I apologize for not getting a new question out earlier but we got quite a few comments on the last question, so I let that go for a while and life got in the way for a while.
Ok, so we started out by asking what is a human being:
Here's what we got:
Specific Genetic Makeup
Potential to become more
Free Will
Morality
Products of our environments
Created in the image of God (My Mom's comment, she had trouble posting, so I'm putting this here for her)
From there, I wanted to ask what makes someone good or bad, but due to my "extensive" philosophical training ;-) had to ask what it means for something to be good or bad or if good and bad exist at all. To which I recieved some fascinating answers.
I think the resounding answer was that good and bad definitely exist. Figuring out what good and bad are however, is a much more difficult question.
Here are some of the answers we got for good and bad:
Meeting or exceeding an expectation
Pragmatism or General Utility
Something is good or bad relative to it's context
There are some clear cut cases of right and wrong e.g. abusing children, etc.
Personal experience
Another interesting point that I think Neil was trying to get at was we can determine good or bad by choice. You can change your attitude to turn a negative into a positive.
Religous or social conditioning
Rationality or Personal Reasoning (often called Moral Rationalism)
I think we can probably boil down most of those answers to saying that good or bad is determined by people, with a few possible exceptions. I don't necessarily subscribe to this belief, but that seems to be the general consensus, so here's the plan: we're going to proceed with the consensus and based upon our previous two answers, see what we come up with here.
So, taking that information I think we can move on and ask the question I had planned to ask in the last entry. How do we determine what it means to be a "good human being" or to live "the good life."
So, here's a little philosophy for you all. (Sorry I can't resist ;-) Philosophical arguments have a distinct structure. To reach a conclusion, you must first have your premises. So, based upon our discussion to this point here are our premises:
Premise 1: Humans are genetically distinct, possess the ability to become more than they are, have free will, possess a knowledge of right and wrong, are products of their environments, and are made in the image of God.
Premise 2: There is such a thing as good and bad
Premise 3: Good is defined as meeting or exceeding an expectation, something that is useful, something that is pleasing to the senses, our definitions of good are shaped by outside factors (society, religion, culture), we can control what is good through our attitude and we determine good and bad through our reason.
So, now here's the question or puzzle for this week: What conclusions can be drawn from these premises? It generally isn't this difficult because you usually have only simple premises, these are more complex. If it gets too complex, just take the answers that you gave for what it means to be a human and what it means for something to be good and draw your conclusions from that.
Here's an example of a conclusion that could be drawn:
Premise 1: Humans are defined by being able to choose good from bad
Premise 2: Good means something useful
Conclusion: Being a good human being means being able to choose something that is useful.
I'm afraid I may have gone off the philosophical cliff here. If I have, just answer this question: Based on what it means to be a human being to you and what it means for something to be good. Put those two together and figure out what it means to be a "good human being" What is a good human being?
Reasons for Hope:
Ok, so the reason for hope this week is the phenomenon known as "The Secret." I haven't read, seen, or heard the story yet but I've heard about it from many people. And from what I've heard of it, it sounds great. The power of positive thinking and visualization.
But the message isn't the sole reason for hope. The speed with which it has spread around the world really gives me hope. It just shows that a good message can spread virtually overnight, which really says to me that you can in a sense "change the world" overnight.
Quote of the Week
"If we did all the things we were capable of doing, we would astound ourselves." -Edison
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
The Good Life
Thanks to everyone who posted last week on my question of "What does it mean to be a human being?" or "What is a human being."
Before I get too in depth in this article, if you will look to the right of the page, you'll see a "Digg" button. If you enjoy this article, please click on the Digg button. Digg is a website that links to frequently visited websites, so say for instance I get 200 Diggs, that may put me on their website, which will build my reader base and allow me to reach a larger audience. It's also a cool way to see what other people are reading these days, check out their website: http://digg.com/
Now, I received some very interesting and differing opinions on what it means to be a human, such as:
Being a human means...
