What philosophy offends you most?

[Consul]

Luck has no moral implications.

Yes, it has! See: Justice and Bad Luck

[Consul]

Human societies are not organisms…

Not literally at least.

QUOTE>
"…a very particular view of society, sometimes called organicism. Conservatives have traditionally thought of society as a living thing, an organism, whose parts work together just as the brain, heart, lungs and liver do within a human organism. Organisms differ from artefacts or machines in two important respects. First, unlike machines, organisms are not simply a collection of individual parts that can be arranged or rearranged at will. Within an organism, the whole is more than a collection of its individual parts; the whole is sustained by a fragile set of relationships between and among its parts, which, once damaged, can result in the organism’s death. Thus, a human body cannot be stripped down and reassembled in the same way as, say, a bicycle. Second, organisms are shaped by ‘natural’ factors rather than human ingenuity. An organic society is fashioned, ultimately, by natural necessity. For example, the family has not been ‘invented’ by any social thinker or political theorist, but is a product of natural social impulses such as love, caring and responsibility. In no sense do children in a family agree to a ‘contract’ on joining the family – they simply grow up within it and are nurtured and guided by it. This inclination to see the family as an organic entity helps to explain, among other things, why many conservatives oppose same-sex marriage.

The use of the ‘organic metaphor’ for understanding society has some profoundly conservative implications. A mechanical view of society as adopted by liberals and most socialists, in which society is constructed by rational individuals for their own purposes, suggests that society can be tampered with and improved. This leads to a belief in progress, either in the shape of reform or revolution. If society is organic, its structures and institutions have been shaped by forces beyond human control and, possibly, human understanding. This implies that its delicate ‘fabric’ should be preserved and respected by the individuals who live within it. Organicism also shapes our attitude to particular institutions, society’s ‘parts’. These are viewed from a functionalist perspective: institutions develop and survive for a reason, and this reason is that they contribute to maintaining the larger social whole. In other words, by virtue of existing, institutions demonstrate they are worthwhile and desirable. Any attempt to reform or, worse, abolish an institution is thus fraught with dangers.

However, the rise of neoliberalism has weakened support within conservatism for organic ideas and theories. In line with the robust individualism of classical liberalism, libertarian conservatives, including neoliberals, have held that society is a product of the actions of self-seeking and largely self-reliant individuals. This position was memorably expressed in Margaret Thatcher’s assertion, paraphrasing Jeremy Bentham that, ‘There is no such thing as society, only individuals and their families’."

(Heywood, Andrew. Political Ideologies: An Introduction. 7th ed. London: Red Globe/Macmillan, 2021. pp. 56-8)
<QUOTE

[Consul]

QUOTE>
"…This position was memorably expressed in Margaret Thatcher’s assertion, paraphrasing Jeremy Bentham that, ‘There is no such thing as society, only individuals and their families’."

(Heywood, Andrew. Political Ideologies: An Introduction. 7th ed. London: Red Globe/Macmillan, 2021. pp. 56-8)
<QUOTE

She's wrong, because even though society is a society of individuals, it is not a society of socially unrelated individuals, but a dynamic configuration of (more or less) interdependent and interacting individuals.

[GE Morton]

First of all, I said "the two main roads to wealth" and not "the only two roads to wealth", and I've been referring to the population as a whole.

Well, inheritance and stock market gains are not the "main roads to wealth" for the population as a whole, either. That is absurd on its face. And, of course, unless there is some productivity somewhere along the way there is no wealth to inherit.

The billionaires are but a teeny-tiny and hence non-representative percentage of the population. But given those statistics, inheritance still plays a crucial role in 27.5%/29.5% of them. There is also the (Forbes) category "self-made who got a head start from wealthy parents and moneyed background". Alas, the percentage of billionaires in this category isn't mentioned.

The Statista table quantifies those.

Moreover, what exactly does "self-made" mean? Does it include the easy way of getting rich through purely financial economy (including stock-market economy) rather than through real economy (i.e. the production, purchase and flow of goods and services)? What's the percentage of "self-made" billionaires who acquired (most of) their wealth through pure money business (input = money & output = more money), including investor business?

