I have officially changed my position on the liberal arts in universities

[Kuciwalker]

I would posit that moral sentiments are conditional and change according to the material conditions of the time, which make coming up with some set of absolutist "moral rules" a fools errand. I find human sacrifice to be immoral personally, given the amount of worth I place on an individual, but societies flourished for millennium practicing it.

And yet even in those societies you'll see that most of the rules of regular life were clearly designed with the end of some sort "greatest good for greatest number" (possibly over a restricted subset of the society). And it makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, too - societies that can provide people with what they want will attract members from other societies.

The fact is that consequentialism explains an extraordinary range of observed moral sentiments, just as Newton's laws describe an extraordinary range of observed physical phenomena.

[KrazyHorse]

And if this is the case, why hasn't government gotten smaller over time?

Because when we choose governments, by far the largest component of that choice has to do with how the government will directly affect OTHER PEOPLE.

If I vote for somebody who is against immigration, my vote is about how the government will interact with millions of people I've never met in the hope that it has some positive effect on myself and others.

This is PRECISELY NOT the situation than is faced by somebody who is presented with a series of unidimensional variables (prices!) and who attempts to maximize his own utility given those prices.

[Al B. Sure!]

And if this is the case, why hasn't government gotten smaller over time?

Carroll Quigley's 'institutionalization'.

In this connection, Quigley drew attention to a particularly
potent systemic process which has been studied by others before and
since under various labels; he styled it "the institutionalization
of social instruments." Human needs are satisfied by processing
resources through an organizational structure or culture. The
organization's effectiveness is normally suboptimal, and tends to
decline, because its parts develop their own ends, and attempt to
preserve established routines despite changing circumstances. When
a structure or culture

has become a collection of vested interests, we say that it is

no longer an 'instrument' for satisfying needs but has become
an 'institution,' leaving the original needs substantially
unsatisfied. ([1975?]: 6)

The general economic crisis of a civilization is for
Quigley strongly connected to the "institutionalization" of its
organization for expansion, a process which occurs in the face of
a rising population, hence of insistent demands for an increased
output of goods. An early sign of crisis is precisely the shift
from "expansion" to "growth."

If a society seeks to increase its supply of goods in spite of
an increasingly ineffective productive organization, it may do so
either by increasing the inputs processed by the organization,
using more resources less effectively ("growth") , or by reforming
the organization so that it produces more goods from the same or
even fewer resources ("expansion").

Of these, "expansion" is preferable to "growth" for the
society as a whole, because resources are always limited
in supply, but expansion is not preferred by vested
interests which must be reformed in order to obtain
expansion rather than growth; vested interests usually
prefer growth, or even gross growth, to
expansion. The changes which are required to satisfy
human needs or the society as a whole (in order for it to
survive) are different from the changes which are wanted
by institutions within the society. What is good for the
country is not necessarily good for General Motors.
Indeed, it can be taken as a general rule that long run
improvements for a society often require short-run
sacrifices and disadvantages for some of its parts. By
definition, reform in any society is any increase in the
satisfaction of the real needs of its members even when
some of those members regard the necessary changes as
totally destructive of their own interests. Such members
will resist these changes, so that the changes will come
about only if the powers supporting reform prevail over
the powers of the vested interests resisting these
changes. ([1975?]: 7)

The society attempts to increase its production of
goods, while each vested interest seeks to prevent its own reform
but willingly increases the rate at which resources are processed
(and diverted) through its institutionalized structure. This
results both in enormous waste of limited resources, and in
increased competition for them between groups, classes and states.
"These struggles gradually move downward [in a
psychological hierarchy] from the economic level to the political
level and finally to the level of applied force." ([1975?]: 11)

[MikeH]

By any objective standard they're smarter than the people they govern.

Smarter than the mean of the people they govern, not smarter than all the people they govern. And as Asher said, there are plenty of people too smart to go into politics or civil service.

[Ben Kenobi]

There's a reason he was teaching the 101 course at a school not known for its liberal arts.

Kuci's point is well taken, and basically drags yours out and stomps all over it.

His philosophy is 100 percent in line with utilitarianism. It's not a particularly compelling philosophy, but the fact that you are unable to actually debate it effectively, I find rather telling.

Yeah, I'm a liberal arts major, but more than half my degree is in science credits. I have a history major with science minors, which is rather rare these days.

