Funny, I thought altruism was all about motivation, not results...
Well, the ethical doctrine of altruism is all about doing good things for your fellow man. The motivation doesn't matter so much.
The moral doctrine of altruism may be different. I focus on ethics and push morality off to the side.
That's interesting, this made me interested in pulling open the relevant wikipedia pages. I didn't know about the "Altruism (ethics)" as opposed to "Altruism". I'm inclined to say these two are actually different enough terms that I'd prefer there have been seperate words for them. "Good" results vs. "Good" motives are rather different things.
When I think of altruism, one of the first things that I think about is some robot experiment that was published a while back where eventually some robot "heroes" started to show up and sacrifice themselves and die off.
That's a common problem with internet discussions and words that have different yet similar meanings. Such words should have their contextual meanings clearly stated early in the discussion to avoid confusion.
Well, there's a further problem in that altruism (ethical) and altruism (moral) are in fact related concepts. I like to think of altruistic ethics as applied altruism. The ethical doctrine was a later development based on prior philosophies.
But I mean, really, from whence do altruistic motives arise? The Bible encourages altruism. The Catholic church says, "Be altruistic or go to Hell." If you're altruistic because the Bible told you, or because you want to go to Heaven, aren't those selfish motivations?
The whole of human history and philosophy has been an attempt to instill a sense of moral altruism in people. If we can't have a doctrine of some kind relating to altruism, how the hell are we supposed to practice it?
tl;dr: "Selflessness" doesn't really exist. There has to be a practical consideration at some point.
Even if you don't need outside encouragement, and do it because that's how you're raised, you're sill doing it because of fear of reprimand/disappointment from your parents on some level. Altruism doesn't exist in a void because nothing can exist in a void.
"Give the people what they want, unless it's not what I want". Good platform there, skippy.
Let's face it, if he was about giving the people what they want, he wouldn't be trying to run for President. After all, how many elections has he lost abysmally now? It's pretty clear the US public do not want Ron Paul as president, and his home state is starting to turn on him too - since he's an absentee landlord of sorts, and is far more concerned(apparently) with running for president and glad-handing conspiracy theorists and white supremacists to actually run the state that elected him.
Of course, Paul suffers the same problem that all libertarians of his type suffer - He does not and seemingly cannot consider that any intelligent or rational person would not choose the same thing as he would. He wants to give the people what they want, because he genuinely thinks that the people want exactly what he wants, apart from some Delusional sheeple/Stooges of the conspiracy. This is why he's baffled - the scenario of the public not wanting exactly what he wants and not acting exactly as he would like to think he'd act, it does not and seemingly cannot even enter his consciousness.
Libertarians don't hold a monopoly on that. It's a trait shared by many highly intelligent people. It's what you get when people with high intelligence and low to average wisdom run for office.
Libertarians don't hold a monopoly on that. It's a trait shared by many highly intelligent people. It's what you get when people with high intelligence and low to average wisdom run for office.
That's absolutely true. I added emphasis just to indicate that I don't think it's a universal problem with libertarians, only a universal problem amongst Ron Paul's style of libertarians, though I have no doubt you already figured that out.
"He does not and seemingly cannot consider that any intelligent or rational person would not choose the same thing as he would. "
The problem with libertarians is that if everything went the way they want, the entire social structure would break down so quickly that nobody would be left to chose anything different.
"He does not and seemingly cannot consider that any intelligent or rational person would not choose the same thing as he would. "
The problem with libertarians is that if everything went the way they want, the entire social structure would break down so quickly that nobody would be left to chose anything different.
I agree. It also foolishly assumes that nobody can be smarter, more cunning, more vicious, ruthless, or more clever than said Libertarian espousing these views. In reality, if the Libertarians of that sort got their way, easily 99% of them would be indentured servants to a very tiny minority within a week, if not less. Even the nice ones have this problem - They assume everyone would be nice and all happy-sharing-is-caring-peace-and-love, when in reality, they'd just get massacred by some asshole who doesn't like the competition.
Altruism doesn't exist in a void because nothing can exist in a void.
There is a slight difference between saying Altruism (moral) doesn't exist, and Altruism (moral) cannot exist. At one time I believed that Altruism couldn't exist, but the robot experiment I mentioned made me consider that it could exist, and arrise essentially randomly. It might be a "defective" trait that weeds itself out, and never really gain any noticable foothold. It's also possible that species that carry a recessive altruistic tendency are at an advantage over a species without it, in that every once in a while an individual would be born that sacrifices of itself to help its peers survive and increases the overall survival of the species even though the agent gains nothing.
If people want to dig further, I can pull up the old robots paper and attempt to explain where it took my thoughts.