Several misconceptions there. First, making money from investments is not an "easy way" to make money. It requires a considerable investment of time and effort understand markets, technology, media, politics, and human psychology. Investors who don't understand those make very little, or even lose money. Second, investors --- knowledgeable ones --- play the central role in allocating capital, in deciding what products are likely to return a profit and which are not --- the latter a direct measure of which demands are being satisfied, and by whom. That is most efficient method of allocating resources yet devised (and far superior to any "5-year plans" or other schemes concocted by politicians and bureaucrats). Finally, most of those who become investors have already acquired sufficient capital to make worthwhile investments --- capital acquired by producing products or delivering services.

But you can answer your question by reading the details on the Forbes list. Nearly all of them counted as "self-made" --- Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Brin and Paige, etc., produced products that transformed the economy. Most of the wealth they hold consists of stocks in the companies they created.

[GE Morton]

QUOTE>
"…a very particular view of society, sometimes called organicism. Conservatives have traditionally thought of society as a living thing, an organism, whose parts work together just as the brain, heart, lungs and liver do within a human organism."

Oh, that view is as old as Plato:

"And is not that the best-ordered State in which the greatest number of persons apply the terms 'mine' and 'not mine' in the same way to the same things?
"Quite true.
"Or that again which most nearly approaches to the condition of the individual -- as in the body, when but a finger of one of us is hurt, the whole frame, drawn towards the soul as a centre and forming one kingdom under the ruling power therein, feels the hurt and sympathizes all together with the part affected, and we say that the man has a pain in his finger; and the same expression is used about any other part of the body, which has a sensation of pain at suffering or of pleasure at the alleviation of suffering.
Very true, he replied; and I agree with you that in the best-ordered State there is the nearest approach to this common feeling which you describe."

--- Plato, Republic, Book V

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.6.v.html

Rousseau was even more explicit:

"The body politic, taken individually, may be considered as an organized, living body, resembling that of a man. The sovereign power represents the head; the laws and customs are the brain, the source of the nerves and the seat of the understanding, will, and senses, of which the judges and magistrates are the organs . . . . the body politic, therefore, is also a moral being possessed of a will, and this general will, which tends always to the preservation and welfare of the whole and of every part, and is the source of the laws, constitutes for all the members of the State, in their relations to one another and to it, the rule of what is just or unjust . . . . ."

Rousseau, Discourse on Political Economy

https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/125495/50 ... conomy.pdf

Moreover, it is an assumption/analogy widely shared by "liberals" and "conservatives" alike.

[From quote]"Organisms differ from artefacts or machines in two important respects. First, unlike machines, organisms are not simply a collection of individual parts that can be arranged or rearranged at will."

But they can. We have cornea transplants, ocular lens replacements and joint replacements with mechanical parts, liver transplants, heart transplants and mechanical hearts, kidney transplants, electronic pacemakers, blood transfusions. Animal bodies are machines, and machines are organisms --- both with the characteristics I listed earlier. Many of us are cyborgs.

[GE Morton]

QUOTE>
"…This position was memorably expressed in Margaret Thatcher’s assertion, paraphrasing Jeremy Bentham that, ‘There is no such thing as society, only individuals and their families’."

(Heywood, Andrew. Political Ideologies: An Introduction. 7th ed. London: Red Globe/Macmillan, 2021. pp. 56-8)
<QUOTE

She's wrong, because even though society is a society of individuals, it is not a society of socially unrelated individuals, but a dynamic configuration of (more or less) interdependent and interacting individuals.

Yes, she was wrong; there is such a thing as society. What she should have said, and may have meant to say, is that societies are not moral agents. They have no interests, no goals, no desires, no thoughts, no "welfare," that are are not reducible to those of the individuals who constitute them. Nor can they be harmed or benefited, except to the extent those individuals are harmed or benefited. And, of course, the interests, goals, welfare, etc., etc., of the individuals who constitute a society can differ enormously from person to person, as does what counts a harm and what a benefit.

