[lit-ideas] Re: Malevolence (Was: The Evil That We Do)
- From: Andy <mimi.erva@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2011 07:42:06 -0700 (PDT)
Fair enough. I'll answer the question. Yes, it is immoral. That baby did not
ask to be born. Presumably the parents knew ahead of time where babies come
from and created the baby anyway. Therefore, if there's not enough food to
feed the newborn baby that resulted from one's behavior, then one feeds that
baby and does with less for one's self, or even starves if necessary. It
becomes a crime of passion under those circumstances to put the baby on the
hillside. Granted, if you die then the baby dies, but the baby dies anyway if
it's deliberately left to die. If one has to take someone else's baby because
the parents are killed in war say, and there's not enough food for it, then
there's really no issue, unless everyone can do with a little less so as to
have enough for the baby. However, those situations are basically Malthusian
economics, not morality.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Robert_Malthus ;
Interestingly, however, (paraphrasing the above site) as an
Anglican minister Malthus saw starvation based in scarcity as divinely imposed
to teach virtuous behavior, so presumably that would be morality. I do away
with the divine and simply see cause and effect in real time, common sense.
Curiously, or maybe just realistically, Malthus didn't think human nature could
be changed, but even here, demographically, as education and wealth goes up,
population goes down, so there's something more at work than just human
spirits. Presumably the passions would be no less strong in a situation of
abundance. Malthus thought that all humans have a tendency toward "virtuous
attachment" (which I'm understanding as a drive to copulate) such that
overpopulation on a planet that can't support them all is inevitable. "Yet in
all societies, even those that are most vicious, the tendency to a virtuous
attachment is so strong that there is a constant
effort towards an increase of population. This constant effort as constantly
tends to subject the lower classes of the society to distress and to prevent
any great permanent amelioration of their condition". (1798)
Maybe when situations become dire is when people's brains most energetically
fly out the window. Sex is clearly a releaser of feel good hormones, plus
there's a power component in it. My understanding is that in the animal
kingdom food requirements are met first, then reproduction. In a situation of
starvation, reproduction probably would be shut down, or the desire for it. I
would imagine Mike's scenario is based not in actual starvation but simply in
scarcity, which would make the act of reproduction no different from an act of,
say, vandalism, that feels good but is ultimately destructive. So, yes, it
would be immoral.
In the end, economics and morality are one and the same. Adam Smith was a
moral philosopher. He wrote Theory of Moral Sentiment before he wrote his
Wealth of Nations, and both were written in an effort to improve the plight of
man. The Wealth of Nations today is treated as purely an economic
tract precisely because nobody reads it and has no idea what it is they're
conveniently using to justify their essentially immoral behavior.
Andy
________________________________
From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, October 9, 2011 11:01 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Malevolence (Was: The Evil That We Do)
On 10/9/11 10:04 AM, Andy wrote:
Mike: Is it immoral to leave a newborn baby out on a hill to die when there is
not enough food to feed the family?
>
>Andy: Seems to me that having a baby if one can't afford one is the immoral
>part. If one cannot afford a baby, one has no business having one. There are
>circumstances, no doubt, but for the most part it's those human spirits
>again. Curiously it would be just common sense, i.e., if there's less food,
>then let's not invite more people to the party. Instead, it's more like
>tomorrow we die, so let's have sex today, however much we compound our
>misery. Do I ask too much of people?You do if you expect them to follow this
>argument-by-false-analogy, which simply avoids Mike's question.
Robert Paul
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