₦airaland Forum

Xensity:
Can you elaborate on Kant's notions on morality, so I can see if I share his views?

DarkRebel101:

No, at least not entirely.

Kant believed there are absolute moral facts that cannot be divorced from situational application(s). I, contrariwise, do not believe in moral absolutism.

A morality based on human reason is bound to be flawed—human reason is after all flawed.

Killing of twins in the pre-missionary era in the East was not considered morally depraved by those who practiced it, because by way of their reasoning, twins were evil. That's a perfect case in point that proves morality anchored by human ratiocination might not always yield desirable dividends.

I tilt more toward utilitarianism, although I'm not sure I'd sacrifice the life of a family member to save the lives of five total strangers if I were ever faced with say the trolley or footbridge dilemma.

Mindfulness:
You have chosen the example of the killing of twins but what about universal moral codes guiding the human species above all national or ethnic convictions? Has murder not been condemned cross-culturally?

Regarding the trolley or footbridge dilemma, you may not sacrifice the life of a loved one because your emotions would stand in your way but rationally you would probably admit that it was morally wrong, wouldn't you?

Mindfulness:
Blame the poor for being too lazy to succeed and glorify the rich. Glorify the 1% of the world's population who have 50% of the world's wealth in their hands and whose children will be rich without having to work for it.

But while you are at it, blame African countries for being poor because it must be laziness why they are poor and exalt, celebrate and adore developed countries because according to your logic they are the ones who work really hard to succeed, much harder than all Africans put together.

AngelsAndStars:
LMAO... see different answers.

poverty is not anyone's fault but "the system"

in a society there will always be winners and losers, poor and rich. that's how is works. everybody cannot be rich but everybody can be poor(war torn)

the west successfully made necessary things available for their poor but African is a different playing field where greed reigns supreme hence poverty.

a society is maintained by force(military, police, etc) if not it won't hold. that's why the poor and rich can live side by side. fear of the state. law.

so at every given time in a society some must be automatically cursed to be poor while some must be cursed to be rich. if you fall in rich category thank your stars but if otherwise struggle out but if you failed to make it then call it"destiny (I don't believe in that though)

but know this. in every society there must be rich and poor. what we should be worried about is the gap between both classes.

Xensity:
Nothing is the fault of anyone. I'll try my best to explain my position.

Think about this. The attainment of wealth or the inability to escape the dungeons of poverty is a result of the slew of factors surrounding our lives, and how we interact with these factors. Example of these factors include: Being born into a rich or poor family, exposure to good, bad or no education at all, being born with good or bad genes, growing up in a healthy or unhealthy environment, easy or difficult access to lots of life changing opportunities, connections with financially successful people, etc.
Now, since we aren't in control of the circumstances that hover around our lives, like the ones I mentioned above, how can the results that arise from these circumstances be our fault?

Some people would also say that whatever bad financial state we find ourselves, is the product of the decisions we make, and hence our fault, since we had the power to make the right decisions but we chose to make the wrong ones. On the surface, statements like this seem sensible, but vetting more closely, the illusion of the statement's tenability begins to crumble. You would agree with me that our ability to make decisions is controlled by our brains, and our brains are composed of thousands of neurons firing at the same time, and this mechanism is what controls the machine of thought and decision making. But is anyone in control of the functionality of their brains? Some people naturally have brains that enable efficiency in certain tasks like decision making, while some people have brains that don't function as effectively in such tasks. Would you then say that it's the fault of the later if they make bad decisions?

Also, the decisions we make, besides being governed by our brains, are also modulated by the experiences we've had in the past and the kind of mindset and ideas, those experiences have ingrained in us. This means that by dint of past experiences, some people would be better molded to function more effectively in areas that would potentiate the attainment of wealth than others. But would we now say that it's the fault the other set of people who didn't have the right combination of the experiences that would facilitate financial success, because they weren't able to extricate themselves from the quagmire of poverty?

You should also not forget the essential role luck plays in the lives of people. In life, some people just have it easier than others. It's like certain people have an aura of favor that envelopes their lives, while some just have the opposite.

I am not trying to paint being poor as a state to be comfortable with, but saying it's the fault of the poor that they are poor, is intellectually naive.

baby124:
In every society there must be rich and poor. Coming from someone born with a silver spoon, starting out poor is an advantage in life. Life is hard, and being poor at a young age should make you wiser and equip you for survival. This is something the rich kid will not understand or relate with till they are hit with a crises which may be too late or too hard for them to deal with. It is only when one gives up that they remain poor. Also some poor people are content with their position and I don't blame them. Trust me it takes a lot of effort to keep up a rich lifestyle. Not everyone can hustle that much. We are all different and have different strengths and talents. The poor are also not useless to a society. They are very much needed.

ImpartFund:
Good one.But did you just say the poor is not useless to a society and that they are much needed?I really dont understand you.What can the poor contribute to the GDP of a nation?Can the psychological state of a poor person be beneficial to his family talk less of the nation?Baby124 i really need you to explain what you mean.We are all learning from ourselves www.impartfund.com

Ugosample:
Nice submission.
You have captured my thoughts.
Some are born with certain advantages, some are not, and within those who were not, many eventually break away from that and move up the social ladder, even though most will not get to the 1%

Ugosample:
Truthsayer007 is right.
not true in all cases.