[Sy Borg]

QUOTE>
"…This position was memorably expressed in Margaret Thatcher’s assertion, paraphrasing Jeremy Bentham that, ‘There is no such thing as society, only individuals and their families’."

(Heywood, Andrew. Political Ideologies: An Introduction. 7th ed. London: Red Globe/Macmillan, 2021. pp. 56-8)
<QUOTE

She's wrong, because even though society is a society of individuals, it is not a society of socially unrelated individuals, but a dynamic configuration of (more or less) interdependent and interacting individuals.

Yes, she was wrong; there is such a thing as society. What she should have said, and may have meant to say, is that societies are not moral agents. They have no interests, no goals, no desires, no thoughts, no "welfare," ...

In terms of morality, societies tend to operate rather like simple organisms - consume, survive and grow. Morality does not come into it.

As for interests, societies absolutely have interests that are largely driven by geography. Thus, a number of Middle Eastern societies, for instance, have an intense interest in securing their water supplies.

Societies don't have goals, desires or thoughts, yes, other than those imposed by politicians.

Societies certainly do have welfare, though. Like ecosystems, they can thrive, they can be sick, or somewhere in between.

[GE Morton]

Luck has no moral implications.

Yes, it has! See: Justice and Bad Luck

Heh. The SEP article gives a good overview of the literature on that topic, but the very question ("Does luck have moral implications?") rests on misunderstandings of "morality" and of "justice."

Rawls's remarks on the "natural lottery" has spurred much of this discussion. In TOJ he says, "The natural distribution [of natural talents and abilities] is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that people are born into society at some particular position. These are just natural facts. What is just or unjust is the way institutions deal with these facts." (p. 102).

Now there is a huge "is-ought" gap there --- he's trying to derive moral obligations from natural facts. If the natural distribution is neither just nor unjust, why must "institutions" deal with it in any way?

The explanation, of course, is that Rawls equates "justice" (and "fairness") with equality, or assumes those concepts entail (material) equality. But they don't. Hence because the "natural lottery" yields unequal outcomes, it is, after all, "unfair," and "unjust" (which, of course, contradicts his claim that it is not).

Rawls further tries to justify the obligation to "deal with" the outcomes of the natural lottery by claiming, "In justice as fairness men agree to share one another's fate." (ibid). Well, they do so by hypothesis in Rawls's original position, but they clearly don't do so in any real society.

Morality is a set of principles and rules governing interactions between moral agents in a social setting. Those rules don't apply to acts of God or Mother Nature; nor do such moral adjectives as "just" or "fair --- as Rawls admits in the above statement. But once you assume "justice" and "fairness" entail equality, then suddenly natural facts take on moral significance, and moral agents must "deal" with that "unfairness" and "injustice."

But those concepts don't entail equality. They can require equality in some cases, when necessary to satisfy some ceteris paribus condition, such not pairing a featherweight with a heavyweight in a boxing match. There, you want the purse to go to the boxer who demonstrates the greatest skill, not to one who wins due to some advantage unrelated to his skill.

There is nothing immoral about natural inequalities; as Rawls notes (in a moment of lucidity) they are neither just nor unjust. Equating justice with equality is a perversion of that concept which arose in the late 19th century and has become ubiquitous. But arguments for the immorality of (material) inequalities are all but non-existent. As Nozick observed, "There is a surprising dearth of arguments for equality capable of coming to grips with the considerations that underlie a non-global and non-patterned conception of justice in holdings. (However, there is no shortage of unsupported statements of a presumption in favor or equality.)"
---Anarchy, State, Utopia, p. 233

[Consul]

Yes, she was wrong; there is such a thing as society. What she should have said, and may have meant to say, is that societies are not moral agents. They have no interests, no goals, no desires, no thoughts, no "welfare," ...

In terms of morality, societies tend to operate rather like simple organisms - consume, survive and grow. Morality does not come into it.

As for interests, societies absolutely have interests that are largely driven by geography. Thus, a number of Middle Eastern societies, for instance, have an intense interest in securing their water supplies.

Societies don't have goals, desires or thoughts, yes, other than those imposed by politicians.

Societies certainly do have welfare, though. Like ecosystems, they can thrive, they can be sick, or somewhere in between.

