The Philosophy Thread

Indeed. I do however think that while "bad" traits, as you call them, such as self-benefit at the expense of others, are somewhat dominant these days, there's no concrete reason for it to be exclusively so. Some individuals are simply that way - they are self-oriented, will throw others under the bus, etc, etc. There's no changing that or them; it will always be there, like inclement weather. It's arguable whether it is even a bad thing - it just is, and may cause ionconvience to some when it occurs, or maybe benefits at other times or situations. However what we can do is wise up about how to manage that. ~How to not let that be the only powerful voice in the room. How to manage such individuals and get the most out of them. How to manage the situations arising from such individuals. There's always pressure to eradicate or change that mindset. That won't work. Much better to leverage it for the maximum net benefit.

 

I remember reading something once about how human beings are able to live relatively safely together in great communities populated by millions of people (like big cities) but if you put our closest relatives the chimpanzees into such a densely populated state they would all kill one another before long. So, clearly, just the existence of communities larger than the typical band of human individuals circa 20,000 years ago indicates we have the capacity for cooperation at a grand scale.

And yes, corruption exists, but there are countries whose government leans more toward serving the common good rather than business interests. According to the worldwide Corruption Index, which grades 180 countries on a scale from most corrupt (0) to least corrupt (100) - Denmark comes in first place with a score of 90.

Other countries and their place - near the top - 10th Australia (77); 15th Canada (75); 20th UK (71); 28th USA (65) ... and at the other end - very corrupt countries - 154th Russia (22); 165th Afghanistan (17); 170th North Korea (15); and in last place South Sudan (8)

This is how Denmark explains their high ranking:

So, if we take it from the philosophical perspective - how do we build a just society? Possibly we should look to the model set in Denmark.

 

And it's probably a negative feedback loop. The poorer a country is, the more corruption results? And then more corruption leads to lower economic growth.

Maybe this is a good place to make the distinction between the personal and the larger community. A person is more likely to act in the interest of others within their small group.

Good point.

Skepticism is wise.

So, you are saying that corruption is universal - among any group of humans that come together?

I think, though, that when you know everyone in the group - like the smaller tribal group - corruption is a lot less likely.

Another good point. In fact, being accepted by the group is probably the number one motivator of human behavior.

It's the difference between the "in-group" and the "out-group"

 

I know there's been a lot of discussion since this point, but, despite my cynicism, corruption for gain wasn't my first reaction.

Heart of Darkness was discussed a while back on a different thread where a different slant was put on it to what I remember from reading it years ago. Essentially, as it registered in my head, the trip through the Congo is like the journey to the heart of man, to the primitive, unbounded essence. And it's ugly as hell. Kurtz has godlike omnipotence. There is no higher authority, no rules and no restrictions and his being is entirely corrupted. Yet, he's not living his best life, just the horror. The character following him, Marlow, starts as an idealist, somewhat naive but robustly principled. At the beginning of the story he tells us that there is a trace of death in all deceit. By the end, he too is corrupted and:

Spoiler: evidence

lies to Kurtz's wife

My point is that not all corruption has a profit motive. Or even betterment by any measure. Heart of Darkness, if I remember it correctly, tells us that the veneer of civility papers over a putrid mass of self-destructive self-satiation.

Leaving that aside, much of legit commercial practice is in indistinguishable from corrupt behaviour. The closer the corruption is to acceptable norms, the lesser the struggle to act in that fashion. Everyone's doing it!

In my experience, I've worked alongside managers that strike a strong ethic to what we're about and this seeps through to the team. I regularly tell one former manager that my great deathbed redemption will be to ask for absolution for exploiting her good nature when I was on her team. Most of us would have walked over broken glass for her because we knew she had our backs. Reciprocity. I've had other managers whose primary focus was self-interest and, in those instances, we were a much less cohesive bunch with a diminished sense of identity. If the leaders are corrupt, best bet is to snatch what you can before they get around to it.

Where there's money, or power, or whatever elevation, there's corruption, though the pendulum can swing by ethical leadership and prescients who lay down immutable governing norms.

At a micro level, I'm quite the optimist. Macro? We're all fucked.

 

The stats I referred to are in relation to public institutions, like government. From the website:

So, for example, they have found that 1 in 4 worldwide said they have paid a bribe to access a public services within the previous 12 months.

Well, no, there is no "one-size-fits-all" philosophy. At the same time, I do wonder if the same forces are at work at both the public institutional level and the level of the tribal chief.

 

Wow, that is very powerful.

