Regarding Maslow, it is interesting to speculate on the path (or paths) to the pinnacle of "self actualization". Can just about anybody achieve it? Would it require some sort of special education?

In fact I do not think that the species has evolved towards any more intelligence or capability. — charleton

There are other ways to improve. In fact, it is the cultural aspect of humanity that has proved to be the driver of achievement.

If there is a concept such as "soul", which has persisted since the infancy of human thinking, why would you think that it is highly unlikely that it is a valuable concept? If a concept comes and goes in a very short period of time, like a flash in the pan, it is obviously not a valuable concept. But if a concept is held by human beings for thousands of years, then quite clearly it is a valuable concept. — Metaphysician Undercover

One could argue, as does Pinker, that humans have improved over the ages. We don't burn witches today. In fact we don't believe in them. Mostly...

If we are a simulation then I suspect our knowledge of mathematics would be deliberately limited by our builders.....

There is great disagreement about many of these freedoms: — Thanatos Sand

Your sole viewpoint seems to be that every freedom has a problem. And I readily accept that, so just listing the problems isn't advancing this discussion.

This first list probably represents the most agreed upon freedoms, though some religious organizations refuse to accept religious freedom.

Freedom to practice religion
Freedom not to practice religion
Freedom of thought
Freedom of speech
Freedom to move around and meet others
Freedom of choice in how to function in society

It's no accident that incarceration is a punishment in most societies. Or that hardly any political parties openly criticize these freedoms.

So let's discuss "freedom" then. The Nazis put "Arbeit Macht Frei" signs up at concentration camps ("work sets you free") but I don't think many would support such a definition of freedom. I think most people agree what freedom is, especially the more concrete "freedom of choice". Sure, freedomis ultimately a fuzzy word, like all others, but surely you agree at least that there are some basic aspects of "freedom" that few would like to give up?

people all have their owndefinitions of freedom — Thanatos Sand

So we can't discuss "freedom"??!!

And then you have those who want to have the freedom to choose any lifestyle they want and have the right to expect others pay for their choices. — Rich

That is somewhat of a specific gripe to throw into the discussion at this stage! But OK, let's go with it a little ...

A) suppose someone says that they want freedom to choose a low consumption/ low work,but viable, lifestyle. (That is rather different from saying that they want to choose ANY lifestyle and still expect to do a low amount of work BTW)

B) Now consider a somewhat opposite stance... someone says that everyone must be on a high work/high consumption lifestyle.

Given that situation A is viable (through robotic automation say, but the means need not concern us here), which is the most "moral" A or B? Where there is a way to allow freedom and diversity, then that is a Good Thing.

The fact that some things should be compulsory does not detract from the importance of freedom. I am not saying that everything has to be free to be chosen or not. Consider how ubiquitous abhorrence of slavery is. That thought should be a good starting point to consider the merits of freedom don't you think? Freedom has to be a top contender as a cornerstone of universal morality, even if you think such an edifice is ultimately unbuildable.

Freedom is not a fluid concept - what one should be free to do might well be. So there are restraints and caveats. But freedom is a universally acknowledged "good", in principle. I can't believe Rich and Thanatos Sand expect me to accept abandoning freedom as a plank of morality so easily. Perhaps you guys have debated this in depth before and have come to certain conclusions. Well I'm afraid I'm going to have to drag your reasoning out of you.

I put it to you that freedom is a special moral attribute of a society, because no other moral attributes are "moral" unless freely chosen.

Nevertheless, the desire for freedom is almost universal, and surely you cannot dismiss it so readily as you have, as being unsuitable as a basis for universal morality.

many people's views on freedom of choice vary and clash, and many people want more than just freedom of choice. They want safety, security, culture, health and many other things. — Thanatos Sand

Few people nowadays would not concede that slavery is unacceptable, so at a very fundamental and important level people are agreed on the desirability of freedom. And wanting more than freedom of choice is in no way incompatible with also wanting freedom of choice itself.

But if so much effort is spent on moderating freedom of choice, then surely that is a sign that freedom of choice is a commonly occurring desire.

Did he say this somewhere? — Noble Dust

I thought I read it somewhere :)

That's merely the inevitable caveat to freedom of choice...

