We lack the ability to foresee all the ripples; and the more ripples we presume to see, the worse our actions will probably become. We will be willing to commit deeds with bad, even atrocious, immediate consequences in hopes of realizing some distant greater good.
What about the immediate, obvious effects? Are we permitted to presume about those?
I would say, do what is good for its own sake, avoid evil, and let the consequences sort themselves out. (And in the example you provided, I would say that questing after "dangerous amphetamines and opiates" ought not be done, not out of consideration of drug cartels, etc., but because it is intrinsically wrong. It is wrong insofar as it is not necessary either for survival or for authentic pleasure; and it can do no better than to slowly degrade the mind and body, consequently degrading relationships, and quite possibly leading to an early grave.)
That sense of self-preservation is simply a nuisance.
My friends and I, over the course of our unending quest for dangerous amphetamines and opiates, occasionally come across a naysayer. Usually we shrug them off and tell them that we're only hurting ourselves, so it is no business of theirs. This generally silences the naysayer. Today, though, while hunting for various substances of dubious legality, a drug-free friend added a twist to our usual argument. He reminded me that in buying these things, I am supporting violent drug cartels that have wreaked havoc on the people of South America, to say nothing of the street gangs, organized crime families, and petty criminals that flourish in the drug trade. He said that in buying drugs, we participate in and help perpetuate the violence and crime that result from the demand.
Now, setting this aside for a moment, I want to look at the bigger issue: to what extent are we morally responsible for the larger, indirect effects of our actions? Is the pebble to blame for the largest ring? Clearly the ripples are causally connected to the small rock, but the rock simply started the process. Is that a morally acceptable point of view?
That's an interesting claim. Certainly, much of science does benefit humanity, but ought we to determine the relative merits of a research project by how well it fits this criterion?
Also, the actual benefits may not be immediately obvious. I don't think that the pioneering evolutionary biologists understood just how much of an effect the field would have on medicine, for instance. The study of animals may not seem all that beneficial at first, but that has also greatly benefited us. (Pig's insulin was originally used to treat diabetes, for instance.) I don't know what immediate advantages there are to understanding the link between genetics, race, and intelligence, but our shortsightedness ought not to be a contributing factor in determining whether science should proceed.
In all the examples you cited, they weren't criticized for being "un-PC," they were criticized for using junk science to push an ideology. If they were using better science, there would have been no controversey.
Let's be accurate here. In the first example, Mr. Summers was not using science at all: he was making a suggestion for further research. For that he was criticized, not for using "junk science."
I cannot claim to know whether Dr. Watson's science was strong or not--I am not a scientist--but much of the criticism came, not from scientists, but from activists. I doubt (though I may be wrong) that activist spokespeople understand science well enough to make those judgments.
I mean, he's getting on in years, and god knows my grandparents can be shockingly racist at times, but that doesn't mean that he gets a free pass. And yet a bunch of people actually tried to defend him from the "PC Police."
That's another unfortunate trend recently. The new derogatory status of "PC" allows idiots from all over to make a wildly misinformed claim and then silence criticism by laughing it off as "feel-good PC nonsense."
I've noticed a disturbing trend over the past several years, an effort in the media and in activist circles to silence researchers who study or argue politically sensitive topics. Any studies related to race, sex, or sexuality that might produce unkind results are immediately criticized, usually by people who lack any formal training in the field. A couple for-instances;
-In 2005, Larry Summers, President of Harvard University, delivers a speech at a conference in which he suggests that perhaps there are biological reasons to explain why few women still opt to join the mathematics or science departments at major universities. He suggested that there might be an innate difference between men and women. He said that more research ought to be done. The controversy that followed forced Mr. Summers to resign as President.
-In October 2007, Dr. James Watson came under heavy criticism after asserting that Africans were less intelligent than Westerners. "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so." His comments immediately were criticized as racist and misinformed.
I am not, in citing these examples, suggesting that either men were correct. I am not qualified to make that judgment. I point them out because in both cases the conclusions they came to were assumed to be simply false. They are not even worth considering, and the act of suggesting that the accepted wisdom may be wrong is enough to be labeled racist or sexist.
A few questions;
1) Should research projects that have the potential to come to an unsavory conclusion be allowed to proceed?
2) Should it be considered "insensitive" to make a scientific argument? Should scientists be more socially aware of the impact their studies may have?
I didn't watch the whole thing---I've heard plenty of the 9/11 and Federal Reserve theories to last me a while---but I did watch the first part, and I'd like to note that it is, at least in part, horribly researched, mostly in its understanding of the various pantheons. For instance, Dionysus was not born on December 25th, nor of a virgin, nor was he viewed as a Savior God. The film makers try to place every ancient god into this Christ model, and they do so by either being blatantly dishonest (as with Dionysus), or by twisting facts, like with Mithras, who they claim was born of a virgin. He was, in fact, born of a rock, which I suppose might count, but the terminology twists the thing.
