These aren't rights per se. They're concepts that many subscribe to, and if enough citizens in a 'democracy' vote to have, and to sustain them, then....that will be that. A right only exists when at least two people agree that the right applies to at least one of the two, but usually to both of them, and then only if they are willing to defend their rights to the extent of their deaths. IOW, I see rights as 'interests'. People conflict over interests such as resources, energy, choice of mates, and the like.

So, all the rights listed are not really rights, they're agreements between at least two people who agree that they should have what the 'rights' proffer. They're expressions of want, often of need, but there is nothing in nature that suggests humans should have these rights any more than any of the flora and fauna do.

Governments ought to do what their citizens want them to do. If that is to secure rights, then the government should do that. If that is to go to war, then so be it. If the government is intended by its voters to provide education, free or not-so-free, then they should do that. If the government must take revenue to provide services, and since they can't tax the Russians or the English, they'll tax you. However, governments have a way of accruing power, mostly through the control of armies, natural resources, legislation, and taxes. They naturally grow because their citizens keep asking them to do more for the sake of personal 'rights' and security, which usually means that the government needs more information, not only about nefarious individuals but also about you. This is often a mistake because eventually the government begins to tell you what is and isn't yours to do, to acquire, and to sustain.

Remember, the government is for you, and should do what you want it to do. Nowadays, it's the other way around. Governments sustain themselves more than they sustain, champion, or build up the individuals they govern.

It all seems entirely arbitrary to me. Some say that the problem is pain...or suffering that might be inflicted. A properly killed animal or plant won't feel pain. So, that argument is easily dismissed.

We can only guess that animals suffer at other points the way we manage them or raise them. It would be simple to measure levels of cortisol to see if there's a significant increase in stress between those sampled from wild populations and those raised in barns or pens. I would like to know the results of some reasonably sound empirical studies. Haven't bothered to look.

I think it's speciesist to prefer to eat plants simply because they don't have deep brown eyes, make noises, have fur we enjoy stroking, and/or flick tails. Do we eat plants with indifference only because they don't scream when we harvest them?

The idea behind the Golden Rule is to encourage empathetic reasoning. Put yourself in the shoes of another and ask yourself if what you intend is something you would like in the same circumstances. Would you like aggression, indifference, dismissal, and/or vituperation? Or, would you like at the very least some clucking and expressions of dis-ease over your plight if not something more structural and constructive?

It is a way of orienting yourself to events outside of the space between your ears. Nobody is compelled to act the way it suggests one should, but one shouldn't complain if he/she finds herself the subject of unwelcome, or at best indifferent, behaviours in similar circumstances.

IOW, you will most likely, never assuredly, get out of life what you put into it.

You're straw manning the argument. You have introduced sovereignty, rape, torture. These are naturally widely understood as unjust, but they needn't be appended solely to wars.

BTW, I spend 30 years as an officer practicing and studying war professionally. Later, I did graduate work in conflict analysis and management. Later still, I taught a professional development course for junior officers at the 400 level that was titled 'Leadership and Ethics'. Very little of my learning was gleaned from movies.

I see that if one side aggresses, a war can be unjust, but not all wars are unjust.

A defender of sovereignty, or of any other principle, law, or custom, deemed universal or not by either side or by onlookers, enters a just war if they enter it at all. The initiator of hostilities can be just, as would have been the case when, and if, the North had fired from Fort Sumpter, and not been the recipient of the first shots. It would have been a tactical error to have done so, but that's another matter. IOW, an aggressor is not de facto wrong.

"There is no just war....diplomacy failed...etc."

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic reasoning that feels nothing is worth a war is worse. A man who thinks there is nothing worth fighting for, or who cares about nothing more than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who can never be free unless made, and kept so, by the exertions of better men than himself." - J.S. Mill

To me, even when diplomacy fails, every living human has the right to defend himself against harm, right or wrong. It would be silly to enact a law of any kind that a person who thinks he is in the right must still cast aside his defense and submit to someone else intent upon imposing his/her will on them whom he thinks is wrong so that the aim of a warless society can be sustained or achieved.

Further, to me yet again, it is a moral duty to prevail when you feel justified values, principles, or laws exist without which you would rather die. The honest and inevitable outcome if I am wrong is that nobody should ever defend those things, even when every other living creature agrees that you are in the right on the matter of division. If there is such a thing as a God, and that entity insists that you are correctly oriented to a matter of division with another, you must submit and at worst do nothing to prevail against the forces opposite because somehow the war you contemplate is unjust. I can't see the logic.

The maxim, as you state it, is consequentialist in nature, so I don't think Kant would be happy with its formulation.

Reread what you posted. Isn't there a purpose stated, and isn't that purpose a result of an act? Where does Kant write that this is the orientation one should take to one's permissible acts?