Some of the parallelism is based on conscious copying of science by art - e.g Picasso's "discovery" of cubism was, I believe, a deliberate take on relativity. I think there are other examples throughout art "development" - e.g. Freud (even though he was not an actual scientist, his ideas were highly influential to justifying some artists' work).

So how "natural" is the canonical form of art?

And that very question must be asked of scientific development too, I guess...

We cannot have an ultimately right political philosophy with diverging notions of morality in our way. — rickyk95

Freedom of the individual is about as close as one can get to a widely accepted morality, I would say....

An idea that I have had for several years now is to end the firms/households binary and treat all economic actors the same — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I have been thinking on those lines too. But for it to work it's got to be very low on admin as well as offering a degree of economic security. Modern technology is beginning to look like it could cope with very flexible working patterns and administration of payments and taxes and so forth, so this sort of "big thinking outside the box" is looking technically feasible I would say...

All systems do that; that is not a problem of having a public educations system funded by the government. — Thanatos Sand

It is certainly possible to conceive of an education system , or stages of it, where competition between students is absent or minimized by design, and that would be a Good Thing, imo.

ummmm well..... all I can say is that Practopia is aimed at people. Not other creatures. I think it is up tp you to focus your concerns - e.g. "people like to be bloody minded " or whatever...??

End credentialism. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

I think you are on the right track with that idea, though I think there is a place for it in very specific career related areas. But as part of a young person's general education they are distracting and damaging,

First of all, there is no "old" progressive way, since Millennials are the most progressive generation we have, and they--to their credit--greatly embrace traditional, Humanist, progressive values — Thanatos Sand

Certainly the "rights revolutions" have been embedded in the education system to a large extent, but unfortunately progress in rights has not been matched by progress in economic emancipation and social equality. The education system has tended to deliver "success" to some but "failure" to others. The result is large scale disaffection amongst whole halves of populations, as witnessed by the election of Trump in the US, Brexit and other nationalist leaning movements in Europe. The rights revolutions are actually under a degree of threat because at half the population have been overlooked while the other half has prospered.

I think there are potentially some very progressive policies that could be sold to the conservative camp, at least on some major aspects. For example, Universal Basic Income would give ordinary citizens a degree of security and a whole heap of flexibility. But it could be pitched alongside freeing up bureaucratic employment legislation and cutting the need for lots of admin jobs in welfare.

The "old progressive"/left approach is to encourage full employment, and perhaps there are vested interests in the Unions etc that propagate that view point, but it's no longer where ambitious and potentially successful policy sits IMO.

Another potentially massive leap forward could be made by freeing up education along the lines of personal growth and development, and distributing the delivery of education more widely, away from institutions somewhat. That would appeal to a lot of conservatives. Chucking money at education is the old progressive way. Surely it's time to rethink education lock stock and barrel?

your premise that people in power being more philosophically sharp would lead to greater good is highly questionable. — WISDOMfromPO-MO

While it is true that people are unlikely to be persuaded through rationality alone, I feel sure that people are reachable through a combination of rational argument and emotional appeal. Or just emotional appeal of course. The extra "trick" that any politician wishing to implement rational humanist policies must pull off is to have emotional appeal, charisma and PR skill. I think the scientific community, concerned at how rational argument has failed in many spheres of social and economic activity to result in the adoption of good policies are now recognizing that argument alone is not enough, and they are expressing the need to be able to reach people through emotional appeal. There seems to be a surge of interest in some science magazines about social psychology and what makes people tick, and an understanding that this scientific knowledge should be put to good use by campaigners.

I still think it is dead wrong to organize production for profit. — Bitter Crank

Profit can be a side-effect rather than raison d'etre, if the economy is managed. The fact is nobody is going to efficiently organize the development sale and distribution of say, roofing materials, unless there is an incentive to do so. Private enterprise and fair competition is a pretty efficient mechanism of delivering many types of product. Of course, without proper governmental/national international management it can easily become bloated, exploitative and overall inefficient.

The lack of philosophy of politicians in general is dire. — Andrew4Handel

Agreed. In fact, the situation is so bad that I feel sure that a good humanist philosopher with some PR savvy determined to change the world could do so.

Germaine Greer's The Female Eunuch packs a punch.

