You could probably produce a zillion papers, conferences, books, etc. with irrefutable arguments and evidence about the benefits of coffee, but all that would do is tell me that the available arguments and evidence dictate that coffee has benefits. It would not change my experience of coffee--the fact that other than one time around the age of 10, I have never drank it. Even if I did start drinking it, I doubt that arguments and evidence about its benefits are going to have much of an effect on what I experience.

On the other hand, if mind over matter is real then I suppose arguments and evidence could rearrange one's neurological material and make him/her an atheist. And arguments and evidence could rearrange my neurological material and make me crave and enjoy coffee.

If the latter two are possible, then doesn't reason disappear? Don't we then only have a physicalist/materialist world of interactions leading to mental and emotional states like "atheist" and "enjoying coffee"? Wouldn't saying that the latter and the former are arrived at through some external thing called reason be like saying that vapor condenses into rain through some external thing called reason?

Meanwhile, if atheism is a proposition/conclusion like 2 + 2 = 4, doesn't that make atheism a triviality?

I agree. I'm increasingly vexed and nauseated by the large amount of different worldviews that all seem to be saying the same thing but which fail to actually fulfill their promises. Not only do each of these worldviews have to see all the other numerous competing worldviews as misguided, but they have to renounce all of history, or re-interpret history has culminating in their specific worldview. It's incredibly narcissistic and short-sighted. These movements and acolytes will never go away. If it's not x, then it'll be y that will finally save humanity. If it's not y, then it'll be z that will finally redeem our condition. After a while it just gets really annoying and pathetically delusional... — darthbarracuda

We are supposed to believe that it is not a zero-sum game.

But they all seem to behave like it is a zero-sum game.

Think about it. If resources (public funding, private funding, publicity, lobbying hours, etc.) are scarce and you are a feminist organization, a good way to get those resources rather than a conservative organization or a men's rights organization getting them is to have everybody believe that freedom, good, justice, etc. absolutely depend on your success.

And that the success of your competitors will set humanity back several centuries.

A non-zero-sum scenario, such as everybody--men and women--benefiting from men's rights organizations realizing their goal of fathers being treated equally in family courts never seems to be on feminist radars. You are either completely in support of their agenda and in opposition of the agendas they oppose, or you are against humanity.

I think it likely that there is a limit to progress. I think we've made some undeniable progress in many places, medicine and hygiene being the most prominent, as well as communications and a general understanding of the world. To make progress in the way these progressives dream of is to fundamentally change the human condition - look at the transhumanists, they explicitly endorse this. If we are to escape the problems that have plagued us since the beginning of time then we might as well just accept that if it will ever happen, it'll only be through a radical change in our nature. So radical that we might not even be recognizingly human. So it won't be humans we save, but rather humans that we replace with something superior.

This is all hypothetical, of course. — darthbarracuda

A pattern that I am noticing is that it invariably seems to be arrogant, privileged elites living in bubbles who are starting and leading these efforts to perfect the world.

It is progress on steroids.

Or maybe common, working-class people have never really bought into or acted on the myth of progress. That seems to be what the late Christopher Lasch said in a lot of his work.

Where are the Mahatma Gandhis and Martin Luther King, Jrs. of today's world?

The Idea of Progress also assumes that it is only the application of scientific knowledge and technology which improves human life. — Galuchat

I would argue, based on what I know about the Enlightenment, that it does not merely call for applying things. Pre-modern / pre-Enlightenment people applied knowledge, like using mathematics for accounting, using knowledge of materials to make tools out of stone, weapons out of metals, etc. Enlightenment progress, as I understand it, is about humans using reason, science, technology, etc. to control the human world and dominate the non-human world to eliminate everything that has ailed humanity.

I have lost faith in the ability of this Enlightenment-style engineering to produce materially and/or morally good results. We are supposed to believe that developments like the legalization of same-sex marriage in the U.S. are proof that such engineering works and that such developments are cumulative and will eventually eliminate all human suffering. We are supposed to reject the idea that such developments occur in a zero-sum game--that one individual or group gaining something means another individual or group losing something; that the costs of any manipulation of the material world, such as air pollution, always equal or exceed the benefits, such as turning coal into electricity. But I have become convinced that anybody who says that such beliefs correspond with reality is either being dishonest or is delusional.

If it is not dishonesty or delusion, where is the conclusive evidence of its truth/reality?