If your synopsis of the paper's author (dogherty) is that we want to save as many lives as possible, it's still consequentialist because of the stated goal. Remember, in Kantian ethics, the only goal is to do the right thing. Here, it's clearly stated that the purpose of any act is to X, Y, or N n-1 outcome(s).

I agree with you on the problem of the hedonic calculus, which is essentially teleological and the 'numbers game', in deciding which, if one is to chose from more than one other potential beneficiary, is to receive limited lifesaving resources. It too often leads to the tyranny of the masses where a minority, even just of one, must suffer for the benefit of a greater number.

A moral action...

"..supposedly makes the actor feel good and happy."

Not necessarily, so I am unprepared to accept this initial premise. The trolley dilemma should make that clear.

"...one that most people approve of." Again, not demonstrably correct. They may claim to approve of an act when polled, but as we both know, what one says and what one does when nobody is looking isn't necessarily moral....or ethical.

"...is a heroic act." People are automatically heroes for acting within a defined set of moral principles? Then we're all heroes.

Generally, you appear to be stuck in the teleological paradigm where you adhere to the mostest, the happiest, and other 'est' endings with which we are so familiar.

I could go on, but I stopped reading. Maybe that's what happened with all those publishers.

I know it's motherhood, but in the final analysis pragmatism is merely teleological reasoning. It has its appeal, and it has its uses. Whether-or-not it is principled in application in all cases is what we need to determine, and even that is murky business.

It makes it easier when you remove the fetus from the values set. We have done that in the 'progressive' west. If we restore the value of the fetus, now we're treading water with great depths below us, and who knows what's down there looking up?

If we reduce the value of 'free will' to zero, as some insist we should, then we must also destroy the apparent intrinsic value of altruism. And, few would agree that abortion is altruistic..........right? It could be, maybe even in a heavy majority of cases arguably, but not always.

"...If all money was spent solely on maintenance of fundamental human rights/ survival how would the government generate the same revenue that it does at the height of affluent capitalism?"

What money? What you can't grow you must mine. If nobody makes some kind of profit, there's nothing left for wages. No wages, no money. No money, you must barter your time, talents, and treasures.

If there is no such thing as free will, can there be any such thing as altruism?

"...some say that killing is wrong because you shouldn't kill other people."

Petitio principii.

Lying to someone IS cheating them. You are cheating them from the truth, which every person has a right to expect from you. To do otherwise is dissembling. If my wife were to learn that I had lied to her, no matter how lily white the lie, about an article of clothing after which she lusts, and I had told her that it looked good on her when I felt otherwise, she would be hurt by my deceit. More than that, it would damage our marriage because she would learn that I will lie to her when faced with some tension, discomfort, or desire to spare her from the truth.

Logic is learned behaviour, and therefore leans heavily on experience.

An infant's brain learns that, with certain learned movements, it can bring things to its mouth. Later, the logic goes:

"I'm want to eat."

"I can eat what I bring to my mouth."

"I must bring this object to my mouth."

From there, other learning experiences teach the brain about similar situations, and from there are derived empirical formulations about eating. This applies to winning and retaining friends, driving a vehicle, shopping, finding an interesting book to read, passing time when bored, solving riddles, doing crosswords, etc.

I 'cultivate' myself with every decision I make and with every interchange with others. I'm always trying to advance my desires, be they simple reductions of tension or dissonance, or be they attempts to place myself before the needs and interests of others. As I define 'myself', I do what I think best to retain that 'self-image'. In-so-doing, I cultivate myself. Even when I behave what I deem to be altruistically, which Sam Harris would insist can never be the case (he says there's no such thing as free will), I am trying to cultivate some defined aspect of my self.

Would 9/10 rapees also enjoy being on the receiving end of the gang-rapers' beneficence? If you can make a good case that they might, or ought, or do, then you have something in the proposition. What would 'rules' utilitarianism have to say about this?

"... what purpose can Stoic apatheia or indifference serve nowadays?..."

Discernment. It is one of the hallmarks of maturity and wisdom. Think, "Pick your battles."

"I don't like any of Spinoza's works. He is not a philosopher or thinker to trust about"

Russell, himself, mentioned Spinoza specifically, opining that Spinoza was among the most human of philosophers. You can find that statement in 'A History of Western Philosophy" by Russell.

Ethics, Discovering Right And Wrong; Pojman L.P. & Fiesler J. (Wadsworth CENGAGE Learning), any late edition. It's a very good introduction to the subject.

Only insofar as deciding whether-or-not to accept the advice. But turning the discussion to the person's qualities, and making them the matter of concern over your need for a decision, makes it an ad hominem. A star is still a star, and a salve a salve, but there are varieties that make the distinctions important for decision-making. The credentials of the person stating them is irrelevant to the discussion when it comes to argumentation. That is why we seek out expertise in janitors when it comes to cleaning, not when it comes to healthcare matters. But what is important here about ad hominem statements is that the janitor need not be wrong...just unqualified.

