Morals Are A Hindrance To Society

Enricko · Post by **Enricko** » 2003-03-13 07:58pm

Hell, if the only prospect in life his to be put to death at 70 (only five [5] years after retirement, people!

). What's the fucking point of working all his life!!!?

Why not end it at 30, like in the movie Logan's Run? What yar thinking!!!

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-03-13 09:07pm

Shinova wrote:Of course. The senior wouldn't want to die, period; same for everyone. But looking at it from the entire, macroscopic, societal point of view, seniors would be more of a drain on society rather than an input, if that's the way to word it.

Wrong. You are looking at without any regard for the impact that this policy would have on the behaviour of people who are not yet 70. As they get older and the date approaches, they will almost certainly resort to extreme measures in order to avoid their fate, or worse yet, they might decide that if they're going to die anyway, they'll die with a bang.

Also, the prospect of comfortable, long years of retirement is what drives the middle class to work the way they do. Take it away, and society will suffer very serious consequences.

The_Nice_Guy · Post by **The_Nice_Guy** » 2003-03-13 09:38pm

The purpose of morality is to ensure that human society functions smoothly and that its denizens are happy. Utilitarianism seeks to maximize the total amount of happiness and minimize the total amount of suffering and death; it is an optimized type of morality and has been greatly maligned by people who leap to the conclusion that it would condone things like Mengelian experiments.

That makes me wonder. Is the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people the optimized value system? Is happiness the definition of 'good'?

The Nice Guy

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-03-13 09:44pm

The_Nice_Guy wrote:
The purpose of morality is to ensure that human society functions smoothly and that its denizens are happy. Utilitarianism seeks to maximize the total amount of happiness and minimize the total amount of suffering and death; it is an optimized type of morality and has been greatly maligned by people who leap to the conclusion that it would condone things like Mengelian experiments.
That makes me wonder. Is the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people the optimized value system? Is happiness the definition of 'good'?

The Nice Guy

Got a better idea?

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-03-13 09:52pm

Well, there's deontology, where the only way you can be moral is to 1) act in accord with your moral duty and 2) be absolutely miserable while doing it.

kojikun · Post by **kojikun** » 2003-03-13 10:07pm

"I feel miserable, but raping this poor soul is good with my moral duty."

.. how about no.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-03-13 10:10pm

kojikun wrote:"I feel miserable, but raping this poor soul is good with my moral duty."

.. how about no.

Rape? No, Kant would not approve, he was interested in universal moral duty.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-03-13 10:13pm

I remember reading in an ethics book once that no ethical system works well in all situations, and you can concoct scenarios in which all of them fall down. However, an approach which balances many separate approaches (often with a "majority rules" approach seems to work better). For example, is utilitarianism and duty ethics call for one action and rights-based ethics call for another, then you go with the majority. Not a bad idea IMHO.

Joe · Post by **Joe** » 2003-03-13 10:15pm

Darth Wong wrote:I remember reading in an ethics book once that no ethical system works well in all situations, and you can concoct scenarios in which all of them fall down. However, an approach which balances many separate approaches (often with a "majority rules" approach seems to work better). For example, is utilitarianism and duty ethics call for one action and rights-based ethics call for another, then you go with the majority. Not a bad idea IMHO.

I don't much care for the polarisation between utilitarianism and duty-based ethical systems. I fall somewhere in the middle, quite frankly.

lgot · Post by **lgot** » 2003-03-13 10:34pm

It is just impossible to have a society without moral. (And does not matter if it is a moral we judge good or bad) , All humans groups develop a code of moral do conduit themselves. It is even correct to say that the basic difference between all different societies start in their moral codes.
Moral codes are also meant to preserve the society they define. As such they hold back changes - with may be developments or even the opposite - for when the society changes the morals change as well.
Thefore the moral is a factor of stability and some may see then as a factor of holding back progress. but you have to keep in my mind that moral changes also, therefore they suffer the same "progress" their society live in. As such, you can not say moral holds the progress of a society.