As for the argument in favour of a broad-based education, I argue like Twain, you ought to be able to walk into any lecture hall and adequately prepare a lecture to cover the topic at hand with no preparation. Is this a skill that is adequately covered/valued/taught? No.

So you pick it up and learn it on your own time. I think all science majors should have a working knowledge and exposure to the main body of philosophy and vice-versa.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yes. For example, people with English degrees (which is what you have, no?) can be successful in publishing (including new media), advertising, or could get jobs like copy editor for a variety of companies that need to produce written materials - most engineers couldn't write an set of instructions intelligible to anyone else.

At the very least, if you are not adverse to travel, you could make money going overseas to teach English, given that your command of the language is better than most peoples, and knowing English well is certainly a marketable skill.

This. Good advice all.

[Heraclitus]

Arguing about morality with Kuciwalker today has shown to me that what I thought were universal understandings are anything but.

Most so called moral realist positions are retarded.

Edit:

Everyone has different morals, there are no absolutes. There is no strict definition of good and evil. Stop wasting my time.

Ah good. I should have searched for the comment that caused the previous response before posting.

[Ben Kenobi]

Why wouldn't an empirical examination of our moral senses be best carried out not through mathematical modelling but instead by observation of human beings and our evolutionary kin, since our moral senses are not derived logically, but emotionally?

'Observation' is always quantifiable in an empirical examination. You'd have to define, "happy" "sad", etc. Fr'instance if the state of being happy were correlated with the secretion of a neurotransmitter, you could measure that level of the transmitter, and record responses. That is an empirical observation.

[Ben Kenobi]

Deontology takes these rules we come up with and ingrain into our social norms and says that they are true in themselves rather than true as necessary results of consequentialism.

Wish Aggie were here. The problem with consequentialism, is how do you measure results? Say, fr'instance if I could kill someone and pin the blame on someone else, and gain an enormous amount of wealth, should I do so? RTing of Gyges makes the same argument, that if you were able to somehow remove the consequences from actions, you can justify any action.

Deontology doesn't always argue that rules are true in and of themselves, Kantians argue that the rules if universalisable have benefits for society and people in general. They have a necessary side-action that always occurs with any moral action. The problem for Kantians is that not all moral actions are reasonable. Morality and reason are not 1:1, thus someone who were perfect in reason would not commit perfect acts, and vice versa.

This is also for consequentialism as well. We cannot obtain perfect knowledge, and so we are always working from an imperfect stance. Even if we had perfect knowledge, we would not always make moral decisions. We would not always make decisions to our own benefit, even if they are also immoral.

I'd argue that deontology is useful as a formulation, but the question as to where morals come from or why we ought to be moral, has very few answers from Kant or otherwise.

basic axioms of morality.

You want those, you're going to have to get into religion of some sort, because they are the only ones who have answers for the question as to why you ought to be moral, beyond what you've gotten so far.

[giblets]

As for the argument in favour of a broad-based education, I argue like Twain, you ought to be able to walk into any lecture hall and adequately prepare a lecture to cover the topic at hand with no preparation. Is this a skill that is adequately covered/valued/taught? No.

So you pick it up and learn it on your own time. I think all science majors should have a working knowledge and exposure to the main body of philosophy and vice-versa.

Yeah, **** the division of labor, let's all attempt to do everything ourselves

[giblets]

Wish Aggie were here. The problem with consequentialism, is how do you measure results? Say, fr'instance if I could kill someone and pin the blame on someone else, and gain an enormous amount of wealth, should I do so? RTing of Gyges makes the same argument, that if you were able to somehow remove the consequences from actions, you can justify any action.

You shouldn't kill someone for money because gaining money is morally neutral, meaning the consequences of killing someone for money are bad.

[Ben Kenobi]

Yeah, **** the division of labor, let's all attempt to do everything ourselves

Damn straight.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

[Ben Kenobi]

You shouldn't kill someone for money because gaining money is morally neutral, meaning the consequences of killing someone for money are bad

Then giving money away is also morally neutral.

[giblets]

Then giving money away is also morally neutral.

Well it could save lives. Were you trying to ask whether it would be okay for someone to kill someone else for a large sum of money, and then use that money to save lives?

[Ben Kenobi]

The question is not so much, "is it wrong", but "why". You argue society derives no benefit from you amassing more money then you had previous, but that society does derive a benefit from a more equitable distribution. Both positions assume a zero sum game. What if I invested the money and then made myself and others wealthier than we were before?

Economics isn't a zero sum, but I have to go so I'll be back tonight.