Yes, it is an ad hominem. The patient has no recourse except to call the person offering his opinion an idiot. He has not addressed the matter of importance and relevance, that being the suggestion to prick it like a boil, to rub bag balm on it, to make a baking soda paste and apply it as a poultice, and so on...

What would take this discussion '[from] the man' and keep it on matters of relevance would have been:

"Bag balm and the other suggestions seem to me drastic, an are not indicated in any medical advice I have received to date. Why do you suggest these remedies?"

"I dunno, I'm just a janitor, and an idiot.'

'Well, on that we can agree.' No ad hominem.

An ad hominem is a pollutant to civil discourse because it attempts to make the winning point on the basis of some attribute or supposed defect/deficiency of the person opposite, and not on the veridicality of the facts in question or of the subsequent conclusion's rationality. Had the argument or discussion been about the person, one could argue thusly, but if the argument is about a defined fact, series of facts, or a conclusion derived therefrom (i.e. an opinion), making reference to a characteristic of a quality of the person uttering it is irrelevant.

"The world is an oblate spheroid in shape."

"Are you a physicist, a geologist, a planetary scientist, an astronmer....any of those?"

"Nope. I'm a janitor, and barely passed Grade 10 decades ago."

"You're an idiot. You're uneducated, yet you have the effrontery to make claims about things you can't understand and for which you possess no formal credentials."

"All true. I'm dull, anti-intellectual, and I'm both old and ugly. Now, back to my assertion...."

I thought it would be understood from what I wrote. "Paired". No inference of primacy or prima causa.

Neither exists unless the two are paired. Pragmatism is an orientation to 'least cost/harm/chaos/other undesired outcome/condition" while still accomplishing one's ultimate objective. IOW, a pragmatist desires predictability, stability, reliability, and an end-state that is conducive to repeated trials to determine variance in outcomes. Think 'engineering'.

Uuuhhhh……………………………………………………………………………...yeah.

And THAT makes eating them more ethical? LOL!

Vegans take comfort in their choices because they haven't met a plant that can object to their actions.

In any case, why should pain be the determinant of the ethics of one's use of another's tissues? Isn't it the use that should be questioned, and not the outcomes? How about consent in principle? Would animals object to our killing them for food and leather if they could do so in a way we can appreciate? Is it that because plants don't appear to object that we can safely infer they are edible ethically? If the latter, then one must subscribe to a teleological orientation to such things and not to a deontic approach.

The only way to understand one's own limitations on a topic is to hear what others say about it. In that respect, there should never be censorship, but only the absolute freedom to say.....and to hear what others feel compelled to utter in order to be understood.

Someone so damaged, or wanting, that he/she is essentially incapable of empathy, or placing himself in another's shoes, will never be able to link retributive justice, let alone 'retribution' in general however meted out, to the wrongness of his action(s). Or, if you question what 'wrongness' is, the effects on the 'victim' or subject objecting to, and not giving his/consent in principle to, being the object of the acts.

So, prisons only serve to keep those who are so disposed as to impose their will in antisocial ways when given an opportunity from continuing to do that. In a way, it's ethical for the future victims, but also best for the perpetrator because it prevents him/her from continuing to act that way and possibly from incurring personal harm. Of course, prisons aren't nice resorts, and offer their own risks to the 'residents'. I think prison reform is necessary. Mandatory education, even if just in tin smithing, should be included. Then, only the truly intractable thereafter can be culled and placed in an institution with the culture and conditions with which they would be most comfortable. Those more salvageable, more motivated to alter their futures, could find themselves in an environment much more conducive to their development and interests.

Just like the muddied climate 'science' with all its contradictory interpretations by obviously studied and well-intentioned people, this topic is going to go unsettled for a long time.

In the end, Julius Caesar said it best: Fere libenter homines id quod volunt credunt.

"People gladly believe what they wish to."

My own version of that is this: Belief is convenient.

You should hope so. I, however, labour under no such obligation.

If I say the colour green is the best, you can disagree, but you must be prepared to persuade me that your choice is actually the better of the two. This places the matter into an arena where the spectacle bringeth its charms, such as they are, to two unique and separate entities who are not likely to always form the same opinions, perspective, value judgements, etc on any one topic of their mutually agreed choosing.

Subjective assessments are the purview of the minds that beget them. Since all things are fluid in time, and since no two (commenting) observers are likely to have witnessed the events at the same time and from the same place, not to mention with the same learning already between their ears, their assessments will almost surely differ. It is learning, or experience, that forms one biases and preferences. The difference between 'taste' and preferences must be like picking fly s..t out of the pepper. Our tastes are mutable; almost all of us change in time (remember that fluid part?), and these reflect old experiences overlaid by the newest.

