An objection to the Golden Rule
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Re: An objection to the Golden Rule
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Re: An objection to the Golden Rule
This is what I've been trying to get at all along. Thank you for placing it in clear verbiage.Karpel Tunnel wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 5:15 am There have been cultures were dying in battle is highly prioritized. A Quaker and a Viking might both use the GR and come to different conclusions.
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Re: An objection to the Golden Rule
.Belindi wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 4:46 ammattfara50 wrote: ↑May 27th, 2018, 3:23 pm
Unreasonable, powerful men often do maintain their power by employing reasonable men, though, don't you think?.
(Belindi replied)Yes. However those intelligent and reasoning acolytes are insufficiently intelligent and reasoning or else they would know that they should , in the interest of truth and reason alone, if not freedom itself, not be acolytes to a tyrant.
(Mattfara)The GR is dependent on those cognitive tools, I agree, but how does that bear on the GR itself?
(Belindi replied)Those cognitive tools bear on the GR by means of reality itself and in itself. Stupidity and lack of reason in a species that exists by means of inductive reasoning is less than possible maximum reasoning and maximum knowledge. I must suppose that that my claim depends upon an ontological proof of ultimate good i.e. to exist is better than not to exist.
(Mattfara)By extension, the GR depends on power too, but how does that bear on the internal rule set of the GR itself? I'm failing to see the relevance of most of what you've written in the past few days. Please clarify for me, keeping in mind that I'm not versed in any of the Marxist thought you are espousing.
(Belindi replied) I try to align Spinoza's philosophy and the ontological and ethical idea of the Golden Rule.
I don't understand how you reckon that I am Marxist although you may be right for all I know of Marxism. Do you refer to my tendency to refer to nature as the basis of right ethics? I do prefer naturalistic ontology. Also true, I , and so my arguments, am ethically and politically socialist ,and so is the tenor of Spinoza's Ethics.
Hi Belinidi. I perhaps confused you with a previous contributor to the post. He called himself a Marxist.
I'm not sure what you mean by the ontological idea of the GR. How it came to be? How it exists now?
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Re: An objection to the Golden Rule
Hi Belindi. But why is the unreasoning, powerful man necessarily tyrannical? And by extension, why are the people who prop him up necessarily not sufficiently intelligent?
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Re: An objection to the Golden Rule
I think most people think that their values and morals are smart. So they will evaluate other people's as not being smart. And this plays into the idea that the GR for example could, if everyone worked from it, arrive at the same ethical decisions and behaviors. So the questions you are asking are spot on.mattfara50 wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 9:14 amHi Belindi. But why is the unreasoning, powerful man necessarily tyrannical? And by extension, why are the people who prop him up necessarily not sufficiently intelligent?
Many very intelligent people have thought that authoritarian rule is best for a country. They can point to animal kingdom models and point to things they do not like in places that are not run that way. Even the word tyranny, which you justifiably challenged, has value judgements inside it. It's a trojan horse.
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Re: An objection to the Golden Rule
mattfara50 wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 9:14 amHi Belindi. But why is the unreasoning, powerful man necessarily tyrannical? And by extension, why are the people who prop him up necessarily not sufficiently intelligent?
The unreasoning powerful man is a tyrant because he rules by fear, personal charisma, or both. It's difficult or impossible for his subjects, employees, or underlings to be free because they are not subject to their own consciences.
'Intelligence' is difficult to define. It would have been better if instead I'd said that people who voluntarily prop up an unreasoning man are themselves either prostituting their own reason or don't have enough reason to be free people.
It's true that some viable regimes have been ruled by autocratic elites.
My view of history is that there has been overall progress in one direction away from the autocratic rule of the unreasoning powerful man and towards broad movements of renaissance, reformation, and enlightenment. Each of these broad movements has increased the total number of individuals who could feel themselves to be free to reason for themselves and live according to their consciences. For those achievements of the historical sequence of renaissance, religious reformation, and scientific enlightenment to be quite forgotten to the world , and the ensuing trend be towards autocratic rule, would follow only some apocalyptic ecological or man made catastrophe.
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Re: An objection to the Golden Rule
mattfara50 wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 9:14 amHi Belindi. But why is the unreasoning, powerful man necessarily tyrannical? And by extension, why are the people who prop him up necessarily not sufficiently intelligent?
The unreasoning powerful man is a tyrant because he rules by fear, personal charisma, or both. It's difficult or impossible for his subjects, employees, or underlings to be free because they are not subject to their own consciences.