Infact, it is not true in many cases.
The 1% you talk about, you think it's all of them who did not work hard for their money, or Maybe you think those in that bracket were always in that bracket.
For many, they had to struggle, fight tooth and nail to get there, though some also got there via inheritance


Your brain is working.Why do we always think the developed nations are not as hardworking as we are?its because we dont understand what work is.The "white man" believes more in mental work which in my own estimation is more difficult than physical work.But we believe in gthe physical strenght.Both are good but one is more productive.The 1% you talked about,do we have any african among them?

AngelsAndStars:
LMAO... see different answers.

poverty is not anyone's fault but "the system"

in a society there will always be winners and losers, poor and rich. that's how is works. everybody cannot be rich but everybody can be poor(war torn)

the west successfully made necessary things available for their poor but African is a different playing field where greed reigns supreme hence poverty.

a society is maintained by force(military, police, etc) if not it won't hold. that's why the poor and rich can live side by side. fear of the state. law.

so at every given time in a society some must be automatically cursed to be poor while some must be cursed to be rich. if you fall in rich category thank your stars but if otherwise struggle out but if you failed to make it then call it"destiny (I don't believe in that though)

but know this. in every society there must be rich and poor. what we should be worried about is the gap between both classes.


Please are you saying "the system" cannot keep people poor?Thats amazing.Maybe you should study some economic theories of wealth in some nations of the world.Even in our nation here.But really good one from you.www.impartfund.com

Catalin:
Good night too

Mindfulness:
I think it is a combination of factors that cause poverty but for me, the biggest factor in all of it is access to quality education or the lack of it. As a result of poor education, the leading classes find it easy to exploit 'the ignorant'. This, definitely, is one of the major reasons why many people remain poor or what we call working poor.

Since you have mentioned America, let me tell you how it works there. Access to education is controlled by a system that is divided into state schools and private schools with state schools in the rural areas designed not to give the working class children even decent elementary education. Almost 90 million of all Americans are 'functional illiterates' who believe people like Donald Trump, a privileged white boy, that he understands their plight and will save them and the Republican mantra that universal health care, which other developed countries successfully provide for all their citizens, is something to be repelled even though their aged parents die from treatable diseases because they are unable to cover medical bills.

They are so ignorant that they believe the mantra that they should be grateful for having a job that hardly helps them make ends meet under the mantra that if they do not work 12 hours on starvation wage, the company will have to produce abroad so that it can survive when in fact people like Rex Tillerson (a former manager and Trump's foreign minister) collected 180 million dollars for quitting his job from one of the global players that have become rich at the backs of the working people and by exploitation of the natural resources in other countries.

But the poor white man will never blame the rich - after all America is the land of opportunity they have been told and because without immigrants they would be rich - they have been told too. And they believe it because they were meant to be educated and brainwashed to be stewpid and remain so generation after generation. These same people vote for Trump and the Republican Party, the party that has been trying to suspend the Social Security Act and of which the suspension would hit same voters the most.

truthsayer007:
Exactly !

Catalin:
I'm bringing it down to the microeconomic level.

ImpartFund:
Great one.But even those who are not born with certain "advantages" like you said also have some other"advantages".Don"t you think its a case of the poor not using the "advantage" they have the way the rich have been able to use theirs?I agree that there will always be the poor.Even Jesus Christ said so.But can u kindly tell us what you mean by "advantages"? www.impartfund.com

ImpartFund:
No not because we are lazier,but because we dont like mental sophistication and our greeed is too much.Do you agree with me?www.impartfund.com

Ugosample:
Okay..I'll check your site and make my contributions accordingly, that's the least I can do.

But....
u want to publish this? or something?

ImpartFund:
Mindfulness you have really done well.But you didn"t share your view about the african situation.And from what you said,i can infer that the politicians and the elite of any society in the world determine a lot about the financial situation of the people in their society.But you didn"t say anything about the poor african-americans who live under the bridge in miami,the projects of new york,detriot and some other cities.Are you saying that they are all "illiterates" or the "sysytem is deliberately keeping them poor?www.impartfund.com

Ugosample:
Truthsayer007 is right.
not true in all cases.

Infact, it is not true in many cases.
The 1% you talk about, you think it's all of them who did not work hard for their money, or Maybe you think those in that bracket were always in that bracket.
For many, they had to struggle, fight tooth and nail to get there, though some also got there via inheritance

DarkRebel101:
The universal moral codes guiding the human species were only put in place to protect the weak from the strong, and to pare to the bone, the original laws that govern the Red Queen's race, which is: eat or be eaten, rape or be raped, colonise or be colonised.

Under straitened circumstances, these so-called moral codes would be discarded and the true nature of the human spirit which is at its very core self-centered, violent, and animalistic, would emerge and lay to waste whatever tenous phantasm of morality we've invented to retain sanity and order.

Morality is a rather dicey subject; and even I, is not surefooted in the position(s) I hold as regards the topic. But I believe we can not always rationalise our way out of everything --- morality is one of the few things that defy the canons of logic, and a facet of humanity in which it is impossible to have absolute truths.