This alludes to an earlier comment I made:

Because we learned that survival depends on the group.

This word jumped out at me. I can't remember where I read it, but this is what lies at the foundation of social structure and social behavior.

Echoing a point previously made in the thread.

 

Back when we had a debate thread, before I removed myself from it, and not wanting to push us towards that tipping point, there used to be a notion of a social contract. Contributing to the group is beneficial to the group and also the individual members. If I am strong, I contribute because I may not always be strong and may grow to rely on those who are. I might be lucky and always stay strong, but many don't. Sometimes I figure I'm a hearty sneeze from a catclysmic injury and might need those social insurances I've built up over time. When people are invested in the group, how it identifies and what holds them in commonality, they are less likely to break the governing rules. Further to a point discussed earlier, the village elder is likely to hear the wails of the bereaved when he has withheld life-saving medications. The corporate ceo doesn't have to endure that when the price of insulin is bumped out of affordability. When people are disparate, or see the powerful gathering all the wealth, they are much less likely to invest in maintaining the group.

A further point put eloquently on these boards some time ago, we are prone to view the ethics of our own actions according to intent, the actions of others according to outcome.

 

Sorry, you are reading the stats wrong. Denmark is the least corrupt country in the world. The closer your number to 100, the less corrupt you are.

 

Face-to-face meetings have the greatest effect on behavior

This is a good one. I need to think about it.

 

Or another to put it, perhaps, we are aware of the intentions behind our actions but we know only the actions of others. So we are more forgiving of ourselves.

 

This has got me thinking about the juxtaposition of intent and outcome. Do outcomes reveal intentions? I would say no, because there can always be unintended consequences.

Johnny takes his friends on a joyride on his motorboat. He wants to show them a good time. He has no malicious intent. The boat crashes. Someone dies. Johnny is charged with manslaughter.

So, what is more important, intent or outcome? "He meant well."

What is more important in morality? Intent or outcome?

 

Where could you start? Neither is a singular, static event. Both may be retrospectively applied. Both are dynamic. Both are entwined with a range of similar, but not identical, factors such as motivation, emotionality, rationality, foresight, insight. As in your example, weighing risk against foreseeable complications comes into it. Meant no harm is not a solid defence in a court room.

Maybe I'll give it more thought...

 

maybe another factor needs to be taken into account > intent + reasonable foresight + outcome

The "reasonable foresight" makes you more accountable, but I wish I could have come up with a better term for what I mean.

 

Accountable to who?

And it might be that those who are corrupt simply don't care about being held accountable in any moral sense.

 

I was thinking of the boating accident, so I suppose it would be accountable to society? Accountable to the people who get hurt by one's negligence.

Oh, this is for sure. Corrupt people are motivated by different things than any sense of morality, especially if we take the definition of morality as "a sense to do the right thing."

Here's a thought experiment - If the average person could live the rest of their lives doing "bad things" at will and get away with it, would they? Would they choose immorality over morality if there were no consequences of their actions? This is one of the original philosophical questions going back thousands of year - are humans inherently good or evil?

IMO, humans are born compassionate. That is the default position. It is the "evil" that must be learned.

 

This outlook is quite binary, if I can borrow that term. We all have different notions of morality and what it is that's the right thing. All of us. Each and every one! We may broadly agree with some foundational ideas of what's ok to do, but each of us has a nuanced take on what that is. For the most part, in any case, my observation is that people aren't often thinking of doing the "right" or "wrong" thing. They're just thinking of doing the thing. As I said above, there's a very blurred distinction between acceptable practice in human interaction and corrupt practice. People are motivated by many things, will work out degrees of unacceptability, lines that they won't cross until, for most many a not insignificant number, it's either entirely necessary or just more convenient. Working out our own motivations can be hard. Working out those of others requires a lot of presumption.

Good and evil are entirely human constructs. They're not permanent and change between cultures and generations. People can't be born as one or the other when neither is fixed in position.
Also, people aren't born as blank slates. The question, rather than choosing between morality and immorality might be better posed as whether people would choose to live life doing things they can't justify. Doing so takes a toll, leaves that person upended and fractured. People who cause harm to others as a lifestyle will sometimes fit uneasily within their own skin. Sometimes, though, those same people will find ways to justify what they know to be acts of brutality. And, thereby, come to terms with what they do and live happily ever after.

I'd say that some are and some aren't. Whether there's a significant statistical leaning one way or the other, I'm not so sure but most humans do attach themselves compassionately to, at least. even the immediate members of their families, which is a trait that can be learned as limited or less limited to others.