And even if it is true/real, do the ends justify the means? The champions of "progress" seem to be oblivious to most of the content of the means, such as the experience of the indigenous people of the New World since October 12, 1492. Yet, they seem to have absolutely no doubt about the ends being justified--you know ,"We abolished slavery. We enfranchised women. We have reduced violence to unprecedented low levels. Etc. Etc. How can you not believe in progress?"

I would say that there are two kinds of lies:

1.) A lie in a situation where the liar contributed to the formation of what he/she lies about.

2.) A lie in a situation where the liar did not contribute to the formation of what he/she lies about.


Examples:

1.) The liar stole something and is asked if he/she committed the theft.

2.) The liar recognizes a child who has been kidnapped. The kidnapper asks the liar for directions to the interstate. The liar gives the kidnapper directions that take him/her back towards downtown and then calls the police.


And I think there are other differences. Example 1 is evasion. Example 2 is trickery.

But suppose the liar in 2.) is afraid that the kidnapper will catch on to the liar's intentions if the original response is given. Suppose he/she therefore answers the question honestly and gives directions that lead to the interstate. But suppose that he/she still tries to trick the kidnapper, this time by giving the longest route to the interstate or a route that will go right by a police station. That is still being deceptive. It is being deceptive about one's intentions. Can it be called honest?

Intentions, not words uttered, are probably where honesty and dishonesty are really found.

There are many aspects of the 'belief in progress' that I think are worth criticizing, but at the same time, what is the alternative?... — Wayfarer

For a riveting account of an alternative view read Grassroots Post-Modernism: Remaking the Soil of Cultures, by Gustavo Esteva and Madhu Suri Prakash. I read the 1998 edition. Their account of The First Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neoliberalism was especially riveting.

Sure, it's not a panacea - people in developed economies are prone to depression, anomie, and many other problems. — Wayfarer

Indeed, a lot of people in the West are taking prescription anti-depressants, abusing narcotics, etc., apparently unable to otherwise cope with our way of life.

But whatever anyone produces, you will simply say that it's not evidence. — Wayfarer

I see evidence of improvements, but not of progress--cumulative, ever-closer-to-utopia progress--being a historical fact.

No, it doesn't - it means that it's better on average, which it is... — Wayfarer

There's a bigger picture than a few metrics like life expectancy.

Anthropologists tell us that hunting and gathering was an easy life and that this way of life we have in the contemporary world is comparatively harder.

Ronald Wright points out in A Short History of Progress that before civilization societies were egalitarian, that civilizations are hierarchical, and that the result of the latter is the masses at the bottom toiling for the small elite at the top. He calls the latter "a fool's paradise".

Richard H. Robbins be points out in Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism that with the advent of agriculture humans started doing the work that nature already did for us. We replaced the sun's energy with our own energy or energy we extracted (through hard labor). We replaced photosynthesis and animals' natural reproduction with our own labor at the plow and the stockyard.

A few metrics like wealth barely give us one pixel of the complete picture.

From various sources. It is a fact that life expectancy, overall health and even overall wealth have increased significantly since those times, even despite the massive ballooning of human population. — Wayfarer

Greater wealth does not necessarily mean better off.

Just because aggregate measurements such as life expectancy and health increase does not mean that life is better for every single individual.

And those are all quantitative. They do not tell us how life then and now compare qualitatively.

That's about par for the course with you, I suspect. — Wayfarer

Considering what I am often responding to, it should be no surprise that that is all it takes.

It might be of relevance that Auguste Comte, who is recognised as the founder of the social sciences, coined the term 'positivism' to denote the progression of culture from primitive superstition, to religion, then to metaphysics, and finally to science, as the logical culmination of the human quest for knowledge. That is one of the sources of 'the enlightenment progress narrative', which indubitably exists. — Wayfarer

No.

Every scholar I have encountered who is looking at the Enlightenment and modernity says that a central feature of theirs is belief in science, reason, free markets, democracy, etc. yielding ever-increasing freedom, material well-being, etc. It is better known as progress, the Idea of Progress, the doctrine of progress, etc.

It is often said to be something that is taken on faith. The failure of anybody to provide evidence here that progress is real seems to confirm the latter.

