Fun Stuff > BAND
Folk Music and the Environment
Jackie Blue:
Thanks, Kid and pack, because I was getting really tired of these ridiuclous examples.
The abortion one has been addressed well enough, especially given that it is reductio ad absurdum, and that's being kind.
The "murderer" situation is reducable to one simple axiom: The Golden Rule works both ways.
The murderer is saying "I will do unto others whatever I want without regard to their feelings". Thus, according to the Golden Rule, it is okay to do unto him whatever you want without regard to his feelings.
In other words: "Do unto others" (murder them) "as you would have them do unto you" (get murdered, you fuck).
supersheep:
Ah, good old consequentialism! How I have missed you (not really.) The problem with consequentialism (and utilitarianism, which is just a form of consequentialism) is that it places too much of a burden on the individual actor, because they're supposed to consider all the implications of possible actions for every action, which is just absurd - expecting someone to sit down and work out which of many possible actions would be the most beneficial would be paralyzing, even if it were possible to calculate an arithmetic of happiness.
My approach to this is basically a combination of rule-following and satisficing behaviour - basically, most of the time, act in accordance to the general rule, only breaking it where necessary, and strive to ensure happiness, but not necessarily maximise it. If you're following the golden rule, only break it in extreme circumstances, and if you have to do, do so in a manner that increases happiness by the optimal amount you can afford to, rather than the maximum you can. (Maximising happiness would require you, for example, to forswear all material goods over and above those necessary for survival, because of diminishing marginal utility.)
Jackie Blue:
--- Quote from: supersheep on 28 Jan 2008, 05:06 ---If you're following the golden rule, only break it in extreme circumstances, and if you have to do, do so in a manner that increases happiness by the optimal amount you can afford to, rather than the maximum you can.
--- End quote ---
I think that those of us arguing in favor of the Golden Rule are the ones agreeing with this statement, and the people trying to find holes in the Golden Rule are the ones who are attempting to assert that one should somehow magically take into account every possible piece of data in the equation.
John Curtin:
I think we've misunderstood my intent somehow, even though I've tried to make it pretty clear throughout the discussion that I'm not saying the golden rule sucks and should be ridiculed and abandoned; rather I have been merely trying to show how it's not perfect and doesn't work in every situation. The abortion example isn't reductio ad absurdum because, firstly, I'm not at all trying to say that because it doesn't work in that situation it never works (which would be a fallacy; I've not used any fallacy since I've not made any conclusion beyond 'the golden rule isn't useful in this particular situation'), and secondly, it's not an absurd example since it's a fairly everyday kind of situation that many people find themselves in.
Jackie Blue:
The abortion example is reductio ad absurdum because we currently have no evidence that a fetus has consciousness or desires, so to argue that one needs to take them into account is getting into cuckoo land.
Please, please don't turn this thread down the abortion path. There be dragons.
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