All fine ideas, but what you're missing is a proper analysis of the state of the human condition — Noble Dust

Not at all. My practopia is designed to accommodate a wide range of lifestyles of choice, which is about all one could ask of a society. Sure there will still be murders, grief and sorrow.

Something it has taken me a long time to realize is that it's a good idea to respect and limit the context in which you engage with most people. There's just too many people around in modern civilization to do otherwise. So with neighbors you stick with neighborhood issues and polite chat. If you have a hobby or interest and you go to a club or whatever, then stick to discussion around the interest. That's what others expect, and I can see why. After a considerable length of time the contexts might widen as trust and maybe also friendship are built up. If you have a personality with strong opinions then you might need to remind yourself to limit your outpourings (not so much in the virtual world of course!).

It seems to me that if there were no bad things, then "good" would simply be the norm, or the way things are. — Harry Hindu

As a thought experiment, imagine the world was populated entirely by Mother Theresa stereotypes... In what way would the situation be "good"?

Maximizing well-being, being defined as anything that could possibly matter to everyone, is the goal. — PeterPants

I think you are effectively saying freedom of choice trumps everything .. in which case I agree (with all the typical caveats).Freedom trumps happiness trumps goodness.

Well-being and hedonism are not the same thing. So, Jake, are you saying that well-being trumps goodness, or that sensual pleasures trump goodness, or something else? — Noble Dust

Hmmm ... "well being" is a slippery customer if you ask me. A bit of a weasel word(s) . Conscientious farmers and paternalistic institutions profess to have the "well being" of their charges at heart and look what happens to lambs... I guess it's a phrase that has considerable leeway - the paternalist will use it to seem magnanimous and caring, and his target will envisage an optimistic interpretation... "hey he's concerned about my well being ,,, great he wants me to enjoy myself!". I myself tend to be deceitful when I use the phrase .. but in the opposite direction to the paternalist. I really mean well being to mean happiness. But in any case, it's freedom of choice that must trump all in any utopianish scheme of things.

Is religion not a "context of well-being"? If it's not, then how so? — Noble Dust

It might contribute to an individual believer's well being. But it might not. And it could just as easily damage many citizens in general. {late edit to add:} The main reason for discounting religious ideas is because the ideas are at least partly arbitrary - but believing in a religion can promote well being, of course. So freedom to be religious is important to well being. Incorporating a specific religious idea of "goodness" is unlikely to be (except those general ideas such as kindness that happen to be part of a religion).

you can always just compliment a happy person, adding goodness to an already good situation. — PeterPants

That is a fair point, and I must accept that this discussion title is badly worded. I started this discussion because on another topic I had started about "utopia", the issue of whether "utopia" should be based on maximizing "goodness" or "happiness" arose (and all too quickly faded). My claim was that goodness is not a suitable target to directly aim for because it requires misfortune to come to the fore to show itself.

I would like to modify my claim about goodness as follows : "goodness requires the concept of well being to have meaning". Well being can refer to physical well being or psychological well being. In essence, I am saying that hedonism trumps goodness as a concept to strive for. There is no goodness that exists outside a context of well being, except some sort of arbitrarily imposed goodness from a religious source.

Would we ever break this cycle and be able to maximize leisure if we were afforded this opportunity? — schopenhauer1

The education system would have to be dismantled and remade first. It's what sets us up to be unhappy workaholics.

Anne of Green Gables
How To Stop Worrying and Start Living

The path to Practopia might be a difficult one but I am more interested here as to how Practopia would be organized. I am suggesting that the main design feature is individual freedom, which would allow for diversity of lifestyle. I see Universal Basic Income as a mainstay of Practopia, alongside a freed up education system aimed at personal growth and enjoyment of life. The purpose of the economy would be to serve the needs of people, and not the other way round. I also think that private property (land and housing) should gradually be abolished by means of the state buying it all up over time and renting out. Although I think Practopia should allow some people to be more wealthy than others, land and property is too scarce and important to be privately owned.

I take it you don't like my vison of practopia?

Get the word right at least- it's practopia!

I think you are hung up on the definition of Utopia - using it as an excuse not to think about how society could be better.

if everyone isn't equally happy, it's not a utopia. — Thanatos Sand

Who told you that? Anyways, we are discussing practoipias, mainly in order to circumvent nhihilists.