h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Special interests groups have these problems in distinctions.
It matters whether you have a small community , a Nation , a group , a Relgion idenity or a humanist whole world view. For some the world is very small and isolated, the rules black and white.

Blatherskite the Mugwump says
"we have evolved beyond our religions"

Some would say we have regressed.
I think we have remained almost stagnant as quality beingswith or without religion as an issue.

Abi: Take a look at the national ethics of those countries with a religious basis for their system of government, and tell me whether the secular ones are an improvement or not.

Though you are right... those religious folks would say our ethical systems are a step backwards.

Personally, I can see how we've made great strides in our moral and ethical systems... we've abolished slavery, and we recognize equality of race and sex.

But though our moral and ethical systems have changed, that doesn't mean individuals obey them any better than before. I think that people violate the moral and ethical codes of their cultures just as much now as ever, so in that, I agree with your statement about stagnance. However, if the moral code reflects a higher standard than before, and the violations of that code remain constant, than the overall effect would have to be an improvement of the overall moral behavior of that culture.

Or, they just find other rude things to do to each other which haven't yet been addressed.

Oddly enough, I find myself somewhat in agreement Blatherskite, with this statement:
>>However, if the moral code reflects a higher standard than before, and the violations of that code remain constant, than the overall effect would have to be an improvement of the overall moral behavior of that culture.<<

Actually, one could argue that if the standards become higher while the offenses remain the same, then the perception of moral decay is practically inescapable.

What was formerly a minor offense, in the contemporary context most likely becomes a major offense, if, in fact, the standards do rise. That's a debatable point, however, and probably of less practical than academic interest.

All in all, it appears that as offenses in the contemporary world tend to be commited by hirelings rather than those, who in former times might have done the dirty work themselves, such employers of the ruthless assume some sort of moral superiority they probably don't deserve.

Steve, I think you've misinterpreted me. Let's look at it as if it were a math problem, and assign some values.

The moral standard at an earlier period was 5. The violations of that moral code were 3. Subtract the violations from the code, and you have an overall moral climate of 2.

Now let's say the moral standard has increased to nine. The violations remain constant at 3. We now have a overall climate value of 6.

***

I have no idea what you're on about with that hirelings bit.

Blatherskite, you are vastly (judging by recent events) over-estimating the 'value' of the current moral climate!

That's one way of doing the math. Here's another, using your example.

Former moral standard = 0 or baseline
Former offense = 3
Moral climate = -3

New moral standard = 4
Offense still = 3
Moral climate = 1

However, the old moral standard under this system would now be accounted as -4 or offensive in and of itself. Judged by the new standard then the offense cannot in principle remain constant. That's the flaw in your argument.

For example, in the 14th century, extracting confessions by means of physical torture was considered proper judicial procedure. By the standards of the 20th century, such extractions are typically accounted crimes in their own right, heinous ones at that.

Consequently, it would seem that a measure of moral progress would be to assign higher negative values to the offenses rather higher positive values to the standards, although the effect is essentially the same. In practice, that's what seems to occur.

Judgment under this system renders crimes formerly of no account or accounted minor as now heinous. Thus the perception would be that behavior has gotten worse rather than better.

That the standards are higher begs the question and more or less insures that the climate value will be higher by definition. But that's not what is in fact being estimated. The higher standard means the offense is accounted to be more acute, therefore, overall the climate estimate ought to reflect this by showing a decline.

Putting it another, perhaps simpler, way, if the moral climate is accounted to be the aggregate value assigned to actions, with offenses having negative values, and other actions having positive, or no values, then one could estimate things as follows:

Old standard:

Torture = 2 being accounted as a just punishment for heresy.
Heresy = -2
Aggregate = 0

New standard:

Torture = -2 being accounted a crime.
Heresy = 0 because it is no longer accounted a crime.
Aggregate = -2

Under the new or "progressive" standard, the aggregate of actions shows a decline, as I think it should. Ironically, moral progress would seem to require a aggregate decline in morals, assuming people continue to take the same actions but judge them differently.

So, Steve, you believe that the human race has *pro*gressed, at least as far as having standards goes, though obviously not in living up to them (torture is still practised, even by the USA (Khalid Sheik Mohammed was subjected to it, I heard.)

Steve: Your mathematical model still leaves out the fact that the code has been upgraded... otherwise, those things wouldn't seem as awful to us as they do now.

Let's try to update it a bit more...

16th century:
Murder -5
Thievery -2
Heresy -8
Torture 0
Witchcraft -10

And today:
Murder -5
Thievery -2
Heresy 0
Torture -10
Witchcraft 0

And let us also consider that torture was once widespread. Today it is incredibly limited. Under this model, the sum would, once again, be much higher than in previous eras.

