Ryan, Romney and the Veil of Opulence

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Re: Ryan, Romney and the Veil of Opulence

Post by mdsimpson92 » Tue Aug 14, 2012 9:27 am

fleetmouse wrote:I'll check those links tomorrow, too beat right now.Is moral eclecticism a thing? Maybe the difference principle could be tempered with a little, oh I want to say egoism, how positively wicked of me.
Don't worry, just some funny things making fun of Ayn Rand.

Maybe, on the egoism. Though I don't think the veil really works even as a hypothetical situation. It actually assumes that we are more interested in our own fates. It doesn't really take into account the possibility that we may be born into valuing someone's status, like say, a mother or father.
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Re: Ryan, Romney and the Veil of Opulence

Post by fleetmouse » Tue Aug 14, 2012 7:40 pm

runamokmonk wrote:I never understand why it is assumed that the wealthy/powerful are not socialists in their own right.

Inheritance, protected and enforced by laws, and so the state. Which accumulates and centralizes wealth, and so, power.

The ownership of capital is an assumed right. The right is supposedly the default and a large state is usually assumed to be needed to redistribute wealth. The lower classes are then in the position of being aided or given welfare. The concern always goes to them becoming unproductive and such. Never is it that, maybe the poor and lower classes don't want to just be aided or given welfare or donations.

Possibly the lower classes would prefer more autonomy, control over their local communities (if it was for real). More control and power in their work places. If the lower classes had more control over their local communities, work places, environment, they may tend to implement policies, rules, and organizations where they would not put themselves in the position of needing so much aid from those above them.

I think aid and welfare is needed because the structure and system is itself geared, and given aid, to those who own everything.

I used to be better at critiquing/describing the structure but I am not into that anymore.
Well much has been made of how the current regime privatizes profits and socializes losses, so semi-socialism applies in that case perhaps.

I saw a headline just today or yesterday about how dependence on government aid corresponds with support for the tea party - it's like dependence creates resentment. Or maybe they're just fucking morons - I recall people protesting with "keep government out of my medicare" signs. *facepalm*

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Re: Ryan, Romney and the Veil of Opulence

Post by fleetmouse » Tue Aug 14, 2012 7:48 pm

mdsimpson92 wrote:
fleetmouse wrote:I'll check those links tomorrow, too beat right now.Is moral eclecticism a thing? Maybe the difference principle could be tempered with a little, oh I want to say egoism, how positively wicked of me.
Don't worry, just some funny things making fun of Ayn Rand.
I read it just before I fell asleep and laughed out loud. Good one.
Maybe, on the egoism. Though I don't think the veil really works even as a hypothetical situation. It actually assumes that we are more interested in our own fates.
Great point! However "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" also reduces to self interest in that sense, doesn't it? ;)
It doesn't really take into account the possibility that we may be born into valuing someone's status, like say, a mother or father.
See, things like this are why I resist trying to formalize and axiomatize ethics... it's an entire culture and upbringing and set of personal experiences that informs the moral choices we make. The richer your cultural experience is in this sense, the more attachments you have, and the richer your ethical life is. And that richness doesn't reduce well to an axiomatic skeleton, which can be easily shown to be absurd. Of course it's absurd, it's been stripped, detached, alienated from everything else that lends it meaning.

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Re: Ryan, Romney and the Veil of Opulence

Post by mdsimpson92 » Tue Aug 14, 2012 11:07 pm

fleetmouse wrote:It doesn't really take into account the possibility that we may be born into valuing someone's status, like say, a mother or father.See, things like this are why I resist trying to formalize and axiomatize ethics... it's an entire culture and upbringing and set of personal experiences that informs the moral choices we make. The richer your cultural experience is in this sense, the more attachments you have, and the richer your ethical life is. And that richness doesn't reduce well to an axiomatic skeleton, which can be easily shown to be absurd. Of course it's absurd, it's been stripped, detached, alienated from everything else that lends it meaning.
That is the idea that MacIntyre and Sandel were trying to say when they were criticizing Rawls. Both seems to ground their ethics into that of relationships. MacIntyre even seems to imply that morals are somewhat relative based on cultural context at a local. This from the guy who essentially revived virtue ethics as a valid option.
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Re: Ryan, Romney and the Veil of Opulence

Post by fleetmouse » Wed Aug 15, 2012 8:26 am

Well alright, but then you can treat things like the difference principle as expressions of a greater cultural context, instead of treating them as decontextualized axioms such that we can render them absurd by showing that we can make a robot walk into a wall, so to speak, by following them slavishly.

If our culture places value on people's wellbeing irrespective of their place in the socioeconomic hierarchy, then then we ought to be concerned with the plight of the least fortunate, and that ought to be our overriding focus rather than the "plight" of the most fortunate who can by definition take care of themselves.

And getting back to being more interested in our own fates - never mind the golden rule - couldn't you reframe empathy itself as self interest? You're placing yourself in someone else's shoes, imagining how it would feel if you were her or him.

