| According to what you posted in the philosophy topic, you regard all knowledge as unprovable. While I am quite capable of following that line of reasoning and even able to accept that it has a certain validity, I do not care for any self-defeating conclusions. While we must always realize that any philosophy does contain error, that error should ideally be minimized. I do not know if I can help you if you do not understand what I define as error. Error in my usage is simply any wrong conclusion.
One of the points I wish to make is that all philosophy must update when presented with evidence that modifies the foundation. Actions of the individual are not inherently evil or good they are of high and low probability of furthering the desired end.
Even killing is not an inherently 'evil' action, it is merely of a low probability because achieving creation through an act of destruction is only valid in a preventive sense. Therefore the killing of one that wastes the efforts of others but gives nothing in return is sometimes a neccasary outcome, from a reasoned point of view their motive and state of mind are not relevant, it is the cost of deferring their damage that should be the only consideration. IOW: If we can reform the man, and expect to break even or lose little we should do so, if the cost of reform is great enough that society must carry the cost, the man has no right to expect us to pay it.
The man that thinks that simply living should be of no cost to him is working from a flawed image of the world. When the world produced enough food for the taking with a low population this image made sense. As population pressure has increased it now takes considerable human effort to make the world support the mass of humanity. Therefore a man that does not produce at least as much effort that it takes to feed him, is a burden, even if a relatively cheap one. If all humanity decided to let his brothers feed him, we would soon die back to that level where the world could again support us. Therefore that man that refuses to support himself is imposing force on the rest of us to move to that primative state, a right that he does not own.
One of the obsticles that rational philosophy has always faced is that the church does not like it. It does not suit the power structure of the church when a man points out that they are using flawed logic, so rather than allow that man power over them they have used scripture to attempt to destroy reasoned process.
The church demands that we serve others before ourselves, but that is silly because we know what we want and can therefore serve our own needs much more effectively than allowing another to serve them because he would have to guess what we need. It is therefore much more logical that every man attend to his need first because he will waste less resourses tending to what he knows. You may then try to convince him to use his extra resources to further the means of others, but done correctly that should also benefit him as well in the long term. Of course this does not mean that every man must grow his own food and find his own water, a man should do what he is best suited to do and trade those resourses with other men that do the same in order to maximize resource. Done correctly this will minimize the cost of all things, because everything will be done by the man that can do so with the least effort. Supply and demand would lower the costs and increase the resources until an optimium point is reached. |