Posted by meanceprimea on 11/3/2011 11:02:00 AM (view original):

Posted by antonsirius on 11/1/2011 12:03:00 PM (view original):
Start reading with Mill and Kant, then work your way forward.

Or stay ignorant. Your choice.

Yes. I read Mills and Kant in my freshman yr. 

Both make some valid points, and I agree with a lot of what they stated. 

However the problem lies in that Kant's "categorical imperatives" are not always as cut and dry as they may seem.

 

Are you familiar with the “Trolley Problem”?

 

On your morning walk, you see a trolley car hurtling down the track, the conductor slumped over the controls. In the path of the trolley are five men working on the track, oblivious to the danger. You are standing at a fork in the track and can pull a lever that will divert the trolley onto a spur, saving the five men. Unfortunately, the trolley would then run over a single worker who is laboring on the spur. Is it permissible to throw the switch, killing one man to save five? Almost everyone says “yes.”

Consider now a different scene. You are on a bridge overlooking the tracks and have spotted the runaway trolley bearing down on the five workers. Now the only way to stop the trolley is to throw a heavy object in its path. And the only heavy object within reach is a fat man standing next to you. Should you throw the man off the bridge? Both dilemmas present you with the option of sacrificing one life to save five, and so, by the utilitarian standard of what would result in the greatest good for the greatest number, the two dilemmas are morally equivalent. But most people don’t see it that way: though they would pull the switch in the first dilemma, they would not heave the fat man in the second.

Regardless of why the difference exists, it shows that pure reason is not enough, even in a fairly obvious case like tossing a fat man to save 5 people. Likewise people have a similar struggle with ideas such as tossing one person overboard to keep the over-crowded lifeboat afloat or ultimately killing all on board by not doing so.

Interesting that you chose Mill, as he, also, was sort of an intellectual elitist. Mill's argued that the "simple pleasures" tend to be preferred by people who have no experience with high art, and are therefore not in a proper position to judge.

Again, we see where something like Mill's "greatest-happiness principle", (one must always act so as to produce the greatest aggregate happiness among all sentient beings), as well meaning as it may be, shows that even among the intellectual elites isn't easily defined.

If I were inclined to be reciprocal in your belittling tone I might say something like :
Start reading with Genesis and Matthew and work your way forward. Or stay condemned, your choice.

But rather than do that I will point to a few scripture verses that address this very problem with the self proclaimed intellects:

Proverbs 14:12  There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death.

Proverbs 21:2   People may be right in their own eyes, but the LORD examines their heart.

Luke 16:15    Then he said to them, "You like to appear righteous in public, but God knows your hearts. What this world honors is detestable in the sight of God.

 

What we have witnessed with our own eyes, over the last half century is the fact that man is incapable of determining for himself what is "right" and "good".

Where the law of our country is "Pro-choice". Not the choice of acting responsibly and morally, but the choice of being promiscuous and devaluing life itself in the name of "rights", and convenience.
We now value human life so little that one will more swiftly be imprisoned for abusing a dog, than for abusing a child.

Here is yet another example of our eroding value of human life: Several years ago a hypothetical question was posed to a 4th grade class. There was an exit ramp, that due to it's original design some 40 yrs ago, was an area of higher than normal accident and death rates. The ramp could be fixed and made much more safe (estimated to save 5-6 lives per year) by easing the banking and sharpness of the ramp. However, in order to do so would require infringing on a piece of land that is now a refuge for an endangered species of bird. The infringement would not encompass the whole refuge but just a small portion of it.
Overwhelmingly the children sided with the birds over saving human lives.

Back to the church, which strongly opposed birth control back in the day, because they knew that with birth control comes a much easier path to pre-marital sex and the problems that come with it. Can anyone dispute that they were right on the money?

When we seek to solve problems without Godly direction, we normally make a bigger mess of it. 

Now we have groups like planned parenthood, that basically recruit our young girls to their clinics. Going in to public schools and "educating" them. Ah if you get pregnant no big deal, we can fix that for you. Here's a condom, be responsible. They don't educate them about the dangers involved, and how, if abused, abortion might make it very difficult to conceive, if ever they settle-down and want to live a responsible life.

One of the big economic issues that no one dares discuss, even in this most desperate of economic climates, is our govt. subsidizing irresponsibility. Single parent families are disproportionately below the poverty line and are receiving welfare. This is a huge drain on our economy. We have stepped up our prosecution of dead-beat dads, but we still aren't serious enough about it.

We allow people to divorce so easily, and without basis, so that many couples never experience the bond-strengthening reward of coming out the other side of a tough time together and are better off for having done so. 

I'd like to see how many examples we can find of pre-teen age children killing fellow students before the removal of God from our classrooms. Now it is a tragedy that unfortunately has occurred to the point that it is no longer very shocking at all.
How do we live for 170 yrs as a society without children-on-children violence in our schools? But less that 40 yrs after removing God from the schools we have the Jonesboro tragedy, which I believe was the first case of a pre-teen assailant.

I could go on, but I am sure I've made my point and will be ridiculed and dismissed enough already.

Seriously?  Jonesboro was in 1998, the year I graduated High School and I remember walking through metal detectors when we visited some Junior High Schools in Basketball. 

Since art imitates life:  American History X came out in 1998, where Furlong gets popped in the bathroom.  The Basketball Diaries came out in 1995, with Leo in the trenchcoat mowing kids down.  NWA started rapping in in 1986.

I'm sure there are thousands of examples that I am too lazy to look up.



*Edit*
I decided to look something up:  www.the-daily-record.com/news/article/5053239