The Limits of our Society

@dharma bum,

I'll have to go with X ris on this...Our physical existence presents us with few actual problems that our failures of morality do not make manifest... We would not have to over run our environment, or turn our technology on ourselves... But the moral world with its ethical questions is one that defies even the most general definitions...We know it is there...People die without virtue...People die without justice, or freedom, so what is presumed to exist exists by presumption... If two people are disputing over justice, the peace betwen them rests upon the willingness to have enough, against the desire to have all...When each has enough they have justice; but the definition will always be situational...There could be no better recepe for human conflict...

Personally, I look at law, the one size fits all approach to justice as an impediment to problem resolution...People are losing the ability to make agreements of honor with a hand shake...If they have a conflict they have to call a cop and an attorney... Where is the horse trading... Literally, if people cannot meet a price at a yard sale they do not have the sense to ask for a lower price... If you are unwilling to ask people what they need from an agreement, what is their idea of justice, what they will accept, you never know... In many senses we have discovered the ability of language to abuse others, to cause pain, injury, or lie, but we can no longer bend language to our common purpose...

---------- Post added 01-07-2010 at 12:24 PM ----------

Jebediah;118194 wrote:

What makes you think that? Are we not less sexist, racist, xenophobic and homophobic than we were 100 years ago?

We are more constrained by law... Just see us hard pressed by disaster or war, and there could be round ups of a protective nature all over the country...The failure of our society leaves all minorities vulnerable to violence...We are in a position where we can hate the law, and yet fear to see it suddenly fall, because it is all that is keeping many from the throat of their neighbors...

1 Reply

@Jebediah,

Jebediah;118194 wrote:

What makes you think that? Are we not less sexist, racist, xenophobic and homophobic than we were 100 years ago?

The only thing that has gotten better is that we have been able to tolerate it more, but acceptance is a different story.

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@Jebediah,

Jebediah;118194 wrote:

What makes you think that? Are we not less sexist, racist, xenophobic and homophobic than we were 100 years ago?

I was actually referring to the ethical problems technology gives us. As for those obics or ists you talk of, they are less damaging, but far from resolved.

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@Fido,

Fido;118195 wrote:

People are losing the ability to make agreements of honor with a hand shake...If they have a conflict they have to call a cop and an attorney...

And isnt that just about using any tool, which they have at disposal? There will be always a willingness to take easiest and most effective way no matter how it will look like. People will always make up any argument which approve that behaviour. Until they will face an consequences.

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@Pyrrho,

Pyrrho;118133 wrote:

It could be that the person has been perverted by reading Leibniz, and imagines that these evils are necessary for the greater good. This being "the best possible world" means that this world is better than one in which such things do not happen. (I personally prefer Voltaire's take on this, but we are not talking about my position.)

Well I haven't read Leibniz, but I did read Candide a few months back.

My take on it would be that this might not be the "best possible world," but we can't always wish for the "best" of everything. This is the only world that we are meant to inhabit, therefore why grope and complain that it's not as perfect as it could be?

Absolutely we should try to end injustice, war, disease, etc, but this world is still pretty good, and we should be grateful of that. We should all try to make the world a better place, but we also have to accept that we're stuck here and we can't change the way things, or other humans, work.

Therefore... all's for the best Smile

1 Reply

@xris,

xris;118250 wrote:

I was actually referring to the ethical problems technology gives us. As for those obics or ists you talk of, they are less damaging, but far from resolved.

I don't think that technology itself is what causes problems with one's ethics, but our reliance of these contraptions that create the problems. Its definitely a correlation that can be justified, but not a direct cause to the problem.

1 Reply

@biscuithead175,

biscuithead175;118259 wrote:

I don't think that technology itself is what causes problems with one's ethics, but our reliance of these contraptions that create the problems. Its definitely a correlation that can be justified, but not a direct cause to the problem.

I have never had a contraption that has caused me an ethical problem. Splitting the atom, genetics,chemical engineering, now they cause problems for society but not me. Ive tried very hard to think of a contraption that has caused me sleepless nights, contemplating my moral reaction. I have opinions on genetic engineering but I had no problem formulating my ethical response, it was built on my moral back ground.

2 Replies

@xris,

xris;118264 wrote:

I have never had a contraption that has caused me an ethical problem. Splitting the atom, genetics,chemical engineering, now they cause problems for society but not me. Ive tried very hard to think of a contraption that has caused me sleepless nights, contemplating my moral reaction. I have opinions on genetic engineering but I had no problem formulating my ethical response, it was built on my moral back ground.

Well if you put it along those lines, then your absolutely right. Maybe 'ethics' isnt the term to put the concept into retrospect. Surely you can see how modern technology has caused us to not be as self-reliant.

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@biscuithead175,

biscuithead175;118265 wrote:

Well if you put it along those lines, then your absolutely right. Maybe 'ethics' isnt the term to put the concept into retrospect. Surely you can see how modern technology has caused us to not be as self-reliant.

Now your talking,we would, could never survive without the simplest of ologies. I have survived the most horrendous of army exercises but not without my ration pack..we could never return to our old ways, our knowledge is strangely lacking in the simplest of survival tactics. The more society learns to survive the less we learn as individuals.

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@biscuithead175,

The way I see it is that technology hasn't changed morality in any way. Only changed the way in which we employ it. For example, before guns if someone wanted to kill someone they used blades, before blades they used blunt objects, and seemingly before that they used their hands. The point is that technology has not made us less moral or more moral it's only changed the means in which we express it.

If you look at is as 2 weights on a balance beam, then we realize that technology is only one of the weights with morality being the other. Perhaps the problem is that too much focus has been placed on technology and the balance has been lost. We should, for all intensive purposes be advancing in terms of morality too one would hope.