Why are those deemed "religious" considered weak and inferior to those proclaimed irreligious and/or atheistic? — Lone Wolf

Probably for the same reasons that in contemporary society people who are introverted are considered inferior to those who are extroverted, those who are altruistic are considered inferior to those who are selfish, those who are cooperative are considered inferior to those who are competitive, those with little sense of humor are considered inferior to those with a well-developed sense of humor, etc.

Who is stigmatized, marginalized, ostracized, hated, etc. varies with cultural context.

He got no results from that particular endeavour thus he wasted his time. — Noblosh

It is not uncommon for scientific research to run into a dead end. But we do not say that the effort was a waste of time.

So if I have a tactic I use in chess, you'd say that was terrorism? — Hanover

Terrorism is a particular kind of tactic.

Do you believe in fate? Why? — TheMadFool

Do you mean as in fatalism?

I have a hard time pinning down a real definition of the term "terrorism" in its contemporary usage. It seems to be a controversial term to say the least, with many different groups and individuals defining it in many different ways. Is it possible to know the nature or essence of this phenomenon that we call terrorism? Or is it too nebulous a term to map onto a strict definition? I am unsure.

It certainly seems to have certain characteristics common to many if not most acts referred to as terrorist acts. For example, some of these characteristics would probably include acts that are:

* Violent or Destructive
* Targeting civilians or non-combatants
* Intended to strike fear into a population
* For the sake of a political, ideological, religious, or otherwise social cause

Would you include any or all of these in your definition of terrorism? What might you add or subtract? — Brian

Terrorism is a tactic.

That is how I would define it.

Yes. I could too, but I don't see that that amounts to a mound of beans... — andrewk

It means that if it is true then the Enlightenment progress narrative is false, delusional, dangerous, etc.

Somebody doing something harmful 'in the name of X' is no reason at all for anybody else to remove X from their aspirations... — andrewk

It is not an aspiration. It is a belief, myth, faith, narrative, etc.

What matters most is what is done, not what people say it is done 'in the name of'... — andrewk

When evaluating a myth, faith, narrative, etc., the acts that it inspires must be considered.

What are you actually trying to argue?... — andrewk

1.) The Enlightenment faith in / narrative of progress, P, is the foundation of almost everything, B, that has been built on the Western intellectual landscape the last several centuries, but it is never acknowledged. It is the elephant in the room.

2.) If P is erroneous then B collapses into a heap of rubble.

3.) The evidence in support of P is weak; the evidence against it is staggering.

Or are you saying that people should not try to improve the lot of their fellow creatures? — andrewk

Again, where is it written that good can only be done through a faith in some kind of progress?

Again, acting according to reality will yield the best results, and the reality of "progress" is highly questionable.

EVERY SINGLE PERSON... — Wayfarer

How do you know?

On the whole, you and every one you know, is much less likely to die of a preventable disease, be imprisoned by an autocrat, or suffer malnourishment... — Wayfarer

How was this utilitarian calculation made?

My dear departed father was deeply involved in population control initiatives in the developing world. IN the 1960's he was convinced that India was heading for economic collapse and mass starvation. But he didn't foresee the 'green revolution' or the technological boom that lifted hundreds of millions of Indians out of rural poverty into middle-class incomes... — Wayfarer

Would India have even had those conditions in the 1960's if they had never been subjugated by the British Empire?

The Green Revolution? Well, I have encountered probably more than a few sources in the past who say that the whole Green Revolution narrative is hogwash. But a simple, quick Google search just now yielded this:

"The Green Revolution did not save India from famine, as the proponents of Industrial Agriculture and GMO technology would argue, in fact the Green Revolution reduced India’s production..."

That said - I too believe that the prospect of the collapse of the current economic and political order is possible, even likely. I don't believe there will be a nuclear apocalypse, resulting in the extinction of life on earth, but a collapse of the world's economic systems, brought about by a catastrophic war, is a definite possibility... — Wayfarer

There are plenty of other threats to everybody's survival that "progress" is presenting. The U.S. government, without vetting for things like the affects it will have on public health, has, it is my understanding, given the green light for wireless communications companies to transition to a 5G network. What I hear about the unprecedented amounts of radiation we are all about to be exposed to is scary. And it is to a great extent so that people can play their video games and download pictures of their dogs to more devices in more locations at faster speeds. Progress!

Gray is notoriously pessimistic, by the way. — Wayfarer

The truth can have that affect on people.