Society isn't one individual with a mind or consciousness of its own, but there isn't only the intentionality of the ego ("I-intentionality"); there is also the intentionality of the nos ("we-intentionality"). We-intentionality or collective intentionality is (generically, not rigidly) dependent on (* and located in individual minds rather than in a superindividual collective mind, but it plays a central social role.

(* for the distinction between genericand rigid ontological dependence, see: https://seop.illc.uva.nl/entries/depend ... tological/)

QUOTE>
"Collective intentionality is the power of minds to be jointly directed at objects, matters of fact, states of affairs, goals, or values. Collective intentionality comes in a variety of modes, including shared intention, joint attention, shared belief, collective acceptance, and collective emotion. Collective intentional attitudes permeate our everyday lives, for instance when two or more agents look after or raise a child, grieve the loss of a loved one, campaign for a political party, or cheer for a sports team. They are relevant for philosophers and social scientists because they play crucial roles in the constitution of the social world. In joint attention, the world is experienced as perceptually available for a plurality of agents. This establishes a basic sense of common ground on which other agents may be encountered as potential cooperators. Shared intention enables the participants to act together intentionally, in a coordinated and cooperative fashion, and to achieve collective goals. The capacity for shared belief provides us with a common stock of knowledge, and thus with a background against which relevant new information which we may want to share with others becomes salient. Collective acceptance is crucial for the development of language, and for a whole world of symbols, institutions, and social status. Collective emotions provide us with a shared conception of what matters to us, together, and they establish readiness for joint action. In virtue of capacity for collective intentionality, we can (and should) engage in joint reasoning and deliberation, and (re-)organize ourselves to make sure that the way we live together is how we, collectively, want it to be, from our small-scale communities to global politics."

Collective Intentionality: https://seop.illc.uva.nl/entries/collec ... tionality/
<QUOTE

[Consul]

Luck has no moral implications.

Yes, it has! See: Justice and Bad Luck

Heh. The SEP article gives a good overview of the literature on that topic, but the very question ("Does luck have moral implications?") rests on misunderstandings of "morality" and of "justice."

Rawls's remarks on the "natural lottery" has spurred much of this discussion. In TOJ he says, "The natural distribution [of natural talents and abilities] is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that people are born into society at some particular position. These are just natural facts. What is just or unjust is the way institutions deal with these facts." (p. 102).

Now there is a huge "is-ought" gap there --- he's trying to derive moral obligations from natural facts. If the natural distribution is neither just nor unjust, why must "institutions" deal with it in any way?

The explanation, of course, is that Rawls equates "justice" (and "fairness") with equality, or assumes those concepts entail (material) equality. But they don't. Hence because the "natural lottery" yields unequal outcomes, it is, after all, "unfair," and "unjust" (which, of course, contradicts his claim that it is not).

Rawls further tries to justify the obligation to "deal with" the outcomes of the natural lottery by claiming, "In justice as fairness men agree to share one another's fate." (ibid). Well, they do so by hypothesis in Rawls's original position, but they clearly don't do so in any real society.

Morality is a set of principles and rules governing interactions between moral agents in a social setting. Those rules don't apply to acts of God or Mother Nature; nor do such moral adjectives as "just" or "fair --- as Rawls admits in the above statement. But once you assume "justice" and "fairness" entail equality, then suddenly natural facts take on moral significance, and moral agents must "deal" with that "unfairness" and "injustice."

But those concepts don't entail equality. They can require equality in some cases, when necessary to satisfy some ceteris paribus condition, such not pairing a featherweight with a heavyweight in a boxing match. There, you want the purse to go to the boxer who demonstrates the greatest skill, not to one who wins due to some advantage unrelated to his skill.

