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Pastimes : The Boxing Ring Revived -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (3580)	1/8/2003 2:45:51 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 7720

Partly yes, partly no. Yes, we initially learn values at our mother's (and father's) knees. But as we saw quite clearly in the 60s, those values don't necessarily stick. You say that we don't make up values. But we do. Obviously, in the beginning all values were made up -- the primordial ooze had, one can I think safely assume, no values. Therefore, all the values we now hold developed, or were made up, at some point along the way. Thus, moral principles are roughly derivable through the consideration of what is required to have a viable society, This would imply that as humankind develops, the moral principles of different societies converges rather than diverging. I really don't see this happening. The core values of Western liberalism which were established roughly in the Enlightenment (there's a value-loaded term if there ever were one!) are still after about 300 years still only applicable to a minority of the globe, both physically and by population. On another thread a poster jost posted a story about a Court (forget what country it was) which sentenced a man who had cut off his wife's leg (because he had been cheating on her) to have his own leg cut off. From time to time society goes through periods of religious revival and upheaveal; it appears that we are in one now, with conflicting values of fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity both on the rise at the expense of moderate, "mainstream" Islam and Christianity. I think that social contract theory points to the animating goal of society, which is to create the conditions for as many people as possible to peaceably pursue their own ends, to expect them to contribute somewhat to the maintenance of society, and to form individuals capable of both taking care of themselves, and of being useful to society. I don't see this happening. This was the stated social theory of, for example, Communist Russia. It failed miserably. The reality, I think, is that we are in a form of social Adam Smith capitalism, where every person is looking out for his or her own best interests, and only worries about the best interests of others when they see the personal benefit in doing so. An interesting example of this is in Oregon, which is in terrible financial shape, and has a proposal to be voted on January 28th that would impose a small tax increase (on the order of 48 cents a year -- yes, a year -- for low income people, $16.76 a year for those in the $10,000 - 20,000 income bracket, up to $50 a year for the highest income taxpayers. Less than a dollar a week. If this doesn't pass, many bad things will happen, including major cuts in school funding, closing 8 prisons and releasing 4,300 prisoners, eliminating treatment for cancer, mental health, and other health services for nearly a half million Oregonians, and other bad things. You would think it would be a no brainer if your concept of societial development is accurate. But it is running far behind and is expected to fail.