Green is the best colour….for me. It needn't be your best colour because I don't require you to agree with my preference any more than I would rationally require you to choose the same automobile, or even its colour, or the same hat. Besides, if I can't have that green hat, then it might go to you. and that would be an unhappy development. No, it should be my green hat because green hats are the best. Don't you agree?

To me, this topic centres on anthropocentrism and arbitrariness. Who died and was made the Chief Virtues Selector who then decided that pain was the determinant of moral thinking and acts? Why don't we prefer to manage our morals around warm wet black and brown eyes, such as those on koalas? Or wagging tails? Bats' ears? Cat tails? Anything fuzzier to the feel than the iceberg lettuce mentioned? Or green? How about something that actually gestates its offspring? Seeds simply don't cut it.


If a plant were asked, would it consent in principle to being plucked, shredded, and then masticated, even boiled or parched first? How do you know? Maybe an unheard scream is all they can manage.

Extr A vert...not extr O vert. In keeping with extraneous, extraordinary...


To Mattiesse, you might find some use in the following information:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/223096839_Assessing_the_Predictive_Validity_of_Emotional_Intelligence

I am certain that the future will unravel as it will. How it will unravel is what is uncertain.

It's abstruse without some context. I say this because the final phrase is an apparently unrelated thought, something unlikely for W, and which I doubt he intended to be dangled as it appears...without the context shown here.

"..... it's making my brain hurt like hell!"

Yeah? Just wait until you get to probability theory. You'll find logic rather tame by then. :cool:

Intelligence is defined as the ability to adapt to one's circumstances, or to one's environment. This would include observational intelligence, memory, adaptability, speed of learning, problem-solving, use of language/linguistic ability, and so on. Clearly we don't all perform the same on tests designed to measure how each of us does on a scale of possible scores on the test, one that is supposedly normed for the population of the persons taking the test and its inevitable variants.
(A properly designed test has gone through rigorous 'item analysis' to ensure each question/problem measures what it purports to measure and that it discriminates between various levels of what it measures. Additionally, it has at least two 'equivalent forms' of the test, usually by randomly assigning items that have been validated to either of the forms).

It was determined decades ago that IQ tests, per se, have inherent biases in them if they are not normed for the population from which the subject comes. Cultural and educational experiences, for example, or rather their paucity, can have an adverse effect on the subject's scores, and if the scores are used for 'selection' processes, say intake to universities or to government positions, you can appreciate that neither the institution nor the subject's interests will have been well served. Obviously, there are ethical problems with deselecting people whose achievement on the test falls short of a selection cut-off criterion, and you could see that even administering it would be unethical for the possible psychological outcomes one would incur when being informed of the unsatisfactory results.

Does an average score (by definition, a score falling inside of the boundaries of one standard deviation on either side of the mean score for the test in question, with the standard scores normed properly) mean non-extraordinary performance in academia or in the workplace? Not at all. A score derived on any one day is merely a guesstimate. Its counterpart generated a week later might be somewhat different, poorer or better. If better, there's the problem of the 'test-retest effect' where people learn to do the test with each exposure to it...or its variants. There is also a phenomenon known as the 'Flynn' effect, which I won't go on to discuss; you can google it. But it means such tests must be revalidated every decade or so.

Are mental illness and intelligence correlated? Yes, often. Are they causally correlated? Not by a long shot.

The western militaries have done a great deal of research on these selection tests and have successfully defended numerous legal challenges to them. In the case of the Canadian Armed Forces, the GC and later tests were tests of learning ability. That is, how quickly can the person learn so as to succeed (and not fail) to master the material he/she must learn and not waste a valuable seat on the few courses we can afford to run each year on the topic? It turns out that for many occupations a score in the 'below average' range, or two standard deviations below the mean, is sufficient to grant a place to recruits. Of course, we don't rely solely on the GC or its modern variants. Educational background, work experience, references, and the person's appreciation of what he/she seeks in the way of work are all important. The latter speaks to motivation, another exceedingly important factor in predicting success. Has she bothered to meet with and interview people doing that work? Does she know how long the course is, and what topics she'll have to learn? Does she know where she could be employed? For example, if she wants to be trained and employed as a fire fighter, how does she feel about being deployed at sea for between six months to a year? Canadian frigates and destroyers have marine helicopters, and they need to be able to put out aircraft fires...and ship's fires.


I'll stop, but I hope you understand that there's much more to the simple IQ score, and its means of measurement and its utility in selection, than might meet the eye.

"..Yes. An act must be judged moral or immoral by its consequences, not by universal tropes like 'lying is wrong'..."

Was that not you?