Even the so-called universal moral codes are liable to change as not all of them are as perfect as we think they are. For example, certain individuals and sects have over the course of history fired revolutionary cannonballs and as a result, caused us to see the wrong in the things we for so many decades or centuries believed to be indubitable moral certainties.

Five hundred years ago it was immoral of a woman to aspire to be anything more than a shingle weaver. It was a widely accepted belief, and even women themselves accepted to be a moral fact the belief that evolution and/or religion placed them several leagues below the male species, and that it was sacrilege to try to upset the existing system by aspiring to be anything that extended beyond the occupational boundaries that have been drawn out by society to demarcate the two genders.

Alas and alack, the belief turned out to be a false Dragon, and thanks to women right activists, sluices of opportunities have been opened for the womenfolk and glass ceilings have been blown to smithereens.

Same thing applies to slavery. In the not-so-distant past, it used to be a universally held moral conviction that some humans were inferior to some, and so should function as the toys of the humans perceived to be superior. But look at the world today --- a world wherein slave-trade is now considered illegal.

Homosexuality was punishable by death and was seen as the mother of all moral depravities. Even though it's still considered to be so is in some parts of the world, I'm sure you'd agree the previously held orientation about homosexuality is gradually ebbing away.

Even now, many people have no qualms with abortion --- which I believe is MURDER and wrong. So, who's to say in a thousand years from now that murder –whether of a foetus or fully grown man/woman – would not be universally believed to be just and morally right?

My point is, even the universal moral codes that subsist today are not entirely infallible, and are very well susceptible to alterations.

Now, to answer your question: Rationally, the best action to take would be to sacrifice the lives of the five strangers. The world is already overpopulated, and by doing so, you are trimming down the percentage of the world's population and decreasing the odds of starvation (due to too many people but barely sufficent food), employment (due to too many people but few jobs), e.t.c.

Rationality could be a double-, or even triple-edged dagger. I also believe it is regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances that characterise our human existence.. So, perhaps I was faced with the footbridge dilemma in a time of war, logic would dictate that I sacrifice my loved one to save the lives of the five strangers.

Saving the five strangers translates to more men for the army of my country --- remember it is a time of war.

Saving the five strangers also means more labour to aid my country in the war, be it in form of their skill in weapon making, battle tactics, or even by their sheer presence to give my country numerical advantage over the enemy.

There really is no clear-cut answer.

baby124:
The poor are mostly the ones who do the work the rich would not. The rich make wealth and employ. The poor keep the economy running. If everyone was rich, who will do the menial jobs that keep the society running? Everyone in life has their place. Some people are rich today and poor tomorrow. Some are poor today and rich tomorrow. At the end of the day, everyone will be placed at the level and place in life.

Mindfulness:
I haven't said that rich people have not worked hard enough to deserve to do well and that all of them inherited their wealth. However, I do not see why a CEO should earn 350 times more than an average worker because if hard work is what makes people worthy of wealth then clearly manufacturers do hard work. And many of them are not even able to afford health insurance after retirement which they urgently need after having had a hip replacement due to the hard work they had been doing for decades.

truthsayer007:
If you don't understand why a CEO should earn 350 more than an average worker, then we shouldn't be having any conversation at all.

Its equivalent to asking why an Army General should be earning times 350 of what a soldier who goes to Boko Haram to fight while the He sits in an office in Abuja.

Your should enlighten yourself lol.

Mindfulness:
I haven't said that rich people have not worked hard enough to deserve to do well and that all of them inherited their wealth. However, I do not see why a CEO should earn 350 times more than an average worker because if hard work is what makes people worthy of wealth then clearly manufacturers do hard work. And many of them are not even able to afford health insurance after retirement which they urgently need after having had a hip replacement due to the hard work they had been doing for decades.

truthsayer007:
If you don't understand why a CEO should earn 350 more than an average worker, then we shouldn't be having any conversation at all.

Its equivalent to asking why an Army General should be earning times 350 of what a soldier who goes to Boko Haram to fight while the He sits in an office in Abuja.

Your should enlighten yourself lol.

Ugosample:
The bolded is unfortunate.

Mindfulness:
Unfortunate and grossly unfair but 'functional illiterates' will tell you it is normal and fair because an employee is like a Boko Haram terrorist after all. And they will call it enlightenment.

They will not ask the important questions because in their 'enlightened' view critical thinking is non-existent.

The right questions would be:

1. Why is a CEO's job worth 350 times more income?
2. Who determines the value of work?
3. Whose work is harder?
4. What are the consequences of such income inequality for the individual and the society as a whole?

Ugosample:
You have a point...

But know this.......
Without the CEO, THE COMPANY WILL NOT EXIST.

It is entrepreneurs who create businesses that people work in....
And the life of the business is key to keeping people employed.

So with that, I think the CEOs should be well remunerated...

but 350 times is too much

Mindfulness:
I come from a family of entrepreneurs who created many jobs so no need telling me that.




Nobody said they should not be remunerated. I have not even said they should not earn more.