One of the two right-wing parties in my country has just done a massive, massive back-flip, and changed their official party position to being in support of gay marriage rather than against. And then literally the next thing they did was to make it so that for the party it would be a conscience vote rather than a party vote - In other words, so that the politicians of the party(the vast majority of whom are against gay marriage, including the party leader and our prime minister) don't have to vote the party line, they are allowed to vote exactly how they like.
So, basically, it's not going to pass, but you can bet they're going to milk it for all the PR they can grab.
Urgh. I am so sick of the "War on Christmas" being a thing. Christmas and Christians are doing just fine. The only thing that I say is that religious Christmas decorations should not be paid for with government money. I say that kids can pray whenever they want (we had a prayer group in our school that kids organized) but that public school should not force them to or organize any religious events with school funds. Christians are not actually being discriminated against, they are just torqued that their religion and culture is not the only one acknowledged. They hate that there is an insistence on secularism in government. I argue that there has to be, as it has to serve a diverse society that has all sorts of religions and, like it or not, atheists.
We've been having the War on Christmas discussion in the office as well. The older people just can't seem to understand that it's not about excluding the majority religion (or even the majority secular celebration), but using "holidays" and keeping government neutral is about inclusion. Granted, the number of people who adhere to Judaism, Islam, and other faiths in Ohio is pretty small compared to other areas of the country. But that doesn't mean you can just let government bully-pulpit everyone into holiday conformity. Religions should talk more about mutual respect; one of the biggest problems I have with religion is that it's all about being the Chosen Sect. Once people think they have the endorsement of a deity or the cosmos, it's all heil heil heil from there.
There are some places where kids are actually not allowed to do public prayer in schools because it encourages bullying and ostracism of any child who doesn't participate. I that circumstance, the practice of religion is actively being limited. I understand both sides of the issue, but the only way to really deal with it is for society to change to a more tolerant community where you can practice whatever you choose without being bullied.
How can you stop someone from praying? How would you even know they are doing it?
It depends on how they pray. If praying includes the sign of the Cross, an obvious kneeling motion, etc., then you can tell someone is praying. However if someone is just silently speaking the words of the prayer to themselves, then yeah, it's hard to tell if they're praying or simply going over the words on this week's spelling quiz.
Matthew 6:5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
Comments
The moral doctrine of altruism may be different. I focus on ethics and push morality off to the side.
For an example I give you Hamas!
When I think of altruism, one of the first things that I think about is some robot experiment that was published a while back where eventually some robot "heroes" started to show up and sacrifice themselves and die off.
But I mean, really, from whence do altruistic motives arise? The Bible encourages altruism. The Catholic church says, "Be altruistic or go to Hell." If you're altruistic because the Bible told you, or because you want to go to Heaven, aren't those selfish motivations?
The whole of human history and philosophy has been an attempt to instill a sense of moral altruism in people. If we can't have a doctrine of some kind relating to altruism, how the hell are we supposed to practice it?
tl;dr: "Selflessness" doesn't really exist. There has to be a practical consideration at some point.
Of course, Paul suffers the same problem that all libertarians of his type suffer - He does not and seemingly cannot consider that any intelligent or rational person would not choose the same thing as he would. He wants to give the people what they want, because he genuinely thinks that the people want exactly what he wants, apart from some Delusional sheeple/Stooges of the conspiracy. This is why he's baffled - the scenario of the public not wanting exactly what he wants and not acting exactly as he would like to think he'd act, it does not and seemingly cannot even enter his consciousness.
Meanwhile, A comment from the Sheeple -
The problem with libertarians is that if everything went the way they want, the entire social structure would break down so quickly that nobody would be left to chose anything different.
If people want to dig further, I can pull up the old robots paper and attempt to explain where it took my thoughts.
One of the two right-wing parties in my country has just done a massive, massive back-flip, and changed their official party position to being in support of gay marriage rather than against. And then literally the next thing they did was to make it so that for the party it would be a conscience vote rather than a party vote - In other words, so that the politicians of the party(the vast majority of whom are against gay marriage, including the party leader and our prime minister) don't have to vote the party line, they are allowed to vote exactly how they like.
So, basically, it's not going to pass, but you can bet they're going to milk it for all the PR they can grab.
I am so sick of the "War on Christmas" being a thing. Christmas and Christians are doing just fine. The only thing that I say is that religious Christmas decorations should not be paid for with government money. I say that kids can pray whenever they want (we had a prayer group in our school that kids organized) but that public school should not force them to or organize any religious events with school funds.
Christians are not actually being discriminated against, they are just torqued that their religion and culture is not the only one acknowledged. They hate that there is an insistence on secularism in government. I argue that there has to be, as it has to serve a diverse society that has all sorts of religions and, like it or not, atheists.
And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.