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@xris,

xris;118264 wrote:

I have never had a contraption that has caused me an ethical problem. Splitting the atom, genetics,chemical engineering, now they cause problems for society but not me. Ive tried very hard to think of a contraption that has caused me sleepless nights, contemplating my moral reaction. I have opinions on genetic engineering but I had no problem formulating my ethical response, it was built on my moral back ground.

Driving a car anywhere I can walk causes me a problem... Every day in America enough oil is lost on our roads to equal the Exxon Valdeze...With life, everthing is an ethical question...Just because we refuse to hear them does not make them go away...

---------- Post added 01-07-2010 at 05:47 PM ----------

pantheras;118251 wrote:

And isnt that just about using any tool, which they have at disposal? There will be always a willingness to take easiest and most effective way no matter how it will look like. People will always make up any argument which approve that behaviour. Until they will face an consequences.

One thing I am certain of, is that when it comes to commerce everything here has a set price, so people are less inclined to bargain a better price... But; as far as law goes, people just use it, as a threat, which is a serious one if they have a good attorney, and some times the threat of dragging some one through an expensive process that will not be finished until the money has long run out, -is a very serious one...When it comes to making a durable deal with some one, it is best to start at the object rather than go to the down side, of threats, or abuse...Remember now, that you are looking for justice in all things, which you are prepared to give; so what does the other person need, and what is it they want???...

Deal making is a form of relationship, and the problem is that when people rely on a form, like a fixed price, they forget their own power, their own ability to relate, and in the process they forget to see the other in the deal as a person...You have to be able to relate, informally, and we are losing it here...We are all form and no relationship... So; prepared to be lonely if you come here; because many people here are lonely...It is a curse they do not know how to cure...They are so used to being formal; having the form structure their relationships that they just cannot relate informally...

I want to tell you something...When I go to the store, and I cash out, I try to notice the people with whom I am dealing, their name, for example, and I try to relate with them... This is not natural to me, but learned; and it is the rarest thing I guess, judging by the warm reaction... People pay what they are ask, say thanks and good bye...No body cares, and in the process, every one is denied something essential to their sense of being: Recognition....I would not tell you that it is not important to me too, or that I am being altruistic just by saying hello... I only consider how mind numbing jobs can be, with no sense of creation, with short wages, and long hours dealing with people who cannot or will not relate with you as an equal...

1 Reply

@dharma bum,

dharma_bum;118257 wrote:

Well I haven't read Leibniz, but I did read Candide a few months back.

My take on it would be that this might not be the "best possible world," but we can't always wish for the "best" of everything. This is the only world that we are meant to inhabit, therefore why grope and complain that it's not as perfect as it could be?

Absolutely we should try to end injustice, war, disease, etc, but this world is still pretty good, and we should be grateful of that. We should all try to make the world a better place, but we also have to accept that we're stuck here and we can't change the way things, or other humans, work.

Therefore... all's for the best

Candide was Voltaire's response to Leibniz's idea that this is the best possible world (a conclusion he derived from his theological beliefs). Voltaire thought this was ridiculous, so he ridiculed this idea in Candide. Of course, if Voltaire is right, then there is something quite wrong with the relevant views of Leibniz on religion, which, as it turns out, are not entirely uncommon today.

I agree that we should make this world as good as we can. And I agree with Voltaire that the idea that this is the best possible world is ridiculous. My original post was aimed more at Leibniz than you.

---------- Post added 01-07-2010 at 05:59 PM ----------

Jebediah;118194 wrote:

What makes you think that? Are we not less sexist, racist, xenophobic and homophobic than we were 100 years ago?

I agree, and think you should consider posting in another thread here:

http://www.philosophyforum.com/philosophy-forums/secondary-branches-philosophy/social-philosophy/7142-do-you-think-world-has-become-corrupt-because-we-have-rejected-god.html

People are better today than before, though we have a long way to go before I would say that we are really good.

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@xris,

biscuithead175;118237 wrote:

The only thing that has gotten better is that we have been able to tolerate it more, but acceptance is a different story.

I don't think this is historically accurate. We are more accepting. We have a black president yes? 100 years ago would the democratic primary have come down to a woman and a black man?

xris;118250 wrote:

I was actually referring to the ethical problems technology gives us. As for those obics or ists you talk of, they are less damaging, but far from resolved.

Sure, when new technology comes out we have to adapt. It can create a new problem and then it takes us some time to solve it. But technology can also help solve the problems. Given that we have become ethically more advanced as we have advanced technologically, I don't see how the technological advance is a bad thing.

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@Fido,

Fido;118304 wrote:

Deal making is a form of relationship, and the problem is that when people rely on a form, like a fixed price, they forget their own power, their own ability to relate, and in the process they forget to see the other in the deal as a person...You have to be able to relate, informally, and we are losing it here...We are all form and no relationship... So; prepared to be lonely if you come here; because many people here are lonely...It is a curse they do not know how to cure...They are so used to being formal; having the form structure their relationships that they just cannot relate informally...

So you would like to change this system from setted price to deal making? I dont think that would be the solution - to bother people by forced neverending dealmaking, even while it is the thing by which were possible fact of a better relationship between them in the past. More people have to deal with themselves, more opportunity for any relationship will they have, indeed.

However I think that people will find alternative ways to get out of the "form". Problem on easiest and most effective solution is that - it will settle people early to the cycle of proved decisions, but in fact will never show any alternative way unless they will have any need to search for it. And I think that because people are searching for something to get them out of social isolation, they will find or already found some ways.

It is always wise to think about it like about problem. But I would not underestimate the will of human itself, because if you can count with that will, you can see that in most of the cases is missing just any tiny opportunity or any explanation and people just start to relate.

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The Limits of our Society

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