21 Pictures that will restore your faith in humanity.

Originally posted by Serdgiam
reply to post by anon4m05

 

For me, I feel it boils down to not only the act but the results of the action.

I think a large step of the whole of humanity would be to take the result into consideration when taking action. The action and its result seems to be as inseparable as electricity and magnetism.

I think that instead of having a society based on control and dependency, we could change it to a society based on enabling and empowering individuals (and even have all of the tools to do so). I think this one change could be the foundation to build a stronger world, but it is one that each of us, individually, have to decide to participate in. We all participate in the creation of our society, but by actually examining where we will grow based on that participation, we can very literally change the world.

I agree very much so. Foresight with regard to the consequences of our actions is necessary to acting responsibly, and I whole heartedly agree on moving from control and dependency to enabling and empowering. Despite this, I think it is much more complicated than that; I mean, in those instances where you must react (because doing nothing would be just as bad), and you cannot think, one does not necessarily have time to consider those consequences, but still, a decision must be made. We can, through a process of induction or deduction, have some legitimate gauge of consequences, but it is relatively impossible to know if that is the way it will play out, even with all the time in the world to think about it. The problem is a matter of time; this is something I have observed as of late.

In a nutshell; Kantian Ethics places emphasis on the here and now, with no regard to consequences, and operates according to a matter of principle and duty(There are good actions, and bad actions, in and of themselves). Utilitarian ethics places emphasis on consequences, and posits that no action is good in and of itself, but rather, that the consequences determines the good or bad of an action.

As you can see, the problem with both is a temporal one; that is to say, it is a problem of time. Kantian ethics seems counter-intuitive because it holds no merit for consequences (and we KNOW consequences matter) and thus only grounds its morality in the present. Utilitarian ethics, on the other hand, emphasizes the future (consequences). The problem with that is, while you think you are making a decision that is based in the future, the morality of the act is actually grounded in the past, and so we can never really know if we are making good decisions or not in the present.

Both types of ethics are severely lacking in their abilities to direct us to what is the right or good thing to do, and often, they must be combined (which is also difficult).

Virtue ethics seems to be the best suited for this kind of problem; but that's a whole other ball game.

Anyway, you have probably noticed that I enjoy rants as well, so no apology necessary

reply to post by anon4m05


Pure awesomeness. Thanks for posting! S+F!

reply to post by anon4m05

Those parts of life where immediate action is necessary are definitely tough, to say the least! I think that we start to go to our foundation when we encounter that. I think this foundation is molded by the individuals movement through time (their life experience up to that point).

What would you think if we could come up with a mathematical equation that could help determine courses of action in the large scheme of things? Since what happens is all based on what we understand as physics, and variables happening within those rules, I think its possible to come up with something that can provide a "good" choice based on current variables and the possible consequences.

The issue is, I think we would need to come up with a consensus of what we should work towards. As it stands, many just live their lives unconsciously working towards something without giving much thought to what that "something" is.

Whatever form it takes, it all seems to require personal participation which seems to be lacking and even discouraged.

So, as you say, its a complicated subject! But it happens whether we participate or not as time marches on, so I figure, why not at least try?