--- BklynMagus <magcomm at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> Dear List:
>
> Justin writes:
>
> > Well, a while ago I posted my view that first,
> that
> democracy was in a sense prior to any justification
> --
> as Rorty says, even if we could not think of a good
> justification or even if there was a theoretical
> problem with democracy that seemed unanswerable
> (see,
> for example, Arrow's theorem), we would not give it
> up.
>
> Okay, serious question. How is this any different
> from my
> saying that suffering should be used as a measure?
> Isn't
> it imposing a value/ethic (the worth of democracy)
> on
> people without making sure first that they share it?
A serious answer: we do in fact share it. In the industrialized world, only a small number of people in fringe groups challenge the idea that political decisions should be made democratically. In "imposing" this idea on them, of course,w e only deprive them of the power or "right" to make decisions for us, so that doesn't bother us too much.
One difference with the idea that political decisions should always be made to reduce suffering is that skeptivism about that idea is far wider than skepticism about democracy. I don't believe it myself, and in this, unlike some of my other ideas, I am in the center, not the fringe. Most people are retributivists like me who think that sometimes it is desirable to increase the amount of suffering, for example, as punishment for crimes.
The thing about democracy, in contrast to ant substantive view such as "decrease suffering" or "punish the wicked," is that it providesa methid almost everyone agrees on for resolving our differences about what to do that does not itself depend on any such more basic view.
Moreover, we think -- many of us, though Miles is one of a certain number of people who might cavil at this, that democracy would be better for everyone if they could have it. Which doesn't mean that we (or all or many of us) think we should go around attempting to impose it on societies that don't have it.
>
> How can something be asserted as fair or right prior
> to
> any justification? It doesn't make sense.
>
Sure it makes sense. To get technical about it, every apparantly valid argument cuts both ways. You can go from accepting the premises and the reasining to accepting the conclusion, or you can reject the conclusion and figure there must be something wrong with one of the premises or the reasoning. There is simply no argument that would back us give up on democracy.
By way of illustration, the economist Kennth Arrow has a theorem -- a mathematical proof -- that four or five absolutely fundamental and completely obvious conditions for democracy are inconsistent. That doesn't make us think, oops, better go with dictatorship. It makes us think there is something funny about Arrow's proof, although no one has been able to say just what.
> >
> But isn't "better outcomes" equivalent to less
> suffering?
Not necessarily.
>
> As for fairness -- who determines what is fair?
We do, democratically.
>
> Authoritarianism can also lead to better outcomes --
> it all
> depends on how one measures/defines the outcomes.
That's an empirical question, given a metric for determining what outcomesa re better. The short argument taht dictatorship doesn't do taht is that dictators tend to act in their own selfish interests and not in the interests of most people.
>
> > Utility isn't sufficient by itself partly for the
> reason you
> state, so we need rights/fairness too -- I don't see
> why rights and fairness are too vague to be
> determined.
>
> Aren't they are a little vaguer than suffering?
> Isn't it easier
> to empirically measure and define suffering?
No, it's not. There are really good arguments that you cannot treat different pleasures and pains as commensurable, or put them on a single scale, or compare them interpersonally.
As for fairness being too vague: well, one way of understanding a fair procedure is one that rational people would agree too if they put themselves in anyone's position rather than thinking of their own particular interest. A fair outcome is one reached by applying fair procedures. What's vague about that? It might be controversial, but it's actually much more precise than talk of "suffering."
In
> fact,
> doesn't determining rights and fairness entail an
> examination
> of suffering in the first place? Don't we create
> the concept
> of rights in order to curtail suffering?
Not at all. Suffering is relevent, of course, but it's not an obvious objection to a system of rights taht would increase overall sufffering compared to an alternative. The standard example is this: Suppose that we could show as a matter of empirical fact that it would enhance overall happiness and reduce suffering on any measure you like if we were to enslave part of the population and put them to work for the rest of us. Even if taht were true, I think we would reject that because we think that people have a right to be free and not to be slaves.
>
> > Maybe they cannot be empirically determined, but
> so what?
>
> Well, if they cannot be empirically determined, then
> they are
> imposed on others without their say so -- what you
> and Miles
> accuse me of doing with my concept of empirically
> measured
> suffering.
I don't understand thsi at all. It does not follow from the the fact, if it is a fact, that anything, say a suffering metric, can be empirically determined, that it is therefore agreeable to everyone or most people. And it does not follow from the fact that the evil of slavery (for example) cannot be "empirically determined," whatever would count as empirically determining it, that everyone, or all reasonable people, or most people, cannot agree that it so bad that it can never be imposed on people even if imposing it would decrease total suffering.
jks
>
> Isn't it better to ground the creation of rights in
> something that
> can be empirically determined, rather than pull them
> out of thin
> air?
>
> > Maybe many people will disagree about what moral
> rights we
> have, but that does not mean that we can't come up
> with a
> provisional short list that we can use to work with.
>
> What makes you think it will be short (I am not
> saying it mightn't
> be; I am just wondering about your evidence).
>
> > So, yes, I am sort of a deontologist. I hate that
> word. It's ugly.
>
> Also, what does it mean?
>
> Brian Dauth
> Queer Buddhist Resister
>
>
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