If they can't even bother to get their mythology right, I don't know why one should trust the rest of the film.
1) Justice exists, and it is some set of standards that humans can discover, yet it is independent of human opinion.
This is the only claim that I reject; admittedly this is to my advantage, because if it is accurate than the logic follows nicely. That said, I reject it on the grounds that, Plato aside, concepts cannot be said to exist in any fundamental, independent manner. They are human creations, and are therefore subject to human interpretation and (in some cases) degradation.
Er.... What? Are you really dismissing wright as someone with a "few disagreeable positions?" He hates the country, and he has made more than a few statements about how evil we are in a way that far oversteps disagreeing with the current administration. Being insane -does- disqualify someone from any merit.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but are you insinuating that hatred for America makes one insane? And at any rate, if he is, as reports seem to indicate, an otherwise caring, loving, intelligent, charitable man, then yes, I would say that his political beliefs are relatively insignificant.
I also reject your last statement. To use a now-popular example, John Nash. He was insane. You would be unlikely to find many who would argue that he is without merit because of this.
Obama himself has said that Wright is his friend, spiritual adviser, and political adviser. If someone's political adviser is saying the kind of racist, anti-American rubbish that Wright is spewing, then I don't want that person elected to any significant office.
1) Wright is no longer his political adviser, evidently. At any rate, he is no longer formally connected with the campaign.
2) A handful of offensive statements does not disqualify the man as an adviser. Obama, quite obviously I think, only brought him into the campaign in the first place because he had some value, despite some of his more extreme opinions.
People are judged by the company they keep. Wright, who performed Obama's marriage and baptized both his children, is more than just Obama's preacher, and Obama is now being judged by his association with such a lunatic.
That is absurd. Again, a few disagreeable positions does not strip an individual of all merit. I have a friend who has only one notable fault: he is wildly anti-Semitic. Nevertheless, he is honest, caring, and a damn good friend. I do not disown him simply because I disagree with him on one issue. I suspect most of us have friends like this, and that does not change when one becomes a politician.
In the Republic, one of Socrates' first interlocutors makes the following argument about the nature of justice:
[You] fancy that the shepherd or cowherd fattens or tends the sheep or oxen with a view to their own good and not to the good of himself or his master; and you further imagine that the rulers of States, if they are true rulers, never think of their subjects as sheep, and that they are not studying to their own advantage day and night. Oh, no; and so entirely astray are you in your ideas about the just and unjust as not even to know that justice and the just are in reality another's good; that is to say, the interest of the ruler and the stronger. [...] For the unjust is lord over the truly simple and just: he is stronger , and his subjects do what is for his interest, and minister to his happiness, which is very far from being their own.
In short; he is arguing that justice is a tool of the strong to subdue the weak, and that the just are simple, charming folk who do the bidding of the unjust. This, argues Thrasymachus, is how it ought to be.
Socrates attempts to refute this, but fails to logically do so. (Perhaps intentionally; he could be a bit of an ass.) Thrasymachus nevertheless concedes the point. But is he wrong?
Nietzsche is good fun, and a delight to read. As far as philosophers go, though, he'd fall pretty low on my list. What he had to say, once you get past the florid prose, was iconoclastic and daring and such, but not especially interesting.
I do like his music, though. It's not excellent, but it's pretty good for what it is.
The reason she is so despised and maligned by the intellectuals is that objectivism runs contrary to the establishment that intellectuals serve. Whoever pays the piper calls the tune.
That's not entirely true, though. Robert Nozick, for instance, sympathized with her conclusions but felt that her arguments did not justify them. Many dislike her for her apparent ignorance of most Western philosophy; the little that she does acknowledge she attacks rather than critiques. Some, I suppose, just distrust the whole Objectivist movement, with its cult-like refusal to even talk to groups they disagree with. (The Libertarians, for instance.)
Well, feel free to show me the laws that show that. I've been searching for awhile and I can't seem to find the actual laws, except one in montana... but there someone commits assault if they cause bodily injury to another (regardless of self-defence).
I wouldn't imagine there are laws defining these situations in every state; however, it seems that most states take the position that if a minor is injured in an act of reasonable self-defense, then normal self-defense laws apply. The key word here, of course, is "reasonable". A ten year old kicking his father does not warrant physical recourse.
Incidentally, what is the purpose of this tangent?
What about the immediate, obvious effects? Are we permitted to presume about those?
That sense of self-preservation is simply a nuisance.
Now, setting this aside for a moment, I want to look at the bigger issue: to what extent are we morally responsible for the larger, indirect effects of our actions? Is the pebble to blame for the largest ring? Clearly the ripples are causally connected to the small rock, but the rock simply started the process. Is that a morally acceptable point of view?
