Philosophy Now Forum

a distant relative came to stay with us recently - he was fired from his position as a junior executive for a large arguably evil corporation and is now contemplating his options

according to him, all the upper management of his former employer are idiots assholes or both

in particular, he apparently got in a major argument with them about them wanting to cut down on sick days - down to the statutory minimum

for purely selfish reasons, he does not want sick people dragging themselves to work because they have no sick days left and need the money, and then coughing into his air

he is even ok with someone playing GTA V all night and then calling in sick - because, for selfish reasons, he does not those people driving on his roads just because they are out of sick days and need the money -

he uses similar, entirely selfish arguments to support Obamacare and generally Canadian and swedish style social democracy

in his view, the reason so many of the rich assholes opposed sharing he wealth is not because of any fiscal interest, but because they want people to suffer

as far as he is concerned, his former bosses - and many rich fucks in general - are simply sadistic assholes who get off on some poor schmuck having to suffer as he has to go to work after staying up coughing all night

he quoted Orwell's 1984 - How do we show our power over others? By making them suffer. He thinks that this is what is at play here, not merely selfishness.

What are your thoghts on this?

That he doesn't have much to say about anything?

Seems like a bit of a simpleton to me. But at least straight-forward. His arguments are simplistic and as you said selfish. So they don't really carry any credibility or reason for being taken seriously.

He could be an excellent commie, he doesn't think of the health of the buisness, but rather in selfcenterd ways workers vs the corp.

But if the competicion gets too steep, the corp will move to less expensive countries, then there's no job for a whiner such as him.

He surely doesn't think holisticly.

Large arguably evil corporation: which one there are hundreds?

If it was big pharma though there's no excusing the damned.

To which these guys pander endlessly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGIbOGu8q0

"His shakras are fading gonna need some crystals in here."

lol.

ethical egoism is a perfectly legitimate system

-Imp

Impenitent wrote:ethical egoism is a perfectly legitimate system

-Imp

Sorry I am not stalking you imp but in what way is it legitimate, I am not a big fan of one line answers especially when they really don't answer the thread topic.

all the upper management of his former employer are idiots assholes or both

This is hardly an unusual circumstance, and you may as well include middle and lower management. The reason is built into the system: in what economic climate businesses operate; who is hired, who is promoted, how the process works. (See Dilbert. Everyone knows.)

he uses similar, entirely selfish arguments to support Obamacare and generally Canadian and swedish style social democracy

There is an argument to be made for mutual enlightened self-interest leading to a healthy society that actually serves even its most privileged members better than does a stratified and conflicted society. That argument has been made by more sophisticated spokesmen (including myself) than your relative, but he's basically correct on that score.

How do we show our power over others? By making them suffer.

That part is oversimplified, though not entirely wrong. Power is a drug: it addicts and corrupts and drives people mad. But the rich fucks don't just want to make the workers suffer for the sake of their suffering: they need to keep the workers in their place: cowed and silent and vying for a chance to lick the master's boot. To this end, they will fight, with all their considerable might, against any measure that could relieve the peons' insecurity.

Blaggard wrote:

Impenitent wrote:ethical egoism is a perfectly legitimate system

-Imp

Sorry I am not stalking you imp but in what way is it legitimate, I am not a big fan of one line answers especially when they really don't answer the thread topic.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/egoism/

-Imp

Impenitent wrote:

Blaggard wrote:

Impenitent wrote:ethical egoism is a perfectly legitimate system

-Imp

Sorry I am not stalking you imp but in what way is it legitimate, I am not a big fan of one line answers especially when they really don't answer the thread topic.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/egoism/

-Imp

Yeah I know what it is was more hoping you would elaborate on what you said given the op.

Blaggard wrote:

Impenitent wrote:

Blaggard wrote: Sorry I am not stalking you imp but in what way is it legitimate, I am not a big fan of one line answers especially when they really don't answer the thread topic.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/egoism/

-Imp

Yeah I know what it is was more hoping you would elaborate on what you said given the op.

how ethical can you be? you can be perfectly ethical based on self interest alone...

to say nothing of the problem of solipsism...

-Imp

I see and I also agree that it is possible although living such a life would probably make you deeply unpopular regardless of how ethical you were. It's for that reason, the practical outweighs the philosophical, it's better to socially evolve than to devolve to the nature of an animal although that is unfair as obviously animals have no ethics they just have a survival instinct which may or may not be selfish and usually isn't in large numbers. Mind you at the extreme I've always found those who advocate a sort of anarchism based only around self interest ethical or not to be of little value to a social group any way, which is probably fine by them, although ronery.