'Intelligence' is difficult to define. It would have been better if instead I'd said that people who voluntarily prop up an unreasoning man are themselves either prostituting their own reason or don't have enough reason to be free people.
It's true that some viable regimes have been ruled by autocratic elites.
My view of history is that there has been overall progress in one direction away from the autocratic rule of the unreasoning powerful man and towards broad movements of renaissance, reformation, and enlightenment. Each of these broad movements has increased the total number of individuals who could feel themselves to be free to reason for themselves and live according to their consciences. For those achievements of the historical sequence of renaissance, religious reformation, and scientific enlightenment to be quite forgotten to the world , and the ensuing trend be towards autocratic rule, would follow only some apocalyptic ecological or man made catastrophe.
Karpel Tunnel wrote:
But doesn't every free individual make value judgements? There comes a time when one has to draw a line in the sand despite that the line is ultimately who one is. To exist is better than not to exist. To be is better than not to be. Therefore to think and feel independently is better than to be a passive copy. In order to think and feel independently one needs to have as much of reason as possible.Even the word tyranny, which you justifiably challenged, has value judgements inside it. It's a trojan horse.
So we are back to the Golden Rule. The GR is more applicable in proportion as it's applied with reason and knowledge.
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Re: An objection to the Golden Rule
Personhood is definable by law. This is a no brainer.Karpel Tunnel wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 5:15 amAnd they may argue that are using the GR to take into account the fetus. You may then say, that it is not yet a person, so the GR does not apply. At exactly what point it becomes a person or is one is not easy to prove. .ThomasHobbes wrote: ↑May 27th, 2018, 1:41 pm I'd like to congratulate Ireland for it's successful vote to repeal the abortion ban.
I suggest that every one voting YES are consistent with the GR, whilst those voting no are voting to control the bodies of women.
Yes does not mean anyone HAS to have an abortion. Voting NO means imposing your own personal moral code on the rest of society.
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Re: An objection to the Golden Rule
Belindi, I think we are equivocating on 'power.' Please define the term as precisely as you can before we proceed.Belindi wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 12:35 pm
The unreasoning powerful man is a tyrant because he rules by fear, personal charisma, or both. It's difficult or impossible for his subjects, employees, or underlings to be free because they are not subject to their own consciences.
'Intelligence' is difficult to define. It would have been better if instead I'd said that people who voluntarily prop up an unreasoning man are themselves either prostituting their own reason or don't have enough reason to be free people.
So we are back to the Golden Rule. The GR is more applicable in proportion as it's applied with reason and knowledge.
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Re: An objection to the Golden Rule
By power as it applies to an individual or a society of individuals I refer to relative ability, and relative freedom of conscience. I claim that what an individual's or a society's power relates to is the power of other individuals and other societies.mattfara50 wrote: ↑May 29th, 2018, 5:42 pmBelindi, I think we are equivocating on 'power.' Please define the term as precisely as you can before we proceed.Belindi wrote: ↑May 28th, 2018, 12:35 pm
The unreasoning powerful man is a tyrant because he rules by fear, personal charisma, or both. It's difficult or impossible for his subjects, employees, or underlings to be free because they are not subject to their own consciences.
'Intelligence' is difficult to define. It would have been better if instead I'd said that people who voluntarily prop up an unreasoning man are themselves either prostituting their own reason or don't have enough reason to be free people.
So we are back to the Golden Rule. The GR is more applicable in proportion as it's applied with reason and knowledge.
I also claim that a relatively powerless individual or society cannot have as much choice as a relatively powerful individual or society.This is because my definition of power relates to others' power.
Power pertains more to the individual who is in good health i.e. tending towards life not death, although some person or society that is terminally unwell or enduring suffering might have a healthy conscience which will empower them while enemies with poor morale will falter.
It may be apparent that my notion of power is the incentive towards life and being . The individual or society may attribute this power to survive and win to God, i.e. God as symbol of the individual's or society's orientation and consciousness. Clashes are inevitable and to be desired, as no movement to synthesis is possible unless there is perceived subject and object, I and thou.
The Golden Rule , which I support, has a place in all this because it's reasonable. The GR implies more than rescuing some victim of violence or oppression. It also implies knowing the circumstances of that victim, including political, social, psychological, financial, genetic, etc. Similarly for the diplomat rescuing her nation from impending war or financial ruin; the more the diplomat knows the better for all concerned. Similarly for the magistrate, sheriff, or judge. And thus the Abrahamic God symbolises absolute knowledge and wisdom.