Della: There was a debate in the media about whether torture could be justified for the #3 man in Al Qaida. I can find no evidence that suggests that it was actually done.

Off topic from the original but I cannot resist after it straying this far. Torture and slavery have changed some but both are still very present in the world.

The Genocides have been continuous.

I consider letting millions of people starve in a world that has plenty of food torture. I consider letting aids go untreated while men are raping babies under the false assumption they will be "cured", torture. Female circumcision is torture. Keeping the most vulnerable ; children & elderly in uncaring or understaffed people warehouses is torture. Considering locking people up for revenge while violent people are let out to roam the streets torture. The death penalty under it's current lax scrutiny is torture.

The human race is not ready to be patting ourselves on the back just because we resist the urge to torture a single individual with a spotlight on them.

Well, Della, I have to confess I doubt humans progress at all in any kind of real terms within any kind historical context. More than likely they go through cycles, ups and downs as it were.

The problem with our recent numerical analysis is that we can easily find a combination of ratings, if you will, that will support virtually any conclusion we want, rather like the Total Quality Management people do all the time. As Mark Twain observed, there's liars, damn liars and statisticians.

Contemporary torture, as practiced in the more developed countries, tends to leave no physical marks by design. It's no less onerous than the sort of thing practiced in medieval times involving mutilations, branding or whatever. However, it's practitioners clearly want us to believe it either doesn't happen, because where is the physical evidence? Or they're trying to justify it in their own minds in much the same manner as the medieval Church attempted to justify their treatment of heretics. The Church abhored bloodshed so they typically burned heretics at the stake.

I suspect that in practically any age people can readily identify hypocrisy, avarice or similar shortcomings of human nature. I further suspect that in practically any age there will be different distributions of these things among the members of a society which will convince us things are either improving or going to Hell depending on what we would prefer to believe.

I personally find the society that lived in the south of France during the 11th and 12th centuries to be in most respects just as civilized as the one living in the United States of America today, in some respects more civilized or at least more civil.

That estimation could be disputed but why bother? Notions of progress typically benefit only a few people in any age. Most people hardly ever contrive to convince us of such improvement unless they have a vested interest in our belief or at least our suspension of disbelief. One is reminded that sales people are not typically motivated by sincere commitments to altruism. That might be a good thing to remember when these kinds of discussions arise.

> It's no less onerous I personally find the society that lived in the south of France during the 11th and 12th centuries to be in most respects just as civilized as the one living in the United States of America today, in some respects more civilized or at least more civil. <

You mean the 12th centuary south france that was the target of Pope Innocent III's crusade against heresy? Where the death of Pierre de Castelnau his chief legate gave him the excuse to pillage the Albigensian Districts. By using the churchs power the wealth and lifes of those in South France were stolen in the name of the catholic church. The birth place of the inquisition?

That 12th centuary South france?

Is that your covert slap in the face of American society for the day?

What's Wrong With Americans?

apparently they don't die of SARS, but that's another thread. For some reason, however, no body seems to be commenting on this strange immunological quirk.

>What's Wrong With Americans?

apparently they don't die of SARS, but that's another thread. For some reason, however, no body seems to be commenting on this strange immunological quirk. <

Quirk? Now now Anhaga give credit were credits is due. We designed it that way.

From the beginning this seemed to me like a CIA biological WMD. (Executive Director for Communicable Diseases for the WHO is, of course, an American who got some of his training at the old CIA biological weapons lab.)











Dispite the smiley, the parenthetical statement above is true.

As a supliment to my above post, I will repost an old post from another thread:


"Hey, check this out Scully: the director of communicable diseases at the World Health Organization got his training at the EIS."

"What's the EIS, Mulder?"

"I thought you watched the Learning Channel. The Epidemic Intelligence Service. It's the branch of the CDC that was founded after the
Korean War to develop strategies and defences against biological warfare, against man-made epidemics. Curiouser and curiouser. . ."

http://www.who.int/dg/exd/heymann/en/

http://www.cdc.gov/eis/about/about.htm

Wally and the Beave;

"Gee wally don't you think it's odd that west nile and a few other bio entities have appeared in ponds just round the bend from one of those places mentioned?"

"Oh Beave,just go to bed silly. Did you put on your deet after brushing your teeth? It has been decided it's not nearly as dangerous a pesticide as once warned!"

My evidence is anecdotal, but I heard that he had been - one of the things that was done to him was that they captured and threatened his children. Then, on the TV drama '24', (when we still watched it, cos it was cr*p) a scene in which Jack Bauer did *exactly* that to Said Ali! (He wasn't the main bad guy, apparently. Which came first, the drama or RL?