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Old 02-08-2015, 06:04 PM
 
963 posts, read 688,012 times
Reputation: 759

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Quote:
Originally Posted by green_mariner View Post
It takes individuals working and pursuing their interests to create something good. A decent society also respects the rights of the individual. There have been many cases throughout history where the rights of the individuals haven't been respected.
I agree. And THAT is why this return to groupthink is so dangerous to other segments of society. That's why it's important to focus on the rights of the INDIVIDUAL and not groups in society.
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Old 02-08-2015, 06:09 PM
 
Location: New Orleans, LA
1,291 posts, read 1,517,236 times
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Africa is ran by individual warlords that don't think about anybody else. They think of the rights of individuals in the most extreme of ways, referring to that particular practice.

In all honesty there's a balance. We can't just think of ourselves or we will be secluded and outcasted and nobody will want anything to do with us, but at the same time to respect autonomy IS for the better of society because not everybody is the same.
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Old 02-08-2015, 06:10 PM
 
9,470 posts, read 6,954,383 times
Reputation: 2177
Quote:
Originally Posted by ohhwanderlust View Post
Yes to society's needs coming before individual desires. Society is a collection of individuals, and addressing the well-being of society is to make it a better place for most individuals. Why should a few individuals be so special as to be prioritized over the rest of the individuals?

And society's needs should come before business's needs. If a business is legitimately beneficial to society, there won't be much conflict anyway.
How do you decide whom to benefit and whom to harm?

Who is "more equal" than their neighbor?
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Old 02-08-2015, 06:12 PM
 
Location: New Orleans, LA
1,291 posts, read 1,517,236 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by pnwmdk View Post
How do you decide whom to benefit and whom to harm?

Who is "more equal" than their neighbor?
By trying new things and seeing if they work over time. That's how we have evolved as a civilization. When Rome fell, the world tried the feudal thing for a thousand years. We found a better way so we went to doing that.
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Old 02-08-2015, 06:27 PM
 
Location: Houston
26,979 posts, read 15,849,164 times
Reputation: 11259
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mwahfromtheheart View Post
By trying new things and seeing if they work over time. That's how we have evolved as a civilization. When Rome fell, the world tried the feudal thing for a thousand years. We found a better way so we went to doing that.
What brought us out of the dark ages was the recognition of the rights of the individual. We don't need to go back to the past.
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Old 02-08-2015, 06:29 PM
 
Location: Itinerant
8,278 posts, read 6,255,705 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Mwahfromtheheart View Post
But we aren't talking about individual groups, we're talking about society as a whole. Let's say, for an extreme example, we protected the right of the individual to use the water supply to store hazardous chemicals. How is that a more ideal situation than considering society first?
What is the whole of society?

Every living human on the planet (if so the US has a lot of debts to pay)? Every person within the US? Every US Citizen regardless of location? Every US Citizen in the US? Every person you interact with? Your state, county, city? Your immediate neighborhood? They're all societies and none of them are societies.

Your extreme example is as relevant as arguing that an individual has a right to shoot people at random, you cannot protect the rights of the individual and others with either example. In yours you're denying to protect the right of others to clean drinking water, in the random shooting right the right to life. It's not an either society has more right, or the individual has more right. If every individual has the same right as any other individual, then society has the same right as the individual too (by definition, society is merely an abstract concept based on peoples interactions). Your right to shoot people at random does not trump my right to life, and my right to store hazardous chemicals does not trump your right to clean safe drinking water.

In reality there is no such thing as society, there are laws, and governance, and people, but society does not exist in any real sense, I don't buy bread from society using currency that society created, using roads that society built, I buy bread from a baker or grocer, using money that's government issued (government is not society) that I earned from time or investment, using roads that were built spending city/state/federal funding, that came from the taxpayers (who are not society either).

The issue is that if "the collective" which is "society" has more rights than the individual, then classifications of people by that collective can be denied their rights after all the collective has more rights than the individual. If a classification of people have more rights than another, then they can use those rights to deny the rights of others. Both fail real world tests, the former describes the USSR "the collective" was to all intents and purposes the party and politburo, did it achieve it's goal of providing for the best interests of society? Or itself (Some animals are more equal than others)? The latter describes European Aristocracies, and had no interests in providing for the best interests of society.

