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[quote user="Minarchist"]to make ethical an claim is to express a certain kind of subjective valuation...don't you have any such concepts?[/quote] Well hold on, ethics is about systems of rules—ultimately, it's about when the rules can be enforced with violence. That's more than a subjective valuation about when, from one's
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[quote user="Minarchist"]So you've given up on ethics altogether? ...whatever is is what ought to be?[/quote] Yes in a sense, to a degree, but not according to the common misconception which is the second part of your question. To be clear, an ought doesn't derive from an is. And to be sure, shoulds and oughts and justice are concepts
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I'm tending to think less and less in terms of absolutes. So there may be a degree of justice in it, and also maybe a degree of injustice; or it may be considered in relative terms. Of course, without derailing your thread I need to qualify that whether and the extent to which something is just/unjust is a concept in a person's brain, and any
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If nobody else will comment... Settlements (disputes?) should be settled however they are (or aren't), in fact , settled. I'm not smarter than the universe; incalculable, unfathomable forces combine to produce a dispute/settlement (or lack of settlement), who am I to say the universe made an error.
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[quote user="Clayton"]I think that one of the chief pleasures that is sought by the Elites is security ... not only in the sense of protection from martial threats but also in the insurance sense of protection in the event of catastrophe. They want the feeling that they are "the last in line to die" should some cataclysmic event
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[quote user="Neodoxy"]So everyone is evil? And what is evil anyway?[/quote] I tend to use it in reference to causing people to suffer who don't want to suffer. Closer to the third definition here than to the first or second. I wouldn't say I do a lot of evil, and I'd say the suffering that others experience if I do evil is probably
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[quote user="Clayton"]I would cut this down to just pleasure. Power is actually a means, it is not an end in itself.[/quote] Fair enough. [quote user="Clayton"]Elites can actually be thought of as...simply want[ing] to maximize their own liberty and if the masses do a bad job of defending their liberties, well, that's too bad
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Going with your point that the power elite are a minority, consider the implications of a few subsidiary assertions... - The basic driving motives for action are power and pleasure - The power elite are by necessity, not by desire, opposed to the flourishing of the masses, not because they value seeing others suffer, but because they enjoy power and
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Point well taken, and in line with what I was getting at. Humans have genetic drives that are tempered by environmental factors. So I'm with you in that theoretically we can push the pendulum toward a peaceful ideology, and that since humans act based on their beliefs we can thus achieve a peaceful society. I would just clarify that the genetic
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Occasionally I agree with Clayton to some extent; this is one of this instances. Naturally a few critical thoughts also present, and this response doesn't fail in that regard. [quote user="Clayton"]History is a terrible lesson in the futility and atrocity of even attempting to clean the slate and start from scratch. It can't even be