There is nothing immoral about natural inequalities; as Rawls notes (in a moment of lucidity) they are neither just nor unjust. Equating justice with equality is a perversion of that concept which arose in the late 19th century and has become ubiquitous. But arguments for the immorality of (material) inequalities are all but non-existent. As Nozick observed, "There is a surprising dearth of arguments for equality capable of coming to grips with the considerations that underlie a non-global and non-patterned conception of justice in holdings. (However, there is no shortage of unsupported statements of a presumption in favor or equality.)"
---Anarchy, State, Utopia, p. 233

Bad luck can be due to mental facts concerning the unequal natural distribution of intelligence and talent, and it can be due to social or economic facts such as being born into a poor family. The moral question is whether there ought to be some kind of egalitarian compensation for (undeserved) bad luck. I'm not saying there cannot be any justice without (perfect) equality of outcome, but justice and equality (especially equality of opportunity) aren't disjoint categories. For instance, I cannot bring myself to call a society just (or fair) in which there are blatantly extreme economic inequalities, with most wealth in the world being possessed by a tiny minority of people, the rich getting richer and richer, and the poor getting poorer and poorer.

[GE Morton]

"Collective intentionality is the power of minds to be jointly directed at objects, matters of fact, states of affairs, goals, or values. Collective intentionality comes in a variety of modes, including shared intention, joint attention, shared belief, collective acceptance, and collective emotion. Collective intentional attitudes permeate our everyday lives, for instance when two or more agents look after or raise a child, grieve the loss of a loved one, campaign for a political party, or cheer for a sports team.

Sure there are "collective intentionalities." The trouble is, societies are not collectives. There are thousands of collectives with "collective intentionalities" within a society (such as those mentioned in your quote), but society as a whole is not one. It is merely a collection of collectives.

[Consul]

Sure there are "collective intentionalities." The trouble is, societies are not collectives. There are thousands of collectives with "collective intentionalities" within a society (such as those mentioned in your quote), but society as a whole is not one. It is merely a collection of collectives.

Yes, there are many Is and many WEs.
In the broadest sense of the term, "a collective object is anything which is a plurality." (Peter Simons) There are both first-order collectives/pluralities, whose members are noncollectives/nonpluralities, i.e. individuals, and higher-order collectives/pluralities, whose members are lower-order collectives/pluralities. From the higher-order perspective, there are both supercollectives/superpluralities and subcollectives/subpluralities. A society is such a collective of collectives/plurality of pluralities. The largest human supercollective/superplurality is mankind, which comprises many human subcollectives/subpluralities without being a human subcollective/subplurality itself.

[Consul]

In the broadest sense of the term, "a collective object is anything which is a plurality." (Peter Simons)

A mere/pure collective (collection) or plurality (multitude) of things is defined structure-independently, i.e. independently of relations between its members.

[Consul]

In the broadest sense of the term, "a collective object is anything which is a plurality." (Peter Simons)

A mere/pure collective (collection) or plurality (multitude) of things is defined structure-independently, i.e. independently of relations between its members.

There are both unstructured collectives/pluralities and structured ones. I call the latter complexes or systems. For example, a social organization is always a complex or system, since it is more than a mere plurality of people.

[GE Morton]

Sure there are "collective intentionalities." The trouble is, societies are not collectives. There are thousands of collectives with "collective intentionalities" within a society (such as those mentioned in your quote), but society as a whole is not one. It is merely a collection of collectives.

Yes, there are many Is and many WEs.
In the broadest sense of the term, "a collective object is anything which is a plurality."

Well, that may be the "broadest sense of the term," but it is not the commonly understood sense of the term. That "broad sense" collapses the difference between a collective and a collection.

As applied to human associations, a collective is a group of persons cooperating in pursuit of a common goal or interest. E.g., a symphony orchestra or a jazz band is a collective; a football team is a collective; a model railroad club is a collective; a business corporation is a collective; the Sierra Club is a collective; the Soviet collective farms were collectives. The inhabitants of a town or the passengers on an airplane are not collectives. They are only collections.

"Collective (NOUN)
"1. A cooperative enterprise.
"‘the exhibition showcases the work of art collectives from more than 20 countries’"

https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/collective

"Collective:

"(by extension) A group dedicated to a particular cause or interest. (noun)

"The definition of collective is a group of people working together toward a common goal or in an organization. (Adjective)
"An example of collective used as an adjective is a collective art project, a group of artists working together on a mural."

https://www.yourdictionary.com/collective