Re: [Mind's Eye] The Greater Good

Well  sadly Ireland is good of a country giving away what is not theirs to start off with.. 

and you are right most of the problems are moral ones.  religious leaders are as much fault  as they no longer teach morality in their fundamentalism,,  but rather in christianity's case all is for given if you accept jesus christ as your personal savior..

I see the Us has passed a new law giving the military complete authority with out fear of the Justice system..  it will be a while  but before long the USA will become a military dictatorship..  A sad moment in US history.  I think this is a result of the Occupy movement putting fear into the Banksters ,,  lead by the wealth of the Republican party and the 1% knowing the people are right and being afraid that they have been caught and unwilling to give up power..

Allan

On Sun, Dec 4, 2011 at 10:28 PM, archytas <nwterry@gmail.com> wrote:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=killing-one-person-to-save-five-11-12-03

I believe most of our "economic" problems are really moral ones.  The
problem is most of what "morality" is is just so much turkey.  The
problem expressed in the link above is whether to divert a train that
will kill 5 innocent people to another line where it will kill only
one innocent person.  90% of us divert the train in a simulation.

Moral problems as posed to me in real life have never been so simple.
I won't go into them here but can hint.  In the UK's internal war in
Northern Ireland I was asked to do appalling things with informants
(and via pressuring wives and families) - the excuse was 'the greater
good'.  I know now I was conned.

What might a modern morality of the greater good be?  What are the
problems with "morality" and how might we fix them.  The Saudis are
putting forward interesting extremes such as allowing women to drive
cars 'bringing about' all sorts of corruption like homosexuality and
adultery.  What of the role of madness, rationalisation and the clown
zealot in morality?  And what role do facts play?

The train example is easy - but what if the person on the other line
is your son or daughter?  Would you shoot a child suicide bomber
advancing into a crowded area if you had time to run to her and only
put your life at risk?  Do you really think your performance in the
field would match that in thought experiment?

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|_D Allan

Life is for moral, ethical and truthful living.