 

I wouldn't say "born compassionate." Infants are not compassionate, but they can and usually do begin to pick it up at an early age, probably develop an inherent sense, certainly learn it. But they can also fail to learn it in an unhealthy environment. Some never do. And sad to say it can literally be beaten out of kids, maybe adults as well.

Still, I believe with you Louanne that compassion is the default position in an ideal environment. But sometimes it's hard to discover and develop and maintain it, still harder to recover it. I think most people feel compassion of some degree, but sometimes it can be buried pretty deep. Sometimes pretty much extinguished.

I don't think I've ever met a saint, but I've met some very good people who inspire me to be better. And I'm pretty sure I know of some devils.

 

But as writers, we often put our characters into the position of having to make high-stakes decisions! If it is not the difference between right and wrong that guides the decision, what is it?

Does it depend on how principled you are? Some people hold fast to some very rigid principles (No, I will not share my Economist password with you because it is unethical) and some are a lot more flexible (Meta pirating books for AI). But is seems to me that corrupt practice is in a wholly different category. It's not personal.

it gets easier the older you get.

And observation.

I tend to see these two words as adjectives rather than nouns. There is no entity called "the good" and there is no entity called "the evil." But there can be "good behavior" and "evil behavior" - and I guess it boils down to its effects on others. At the same time, I tend to take a physiological approach to aberrant behavior - something is malfunctioning in their brain. It didn't develop right. It may be that for some reason, the conscience did not develop, maybe because no mercy had ever been shown them. The brain develops, after all, according to the stimulation it receives.

This would not apply to brutal autocrats or self-obsessed narcissists. Or does it?

Something I have long said is that the only perfect thing we have in this existence is a new-born baby.

 

We are born primed to form strong attachments. We are even born with high levels of oxytocin, the "love hormone." We are hard-wired to bond. Show a baby love, and he/she will respond.

By just a few months old, babies can react to others' emotions. I guess this is where the divide may form - based on what emotions the baby receives.

the ideal environment being one of showering on the love. making kids feel safe.

What do you think that depends on?

Oh! You've never met my mother. She is my idol.

Probably the biggest inspiration in my life was my late husband. He constantly amazed me with the wisdom of his character. And he was really funny!

Devils? There are some people in the news who I feel fit that description. Within my family and friends group, I tend to more understand their faults and forgive them their trespasses.

 

My last assignment before my current position put me in close proximity to a priest, one of the good ones, thankfully. I used to help him out doing questions and answers for table quiz, putting together his homily (just a bit ironic), those kind of things. He liked to vary it up, check out which saints were venerated on different days to see who might inspire his sermon for that day. Lots of saints for every day of the year and I'd assist with a little research. Quite a lot of them were most noteworthy for things that probably wouldn't be greatly celebrated today, the standout being the Italian saint who packed the entire Jewish population of his city onto a boat and shipped them elsewhere. All I'm saying is sainthood ain't all it's cracked up to be.

Honestly, that's not a guiding principle on how I write. What guides it, for me, is what holds true, fits best, for the character and story I'm telling. The impetus is not to write parables unless it's a parable I'm writing.

I really don't think so. Criminal law is probably the lowest standard of moral rectitude. There are many things that are perfectly legal within commercial practice that don't stand up to moral scrutiny. Flogging cocaine in the toilets of a nightclub is illegal. Flogging benzodiazepines by bringing doctors on educational junkets to Dubai is fine. The 3 men who discovered insulin sold their patent for 1 dollar each because they wanted to ensure that everyone who needed it could get it. How's that working out in certain jurisdictions?

Yeah. Maybe.

Keen observation can lead to more accurate presumptions.

Let's go back to Kurtz. Corruption as a corrosion of the soul (for want of a better term), like his descent into the horror, Dorian Gray's picture, Nero's fiddling. The narcissist can be different, where everyone around just serves that singular purpose, which can be grown as the brutal dictator works through obstacles. As they say, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

 

To my mind, it still needs muscle, and that means making tough, possibly unjust-looking decisions. This is the paradox. Without muscle, corruption tends to weed in. With muscle, can you call yourself just?

 

Very interesting. I notice you used the term "unjust-looking" - not unjust. Can you explain the difference?

And "muscle" is open to interpretation, too. Certainly, we need strong leaders, but I see the muscle needed as a commitment to principles, not strong-arming, for true justice.

The "strongman" is the archetype of autocracy.