The only mechanism that has a chance of working is one where individual rights are protected and equal. That way everyone has the same risks and benefits as everyone else, none may be subjugated or mistreated without denying them their rights which being protected in the ideal world cannot be denied, and even in the real world gives a method of redress for those so denied.
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Old 02-08-2015, 06:31 PM
 
Location: SW MO
23,593 posts, read 37,394,969 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ohhwanderlust View Post
Yes to society's needs coming before individual desires.
The operative word was "needs," not "desires." Big difference.
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Old 02-08-2015, 06:34 PM
 
Location: New Orleans, LA
1,291 posts, read 1,517,236 times
Reputation: 747
Quote:
Originally Posted by whogo View Post
What brought us out of the dark ages was the recognition of the rights of the individual. We don't need to go back to the past.
You could argue that serfdom was for the rights of a #1 person. I don't think Kings and Emperors gave a crap about individual rights. But that wasn't the point of what I said, my point was that we try different things to evolve as a society.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gungnir View Post
What is the whole of society?

Every living human on the planet (if so the US has a lot of debts to pay)? Every person within the US? Every US Citizen regardless of location? Every US Citizen in the US? Every person you interact with? Your state, county, city? Your immediate neighborhood? They're all societies and none of them are societies.

Your extreme example is as relevant as arguing that an individual has a right to shoot people at random, you cannot protect the rights of the individual and others with either example. In yours you're denying to protect the right of others to clean drinking water, in the random shooting right the right to life. It's not an either society has more right, or the individual has more right. If every individual has the same right as any other individual, then society has the same right as the individual too (by definition, society is merely an abstract concept based on peoples interactions). Your right to shoot people at random does not trump my right to life, and my right to store hazardous chemicals does not trump your right to clean safe drinking water.

In reality there is no such thing as society, there are laws, and governance, and people, but society does not exist in any real sense, I don't buy bread from society using currency that society created, using roads that society built, I buy bread from a baker or grocer, using money that's government issued (government is not society) that I earned from time or investment, using roads that were built spending city/state/federal funding, that came from the taxpayers (who are not society either).

The issue is that if "the collective" which is "society" has more rights than the individual, then classifications of people by that collective can be denied their rights after all the collective has more rights than the individual. If a classification of people have more rights than another, then they can use those rights to deny the rights of others. Both fail real world tests, the former describes the USSR "the collective" was to all intents and purposes the party and politburo, did it achieve it's goal of providing for the best interests of society? Or itself (Some animals are more equal than others)? The latter describes European Aristocracies, and had no interests in providing for the best interests of society.

The only mechanism that has a chance of working is one where individual rights are protected and equal. That way everyone has the same risks and benefits as everyone else, none may be subjugated or mistreated without denying them their rights which being protected in the ideal world cannot be denied, and even in the real world gives a method of redress for those so denied.
So I can guess that you believe that balance between the individual and society is ideal, and that we as individuals benefit when we think of society as a whole?

EDIT: after all, your right to live trumps my right to be happy because that's better for society.
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Old 02-09-2015, 07:41 AM
 
17,379 posts, read 9,207,763 times
Reputation: 11854
It's not a matter of balance between the 'individual' & 'society' ...... there is NO 'society' without 'individual' freedoms and rights. All that is left without the freedom is a Collective with a self designated "Ruling class" that decided for the Collective ........ all for the Greater Good of course. It's a false argument and a political construct.

In entry-level philosophy class, a professor will often present a scenario that seems to challenge the students’ perspective on morality.....

The Myth of the Greater Good

The 19th-century British individualist Auberon Herbert addressed the issue of the “good of the greatest number.” He stated, “There never was invented a more specious and misleading phrase. The Devil was in his most subtle and ingenious mood when he slipped this phrase into the brains of men. I hold it to be utterly false in essentials.”

Herbert wrote, “The tendency of all great complicated machines is to make a ruling class, for they alone understand the machine, and they alone are skilled in the habit of guiding it; and the tendency of a ruling expert class, when once established, is that at critical moments they do pretty nearly what they like with the nation…”

Rather than solve a social problem, the ruling class had a devastating effect on the welfare of common people, who became “a puzzled flock of sheep waiting for the sheepdog to drive us through the gate.” Ironically, by claiming the collective was greater, the few were able to assume control over the many. The “greater good” devolved to whatever served the interests of the ruling class.


This "Greater Good" has cropped up many times in history -- there is always a group of Sheep and those who want to be the Sheep Dog. They play to the lowest common denominator to lead the Sheep. It never works out well.
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Old 02-09-2015, 07:44 AM
 
10,545 posts, read 13,562,785 times
Reputation: 2823
It depends on the need and how you're talking about meeting it.
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