God is also supposed to symbolise power. I don't claim that absolute power is possible. As I said, I support relative power as a main function of the biosphere.
I mention "conscience". By 'conscience' I mean consciousness , awareness, which includes awareness of self and its relationships with others, also relationships between diverse others . By 'others' I mean not only people but also other life forms, events, inorganic stuff, and ideas.
You?
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Re: An objection to the Golden Rule
Please let me if this is an adequate paraphrase of your last post. I wasn't sure whether this would be appropriate:
"Power increases as the range of choices available to an individual or group increases, as the result of having greater ability and awareness."
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Re: An objection to the Golden Rule
Thank you for your thinking about this. Yes, your paraphrase seems to me to be good. As to it's adequacy, I am not sure, as I also think of relative power (In the sense of your nice summary) as the motive force of living things and maybe even of nature itself.mattfara50 wrote: ↑May 31st, 2018, 5:35 amPlease let me if this is an adequate paraphrase of your last post. I wasn't sure whether this would be appropriate:
"Power increases as the range of choices available to an individual or group increases, as the result of having greater ability and awareness."
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Re: An objection to the Golden Rule
Ok. Just so I'm clear, my paraphrase can serve as your definition of power going forward? The portion about the role power serves in nature secondary, I guess. Or would you rather have the definition include that, as in "Power [is] relative ability and relative freedom of consciousness or awareness, which includes awareness of self and its relationships with other life forms, events, inorganic stuff, and ideas, and is at least the motive force of living things, if not nature itself"?
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Re: An objection to the Golden Rule
"Going forward" is perhaps better rendered as 'evolving or simply as 'changing''. I think of powered change. In other words change doesn't just happen but depends upon imbalance (imbalance of Yin and Yang if you like).In the connection with Yin and Yang I see power as that which grounds existence in reality which as balanced, is reality itself.
You see, what I like about the notion of eternity is that it's non-dual in any sense, despite that nobody can inhabit eternity. The Golden Rule is a good albeit vague aim for redistributing power so that power is not concentrated or dammed up in Yin or in Yang.
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Re: An objection to the Golden Rule
"Do as you would be done by," the concise rephrasing of "Do unto others...," is one of history's great moral heuristics. It seems to have grown independently from several cultural flower beds and has survived to the present day. What bad could come of it? In the absence of careful, objective thought on a moral decision, I'd say "quite a bit." Here's why:
If I want treatment X for myself, I should treat others in kind.
I made a [url=https://atlas.mindmup.com/2018/05/fb29a ... index.html]simple diagram[/url] of the argument. I try to show that the Golden Rule can justify the control of others.
Controlling another person is sometimes justified. Stopping a child from sprinting into traffic or persuading a friend not to make a purchase that would be financially detrimental are examples. The justification lies in the wisdom of the controller: inasmuch as a factual or moral truth can be derived from the circumstances at hand, one should control another such that the factual or moral truth is enacted.
I believe that even very complex situations can be, at least in principle, analyzed as such. Unfortunately, many people tend not to challenge their own assumptions and moral beliefs. Many people do tend, on the other hand, to impute motives in their opposition that are inaccurate. Taken together, these tendencies render such an analysis impossible.
Here is a common example: I see that some evangelical Christians are violently opposed to LGBT equality. I then conclude that evangelical Christians are violent and hateful, committing the fallacy of composition. Communication between myself and that community at large ceases, since giving their ideas airtime seems counterproductive to me. This drives me even further into my own set of beliefs about LGBT - total equality for these people is unimpeachable, has no potential down sides, and I may even react negatively to people advancing non-violent, well-reasoned counterarguments, whether they are evangelicals or not. I thus cease to communicate rationally on this subject with others (and even with myself).
Then take the evangelical Christian: Perhaps she genuinely believes that same sex marriage is sinful, and she appreciates times in the past when others have pushed her from an unwitting sin. Thus she feels justified, with the Golden Rule in her front pocket, vying against people and legislation that favor LGBT marriage equality. Unfortunately, her faith in the divine authorship of the Bible is almost certainly unwarranted.
The Golden Rule is moral fast food.
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First I will correct your translation to my own verbatim out of ancient Greek:
ALL THEN AS MUCH AS EVER YOU MAY BE WILLING THAT MAY BE DOING TO YOU THE HUMANS THUS AND YOU BE DOING TO THEM.
This is Philosophy. It is Ethics. It shows that Jesus of Nazareth was a social philosopher not just a theologian.
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