Ultimately I think the idea that we're all just selfish and egotistical automatons out to get what we can grab onto and hold with our own strength, is a pretty primative view of ethics and it's not hard to refute its moral values whether it's libertarian left/anarchism or collectivism or tea party style libertarian right, mind you those sort of advocates are just bat ferk insane though, there's no reasoning with that level of ignorance.

End of the day and more on topic though the guy in the OP sounds like a complete dick and what he thinks is hardly ethical.

Ultimately I think the idea that we're all just selfish and egotistical automatons

Isn't that self-contradictory? An automaton doesn't have any feelings, selfish or otherwise: it simply does what it's programmed to do. Only a self-aware entity can be egotistical.... in which case, it can also have a lot of other complicated neurological processes, even altruistic ones.

Self-interest is not necessarily selfishness in the negative sense. It can be motivated just as much by love as by hunger; just as much by pity as by anger. And it can be coupled with the subtle intelligence to make long-chain causal connections. Like: If I'm part of a group, my chances of survival improve by a wide margin. If the group survives, its members survive; if the members are healthy, the group survives; if I contribute to the welfare of other members, they will contribute to mine and the whole group will be better off; if I behave in a pleasing manner and other members of the group approve of me, I'll be better off.

out to get what we can grab onto and hold with our own strength, is a pretty primative view of ethics and it's not hard to refute its moral values.

Primitives didn't, and don't, think that way. They have far more strict ethical codes and adhere more closely to those, than do complex modern civilizations to their sophisticated canons. Subtile thinkers figure out ways to get out of their obligation to the tribe, while skimming more than their share. It's done by guile rather than force: the really big winners hire and/or dupe losers to do the heavy lifting and torturing.

Several scientist/philosophers (recommended: Sam Harris, "The Moral Landscape") have made a very good case for the biological evolution of ethics and proposed a scientific basis upon which to construct a code of social values. Obviously, both short- and long-term self-interest figure largely in making any system work.

yes well I meant in the sense of programmed presumably by genes and environment not in the sense of an actual robot.

And the profit in being a thief is likely fleeting in social groups, sooner or later you will probably face justice, I wouldn't see stealing as an act of altruism but neither does it have to be purely selfish either and so called primitive cultures are actually extremely complicated organisms, I don't think technological sophistication equates to social sophistication or ever has really aside from in the far distant past when we were small tribal groups.

Small tribal groups still exist, and not only in the remote Andean jungle. They exist in every city and town, and they are the most durable of all social structures. When empires crumble - which they all do, on a predictable schedule - tribes and clans remain. In natural catastrophe, in war, in famine, clans are the best chance of survival.

I wasn't talking about technological sophistication (though technology tends to develop in the more complex civilizations, as a side-effect of political diversity), but philosophical sophistry: the huge fictional edifice of something like the Catholic church, or a federal government or an international banking system: the made-up values that justify hierarchy.

Another issue with complex, layered societies is anonymity. You can't steal so much as a hammer in a village of 50 people, without it being recognized immediately you start using it, as belonging to the cobbler's eldest son. In a city of 9 million people, nobody knows who owned something ten minutes ago and three blocks away. In an economy that consists of what the group can find, kill or make, there is no unaccounted-for excess of anything, while in a money-based economy, opportunities for three dozen different kinds of theft abound. And every one of them can be justified with fancy legal verbiage. Moral ambiguity grows along with the size, complexity and stratification of society.

And even so, no matter how self-reflexive, convoluted or even absurd an artificially constructed moral system is, it still appeals to self-interest as the only reliable motivator. Tell the truth and you might be president some day. Don't touch that pee-pee, and you won't go to jail. Be a loyal employee and we'll give you a pension. Wear this bomb on the airplane and you'll go to heaven. Why not leave everybody figure out how their own self-interest promotes the good action their own reason dictates?

Skip wrote:That part is oversimplified, though not entirely wrong. Power is a drug: it addicts and corrupts and drives people mad. But the rich fucks don't just want to make the workers suffer for the sake of their suffering: they need to keep the workers in their place: cowed and silent and vying for a chance to lick the master's boot. To this end, they will fight, with all their considerable might, against any measure that could relieve the peons' insecurity.

my relative was giving his subordinates off the books sick time - for the purely selfish reason of not wanting to breathe the air into which they coughed

his superiors and peers did not like it - even when he showed them that what he was doing did not actually cost the company anything maybe even resulted in a bit of a net gain

so keeping the workers in their place is not done for any sort of fiscal gain - but purely for sadistic reasons