Sunday School

[Simon Paynton]

Autumn wrote:

Humans rationalize fairness where it doesn’t exist quite readily. While we tend to value the idea of fairness, we often do very little to ensure it exists in practice.

Then we’re rationalising something, making it seem OK, when we can’t do much about it.

What happens more likely is that someone sells us an idea of fairness which doesn’t coincide with our own interests, like when Donald Trump gave all those tax breaks to the wealthy.  Fairness comes in a lot of different varieties.

Also, you’re right – it’s quite fragile, and can easily become “what’s right for me”.  After all, it’s a tall order to ensure that other people get something at one’s own expense.  That’s why its natural home is within collaboration – the other collaborative partners have helped me on an equal basis, so this gives me an incentive to make sure they are catered for.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

@Simon – Actually, in theory, the religious moral system works well in its own way. It promotes good behavior and punishes bad behavior. 

I asked if we could leave religion aside but as you have said the above, I am forced to comment (as there is something wrong on the Internet!!)

At its foundation is the presupposition that god(s) exist. Therefore humans only need to accept the commands of their god without questioning them. You are implying that “right and wrong” are dependent on the commands of god(s) and have no wriggle room. You must be because if you are not then religious morality is based upon a false premise. Where is the greatest happiness or benefit to be found? To praise an imaginary god? I suppose if it stops your “ordinary people” from committing crimes because they have no developed sense of morality, then it is better than nothing.

I suppose too that those of us who believe we are “created” can never fully come to appreciate any advanced concept of ethical behavior. We know that religious moral system work well by looking at the evidence. It is practically self evident that after 2000 years theists keep the law of their gods at all times, love their neighbors and never harm other people in any way. Why would they even need to read other books about ethics or ponder the implications of their actions when their own book has made them all paradigms of morality?

 

[jakelafort]

Simon, promotes good behavior? Punishes bad?

That one line would be more than enough to discourage me from reading your book. It might otherwise be interesting to see how evolution might serve as a guide to morality.

As to promotes good behavior there is all kinds of shit in religious texts that is despicable. Follow the strictures strictly and poof…bad behavior. Be a mindless follower and be more subject to manipulation and given to the demands of authority as in the case of suicide bombers, executioners for religious heresy, for inquisitions, for autos da fe, for religious wars etc…

Be encouraged to black and white thinking causes nuanced thinking to be absent so that there is no exceptions for a muslim girl who gets raped. She must be murdered by her family.

And then there is the psycological aspect of fuck up in your behavior and go to church to get absolved by doing stupid shit like hail mary and confession and then go back out and fuck up again. And one could keep going on for days how off the wall and inaccurate those assertions are.

[—]

Simon Paynton wrote:

Then we’re rationalising something, making it seem OK, when we can’t do much about it.

I’d wager that is correct in many cases. A lot of it might have to do with preserving stability. Or there are other cognitive biases that probably play into it, for instance wealth we have is often rationalized as wealth we’ve earned or at least deserve even when the former may not be true in practice, and the latter is quite relative and often bordering on irrational.

What happens more likely is that someone sells us an idea of fairness which doesn’t coincide with our own interests, like when Donald Trump gave all those tax breaks to the wealthy.

In many cases we probably also don’t really need to be sold. There is a whole lot about Canadian society that I would say is far from fair. Not only far from fair, but unnecessarily and detrimentally unfair. But I grew up in it. When I was learning to survive the social dynamic I was raised in, there were many things that just felt entirely natural to me. That’s the world as I’ve always known it. But that world contains a lot of systemic unfairness, and I’m prejudiced to accept much of that unfairness as if it were simply the natural state of things.

Fairness comes in a lot of different varieties. Also, you’re right – it’s quite fragile, and can easily become “what’s right for me”. After all, it’s a tall order to ensure that other people get something at one’s own expense. That’s why its natural home is within collaboration – the other collaborative partners have helped me on an equal basis, so this gives me an incentive to make sure they are catered for.

Fairness is also difficult to define in abstraction. The very concept of it isn’t that difficult to define, but what it actually means or what its particular value is is easier to define.

As an example, fairness in sport has been a subject of debate frequently throughout my life time. Even though we can define what fairness is in general, when it comes to what aspects of sport need to be fair, whom needs to be considered, and how that’s accomplished, it becomes quite difficult, especially in those cases where they are run as for-profit entertainment industries.

[Davis]

My bibliography runs to 15 pages

That’s a whole lot of books you have read, none of which have sufficient material to cover even the basics. Very curious indeed.

[Davis]

We know that religious moral system work well by looking at the evidence.

Indeed. Since secularism is a relatively “new” thing, and all moral systems have been heavily influence by religion since civilisation began some millenia ago…I fail to see how “work well” makes sense when it was the only system around. Obviously it didn’t work that well when in only a few centuries of secularism we have seen a kinder and, at least to a slightly less obscene degree “fairer” system where the privileged majority includes a shit load more people than before and there is at least a semblance of people giving a shit about others. It didn’t work well when misery, cruelty and snail-pace progress was the name of the game.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 4 months ago by Davis.

[Reg the Fronkey Farmer]

@Simon – Nietszche’s “will to power” is quite a stinker in my opinion.

I am not sure why you would think that but would you say that his ideas on eudaimonism – in that a moral action has its value measured by its capacity to produce happiness,  was a stinker?

[jakelafort]

eudaimonism?

Hwaat? Reg is going bananas!

I aint looking it up.

[—]

It’s actually just the term for a positivity movement centred on the phrase “You da man!” At first they called it ‘youdamanism’, but it wasn’t being taken seriously, so they tried ‘eudaemonism’. The pronunciation shifted a little, but it felt more academic-ish.

[jakelafort]

Isn’t that eu word similar to another term used in philosophy that relates to happiness?

[Simon Paynton]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

would you say that his ideas on eudaimonism – in that a moral action has its value measured by its capacity to produce happiness, was a stinker?

I don’t know much about Nietzsche, but if he said that, that’s a good thing to say.

[Simon Paynton]

jakelafort wrote:

Isn’t that eu word similar to another term used in philosophy that relates to happiness?

Yes, eudaimonia, it means “long term pleasure” or “happiness” or something similar.  As opposed to hedemonia, which means fleeting pleasure.

[jakelafort]

Hedonism interrupted by pneumonia. Got it.

Thanks Simon.

[Simon Paynton]

jakelafort wrote:

promotes good behavior? Punishes bad?

I think this is true, but the question then becomes, what is good and bad behaviour?  In some societies, it seems that compassion and human rights are not the most important values.

According to John Teehan, in “Religion and Morality: The Evolution of the Cognitive Nexus”, religion arose at the same time as large societies.  In these mixed large anonymous societies, interpersonal morality was no longer enough to keep people behaving well.  So they had to invent a large-scale moral system, and hey presto, God.

The function of this large-scale moral system was to promote cooperation and prosocial behaviour, and presumably, patriarchal and hierarchical values too.  Large groups had to compete against other large groups, so religion promoted group cohesion in the struggle.

The assumption is that in small nomadic societies, there was egalitarianism, and from this, no patriarchy; this takes advantage of power structures in order to reassert itself.

[Simon Paynton]

Reg the Fronkey Farmer wrote:

I suppose if it stops your “ordinary people” from committing crimes because they have no developed sense of morality, then it is better than nothing.

I think the full range of moral repertoire is there for religious people to use, depending on their personality.  Some people favour punishment and judgment; some people favour compassion.

[Author]

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