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Re: Ryan, Romney and the Veil of Opulence

Post by Metacrock » Wed Aug 15, 2012 11:12 am

mdsimpson92 wrote:
fleetmouse wrote:It doesn't really take into account the possibility that we may be born into valuing someone's status, like say, a mother or father.See, things like this are why I resist trying to formalize and axiomatize ethics... it's an entire culture and upbringing and set of personal experiences that informs the moral choices we make. The richer your cultural experience is in this sense, the more attachments you have, and the richer your ethical life is. And that richness doesn't reduce well to an axiomatic skeleton, which can be easily shown to be absurd. Of course it's absurd, it's been stripped, detached, alienated from everything else that lends it meaning.
That is the idea that MacIntyre and Sandel were trying to say when they were criticizing Rawls. Both seems to ground their ethics into that of relationships. MacIntyre even seems to imply that morals are somewhat relative based on cultural context at a local. This from the guy who essentially revived virtue ethics as a valid option.
Don't forget he rejected the conclusion that people drew from his work. He didn't think he had proved that atheist relative to the local scene.

I think values are given a local "flavor" so to speak. So what if it's beef Wellington as opposed to beef cassadeilla with Green chili? It's still beef. O shoot now I'm hungry.
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Re: Ryan, Romney and the Veil of Opulence

Post by Metacrock » Wed Aug 15, 2012 11:15 am

fleetmouse wrote:Well alright, but then you can treat things like the difference principle as expressions of a greater cultural context, instead of treating them as decontextualized axioms such that we can render them absurd by showing that we can make a robot walk into a wall, so to speak, by following them slavishly.

If our culture places value on people's wellbeing irrespective of their place in the socioeconomic hierarchy, then then we ought to be concerned with the plight of the least fortunate, and that ought to be our overriding focus rather than the "plight" of the most fortunate who can by definition take care of themselves.

And getting back to being more interested in our own fates - never mind the golden rule - couldn't you reframe empathy itself as self interest? You're placing yourself in someone else's shoes, imagining how it would feel if you were her or him.
consequential ethics would allow the holocaust or the contra war. Duty and obligation would demand that we treat the poor as we treat ourselves.
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Re: Ryan, Romney and the Veil of Opulence

Post by fleetmouse » Thu Aug 16, 2012 6:06 pm

If you believe it is your duty and obligation to carry out the holocaust then you must do so regardless of your distaste for the consequences. "I was only following orders!"

And if you think consequential ethics would allow the holocaust, you must think the holocaust has desirable consequences, which would make you one sick pup. Do you think the virtual eradication of a people is a desirable consequence, meta?

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Re: Ryan, Romney and the Veil of Opulence

Post by Metacrock » Fri Aug 17, 2012 9:46 am

fleetmouse wrote:If you believe it is your duty and obligation to carry out the holocaust then you must do so regardless of your distaste for the consequences. "I was only following orders!"

And if you think consequential ethics would allow the holocaust, you must think the holocaust has desirable consequences, which would make you one sick pup. Do you think the virtual eradication of a people is a desirable consequence, meta?
That's what a lot of people think, that it doesn't matter either way it works the same. I don't so. I think it's a lot easier to prove such things wrong with paleontological ethics than with teleological. Of course the problem there is that's sort of like using outcome to justify paleontology.

It is not the case anyone can think anything is justified merely becuase it can put into a duty-obligation format.
And if you think consequential ethics would allow the holocaust, you must think the holocaust has desirable consequences, which would make you one sick pup. Do you think the virtual eradication of a people is a desirable consequence, meta?
that argument is a non starter. think about it, one can also say "If you think it's our duty to murder six million people you are one sick pup."

The concept suggests itself in describing the horror (we are better off as a whole without this group). To those who think consequentially that as a certain appeal. Vice verse (It's out duty to eradicate bad people).

Yet the idea of persecuting a minority to help out the majority is the basis of he greatest good for the greatest number. To say that irradiating the trouble makers is the basis of duty and obligation is just negative thinking. Why assume all duties and obligations revolve around hurting some group?
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Re: Ryan, Romney and the Veil of Opulence

Post by fleetmouse » Sat Aug 18, 2012 7:34 am

You know, my point above was that any attempt to strictly codify morality is subject to reductio ad absurdum. You can do it with consequentialism, you can do it with deontology, you can do it with the veil and the difference principle. Hell, you can twist the golden rule so it's about Randian self interest. There's the letter of the law, and there's the spirit of the law - which is to say, there's a "dao that cannot be told" regarding good - an abstract sense of what goodness is that all formalizations aim for but fall short of.

I thought maybe you were playing along and ironically suggesting how consequentialism could be made absurd in that way, so I bounced the ball back at you with an example of how duty and obligation could also be reduced that way - but now I have to wonder if that's not what you're doing - if you've simply missed the point. :!: :?: :roll:

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