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Post by LunarOrbit on Aug 22, 2008 11:33:38 GMT -4
Rape and murder are not consensual. What two consenting adults do in the privacy of their home is none of my business and I have no right to interfere.
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Aug 22, 2008 11:41:00 GMT -4
Rape and murder are not consensual. What two consenting adults do in the privacy of their home is none of my business and I have no right to interfere. The question was whether ipearse considers society's prohibition against rape and murder to be essentially an artificial construct, and therefore something "we have a problem with".
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Ian Pearse
Mars
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Post by Ian Pearse on Aug 22, 2008 13:09:28 GMT -4
Rape and murder are not consensual. What two consenting adults do in the privacy of their home is none of my business and I have no right to interfere. The question was whether ipearse considers society's prohibition against rape and murder to be essentially an artificial construct, and therefore something "we have a problem with". Hi Jason, I'm probablynot expressing myself very well here, but I'll have a go. We've evolved over countless generations, and certain behaviour traits (procreation, the urge to feed, protect family, expand territory) I think are buried pretty deeply in what they like to call our primitive brains. Centuries of change meanthat a lot of those basic drives are not so essential any more. Societies have arisen and made up rules to try and get people living in close proximity to each other to get on with the minimum of conflict. And that makes sense - if large numbers of people are going to live pretty well on top of each other there have to be rules of behaviour to make sure the whole things works well enough to ensure the maximum good for the maximum number. It will never be perfect, but we can make a good attempt. Where I see the conflict coming in is where the rules we make as a society cut across those built-in basic primeval drives. In some people, those basic drives surface in very unfortunate ways, and that's where we have our problem. Because, for example, rape is, maybe, an extreme side of the drive to procreate, it is going to be difficult to eliminate because it does have that basic drive underlying it. That does not mean, by the way, that I in any way condone such things. I'm trying to step outside the normal thinking mode and look at it from a different angle. I wish I'd done some psychology, that could prove interesting in such a discussion as this. As humans, we are a bundle of sometimes conflicting drives and emotions. As we're all individuals no solution is going to fit us all. When I used the word "artificial" earlier I meant in reference to the fact that some things we stipulate as being good or bad behaviours are rooted in our more advanced mindset, having evolved societies tooperate in. They're not based on the primitive brain underneath and that's what I mean by artificial. Reading back through this before posting I think I'm rambling terribly, but it's a difficult thing to try and put down in words in a situation like this.
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Post by Data Cable on Aug 22, 2008 14:24:11 GMT -4
In my view your biological gender does determine which gender it is morally permissible to engage in a sexual relationship with [Important part emphasized.] Which was exactly my point. Morality is not a yardstick by which one judges others' behavior (or beats them with if they step out of line), but that which one uses to guide their own. It is for exactly this reason that morality cannot be imposed, or, as the saying goes, legislated. Then to continue your random example, is it moral to like strawberries? Then is it moral to not enjoy good science fiction? There is a reason I'm asking these questions. I'm interested in what your morality says about these behaviors.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Aug 22, 2008 14:53:12 GMT -4
Where I see the conflict coming in is where the rules we make as a society cut across those built-in basic primeval drives. In some people, those basic drives surface in very unfortunate ways, and that's where we have our problem. So the problem you spoke of earlier is not a problem with society, but a problem with those who express their more primitive urges in "unfortunate" ways? So do you view conforming to "arfiticial" behaviors to be a generally good or generally bad thing? Logically, when the majority obey societal norms a given society will prosper. When the majority choses not to obey society instead, that society disintegrates back into its component parts - small groups of individuals. Which is why I feel such things can use some discussion.
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Jason
Pluto
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Post by Jason on Aug 22, 2008 15:00:09 GMT -4
Which was exactly my point. Morality is not a yardstick by which one judges others' behavior (or beats them with if they step out of line), but that which one uses to guide their own. It is for exactly this reason that morality cannot be imposed, or, as the saying goes, legislated. I would agree that one's personal moral code cannot be legislated. I'm not so sure that it can't be imposed, although I believe it shouldn't be imposed. It is moral to like strawberries if you don't like them to excess. But my example was hating a particular group of people because of their relationship to strawberries, not strawberries themselves. If anything I find good is good, then is it acceptable for me to say I hate people who like strawberries? Borderline. If the science fiction in question is good then it certainly isn't a good thing to refuse all contact with it, even if it's not necessarily a bad thing either. I may have a dim guess of where you're headed here, but I'll play along regardless.
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Ian Pearse
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Apollo (and space) enthusiast
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Post by Ian Pearse on Aug 22, 2008 16:04:26 GMT -4
Where I see the conflict coming in is where the rules we make as a society cut across those built-in basic primeval drives. In some people, those basic drives surface in very unfortunate ways, and that's where we have our problem. So the problem you spoke of earlier is not a problem with society, but a problem with those who express their more primitive urges in "unfortunate" ways? So do you view conforming to "arfiticial" behaviors to be a generally good or generally bad thing? Logically, when the majority obey societal norms a given society will prosper. When the majority choses not to obey society instead, that society disintegrates back into its component parts - small groups of individuals. Which is why I feel such things can use some discussion. Yes and no - society ends up with the problem of what to do with these people whose more basic drives come to the surface. That's not an easy matter. I agree to an extent. Societal norms could also potentially be damaging, it depends on the nature of the society in question. Cannibalism, human sacrifice, and other things we would frown on were perfectly acceptable in some societies. Whether they were good for them is debatable. It's not that black and white. I'd tend to generalise and say that rules that bring the greatest benefit to the greatest amount are probably a good idea, but it really does need looking at on a case by case basis.
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Jason
Pluto
May all your hits be crits
Posts: 5,579
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Post by Jason on Aug 22, 2008 16:13:30 GMT -4
Yes and no - society ends up with the problem of what to do with these people whose more basic drives come to the surface. That's not an easy matter. I agree. I spotted that hole in my earlier post myself. A society won't prosper if they chose societal norms that are ultimately destructive, no matter how many people obey them. So by what criteria can you argue that the rules that bring about the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people are good, while feeling that rules that bring about great benefit to a small number while being detrimental to the majority are bad?
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Ian Pearse
Mars
Apollo (and space) enthusiast
Posts: 308
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Post by Ian Pearse on Aug 22, 2008 16:36:34 GMT -4
Yes and no - society ends up with the problem of what to do with these people whose more basic drives come to the surface. That's not an easy matter. I agree. I spotted that hole in my earlier post myself. A society won't prosper if they chose societal norms that are ultimately destructive, no matter how many people obey them. So by what criteria can you argue that the rules that bring about the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people are good, while feeling that rules that bring about great benefit to a small number while being detrimental to the majority are bad? Criteria - that's a toughie. How do you define what's good for the majority? Will they agree with you? Individual happiness and individual freedoms are the sort of yardsticks we use, but how much can you allow while maintaining the functioning of society as a whole?
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