I don't know. I'd like to find out.
That's an interesting claim. Certainly, much of science does benefit humanity, but ought we to determine the relative merits of a research project by how well it fits this criterion?
Also, the actual benefits may not be immediately obvious. I don't think that the pioneering evolutionary biologists understood just how much of an effect the field would have on medicine, for instance. The study of animals may not seem all that beneficial at first, but that has also greatly benefited us. (Pig's insulin was originally used to treat diabetes, for instance.) I don't know what immediate advantages there are to understanding the link between genetics, race, and intelligence, but our shortsightedness ought not to be a contributing factor in determining whether science should proceed.
Probably.
Let's be accurate here. In the first example, Mr. Summers was not using science at all: he was making a suggestion for further research. For that he was criticized, not for using "junk science."
I cannot claim to know whether Dr. Watson's science was strong or not--I am not a scientist--but much of the criticism came, not from scientists, but from activists. I doubt (though I may be wrong) that activist spokespeople understand science well enough to make those judgments.
That's another unfortunate trend recently. The new derogatory status of "PC" allows idiots from all over to make a wildly misinformed claim and then silence criticism by laughing it off as "feel-good PC nonsense."
-In 2005, Larry Summers, President of Harvard University, delivers a speech at a conference in which he suggests that perhaps there are biological reasons to explain why few women still opt to join the mathematics or science departments at major universities. He suggested that there might be an innate difference between men and women. He said that more research ought to be done. The controversy that followed forced Mr. Summers to resign as President.
-In October 2007, Dr. James Watson came under heavy criticism after asserting that Africans were less intelligent than Westerners. "There is no firm reason to anticipate that the intellectual capacities of peoples geographically separated in their evolution should prove to have evolved identically. Our wanting to reserve equal powers of reason as some universal heritage of humanity will not be enough to make it so." His comments immediately were criticized as racist and misinformed.
I am not, in citing these examples, suggesting that either men were correct. I am not qualified to make that judgment. I point them out because in both cases the conclusions they came to were assumed to be simply false. They are not even worth considering, and the act of suggesting that the accepted wisdom may be wrong is enough to be labeled racist or sexist.
A few questions;
1) Should research projects that have the potential to come to an unsavory conclusion be allowed to proceed?
2) Should it be considered "insensitive" to make a scientific argument? Should scientists be more socially aware of the impact their studies may have?
If they can't even bother to get their mythology right, I don't know why one should trust the rest of the film.
This is the only claim that I reject; admittedly this is to my advantage, because if it is accurate than the logic follows nicely. That said, I reject it on the grounds that, Plato aside, concepts cannot be said to exist in any fundamental, independent manner. They are human creations, and are therefore subject to human interpretation and (in some cases) degradation.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but are you insinuating that hatred for America makes one insane? And at any rate, if he is, as reports seem to indicate, an otherwise caring, loving, intelligent, charitable man, then yes, I would say that his political beliefs are relatively insignificant.
I also reject your last statement. To use a now-popular example, John Nash. He was insane. You would be unlikely to find many who would argue that he is without merit because of this.
1) Wright is no longer his political adviser, evidently. At any rate, he is no longer formally connected with the campaign.
2) A handful of offensive statements does not disqualify the man as an adviser. Obama, quite obviously I think, only brought him into the campaign in the first place because he had some value, despite some of his more extreme opinions.
That is absurd. Again, a few disagreeable positions does not strip an individual of all merit. I have a friend who has only one notable fault: he is wildly anti-Semitic. Nevertheless, he is honest, caring, and a damn good friend. I do not disown him simply because I disagree with him on one issue. I suspect most of us have friends like this, and that does not change when one becomes a politician.
In short; he is arguing that justice is a tool of the strong to subdue the weak, and that the just are simple, charming folk who do the bidding of the unjust. This, argues Thrasymachus, is how it ought to be.
Socrates attempts to refute this, but fails to logically do so. (Perhaps intentionally; he could be a bit of an ass.) Thrasymachus nevertheless concedes the point. But is he wrong?
I do like his music, though. It's not excellent, but it's pretty good for what it is.
That's not entirely true, though. Robert Nozick, for instance, sympathized with her conclusions but felt that her arguments did not justify them. Many dislike her for her apparent ignorance of most Western philosophy; the little that she does acknowledge she attacks rather than critiques. Some, I suppose, just distrust the whole Objectivist movement, with its cult-like refusal to even talk to groups they disagree with. (The Libertarians, for instance.)
I wouldn't imagine there are laws defining these situations in every state; however, it seems that most states take the position that if a minor is injured in an act of reasonable self-defense, then normal self-defense laws apply. The key word here, of course, is "reasonable". A ten year old kicking his father does not warrant physical recourse.
Incidentally, what is the purpose of this tangent?