Shinova · Post by **Shinova** » 2003-03-14 12:44am

Darth Wong wrote:
Shinova wrote:Of course. The senior wouldn't want to die, period; same for everyone. But looking at it from the entire, macroscopic, societal point of view, seniors would be more of a drain on society rather than an input, if that's the way to word it.
Wrong. You are looking at without any regard for the impact that this policy would have on the behaviour of people who are not yet 70. As they get older and the date approaches, they will almost certainly resort to extreme measures in order to avoid their fate, or worse yet, they might decide that if they're going to die anyway, they'll die with a bang.

Also, the prospect of comfortable, long years of retirement is what drives the middle class to work the way they do. Take it away, and society will suffer very serious consequences.

I can think of only one response to that and that would be conditioning, genetic engineering. And in my other post (the one you quoted), I made an edit stating that I was thinking of an Orwellian/Brave New World society when I made these statements.

So, yeah. In our present society, it wouldn't work.

EDIT: Actually, there is one possible solution. If technology advances far enough that people's consciousnesses can be transferred to a computer or something similar, then maybe seniors could have their minds transferred to some kind of absolute paradise simulation, Matrix-style.

Some people here have stated that they'd prefer a Martix world over a real one, so it may not be that far-fetched. The incentive would be a simulated world of utopian proportions, where people get to be young again, get laid repeatedly with gorgeous women, etc.

Of course, then everyone might want to enter that paradise dimension. Interesting fic idea. Everyone lives in the paradise dimension and robots do all the work in the real world. Hmmm.....

The_Nice_Guy · Post by **The_Nice_Guy** » 2003-03-14 10:33am

Darth Wong wrote: Got a better idea?

Unfortunately, no.

But I read somewhere about extropianism. Sounded kooky, but also made quite a bit of sense.

The definition of 'good' according to that value system is the amount of life, vitality, intelligence, and the capacity to increase life, vitality, intelligence and ... blah, blah, blah, ad infinitum.

Drawback to this one? I remember thinking up of one, but I can't recall it now.

ARGH!!!

The Nice Guy

Raoul Duke, Jr. · Post by **Raoul Duke, Jr.** » 2003-03-14 06:46pm

Crayz9000 wrote:There's a difference between morals and traditions. Traditions have almost always been a hindrance to society, with a few exceptions, while morals serve to try and prevent us from doing catastrophically stupid things, like rounding up all the old geezers and sticking them in death camps.

I agree that traditions must be questioned to test their validity; if a tradition is constructive, it should be retained. If it is neither constructive nor destructive (e.g. Turkey on Thanksgiving) it should probably be left alone. If a tradition is destructive, it should be educated against.

I am wary of those who advocate indescriminately throwing away all traditions; traditions, I would argue, are part of the human psychological need for stability -- there will always be traditions. Those who wish to indiscriminately remove the traditions of a society usually do not do so without having replacements in mind.

Kuroneko · Post by **Kuroneko** » 2003-03-14 07:41pm

The_Nice_Guy wrote:That makes me wonder. Is the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people the optimized value system? Is happiness the definition of 'good'?

Yes, that is the usual meaning of utilitarianism. However, the principle behind utilitarianism--maximizing 'utility'--can be applied to almost any value that you can think of. You could take some other value (say, the meaning of life according to Aristotle: the use of the rational faculty) and try to maximize it among the general human population, instead.

Crayz9000 · Post by **Crayz9000** » 2003-03-14 08:16pm

Raoul Duke, Jr. wrote:I am wary of those who advocate indescriminately throwing away all traditions; traditions, I would argue, are part of the human psychological need for stability -- there will always be traditions. Those who wish to indiscriminately remove the traditions of a society usually do not do so without having replacements in mind.

No, I'm not suggesting that we throw out all traditions. That would be like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But I've run up against a lot of hardened Old World "traditions" that, frankly, are insane. Most of them originated from small villages and have no place whatsoever in modern society, but they persist to this day.

Sure, keep the harmless traditions like Thanksgiving, or the tradition of the vasilopita on St. Basil's feastday. Neither really interfere with society or religion. But I know that even the Greek Orthodox Church has been fighting many of these folk traditions and superstitions, because many from the Old Country focus so much on the traditions that they actually start harming the people around them, physically and emotionally.