Having a specific genetic makeup
Being able to become something more than you are
Possessing Free Will
Being moral beings
Being a product of our biological and social environments
All of those are very credible definitions of what it means to be a human. So, the definition we have to work with is human beings have a specific genetic makeup, possess the ability to become more than they are, have free will, possess a knowledge of right and wrong, and are products of their environments. That's a pretty solid definition! So, let's work with that.
My next question is this: How do we evaluate our lives as humans? By what standard do we measure living "the good life?" Based upon the genetic definition above would you say that being a "good" human means having the perfect genetic make-up, for example, being the ideal height, having perfect vision, not being bald, etc.?
But, now that I think of it, before we can pose this question, we must first answer the question of "What does it mean for something to be good or bad?" Is there such a thing as good or bad? Some philosophers will argue that there is no objective good or bad, basically good is what you like and bad is what you don't like.
So, this week's question is "Is there such a thing as Good and Bad, and if so what does it mean for something to be Good or Bad."
Plato had an interesting view of Good and Bad based upon his belief in the realm of the forms. Basically, Plato believed that there was a perfect world outside of ours, where everything that exists in this world has an ideal version of it in that perfect world. For example, we have chairs in our world, but in the world of the forms there is a perfect chair. And something was judged as good or bad depending on how much it correlated to its version in the world of the forms. This belief is also commonly used using God as the ideal. In this view, God is the perfect standard, the things we do that are closest to God are considered good and the things we do against God's nature are considered bad or sin.
Another philosophical school, the utilitarians, argue that good is quantifiable in the greatest utility for the greatest number. Here's an example: Let's say you have five people dying in a hospital: one needs a kidney, one needs a heart, one needs a lung, etc. Then a semi-healthy guy comes in for a check-up. In the utilitarian view, the "good" thing to do would be to carve up the healthy guy and give his healthy organs to the five other people. So, you have five healthy people vs. one. The greatest utility for the greatest number.
Perhaps the most famous ideal of the good is the "Golden Rule." Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The philosopher Immanuel Kant called this the Categorical Imperative. Which basically said "People are never to be used as a means to an end, but should be viewed as an end unto themselves."
So, there are a lot of views on this subject. What do you think?
Reason for Hope this week: Check out this website:
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/
Check out this poem by Mother Theresa titled "Anyway"
People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
Before I get too in depth in this article, if you will look to the right of the page, you'll see a "Digg" button. If you enjoy this article, please click on the Digg button. Digg is a website that links to frequently visited websites, so say for instance I get 200 Diggs, that may put me on their website, which will build my reader base and allow me to reach a larger audience. It's also a cool way to see what other people are reading these days, check out their website: http://digg.com/
Now, I received some very interesting and differing opinions on what it means to be a human, such as:
Being a human means...
Having a specific genetic makeup
Being able to become something more than you are
Possessing Free Will
Being moral beings
Being a product of our biological and social environments
All of those are very credible definitions of what it means to be a human. So, the definition we have to work with is human beings have a specific genetic makeup, possess the ability to become more than they are, have free will, possess a knowledge of right and wrong, and are products of their environments. That's a pretty solid definition! So, let's work with that.
My next question is this: How do we evaluate our lives as humans? By what standard do we measure living "the good life?" Based upon the genetic definition above would you say that being a "good" human means having the perfect genetic make-up, for example, being the ideal height, having perfect vision, not being bald, etc.?
But, now that I think of it, before we can pose this question, we must first answer the question of "What does it mean for something to be good or bad?" Is there such a thing as good or bad? Some philosophers will argue that there is no objective good or bad, basically good is what you like and bad is what you don't like.
So, this week's question is "Is there such a thing as Good and Bad, and if so what does it mean for something to be Good or Bad."
Plato had an interesting view of Good and Bad based upon his belief in the realm of the forms. Basically, Plato believed that there was a perfect world outside of ours, where everything that exists in this world has an ideal version of it in that perfect world. For example, we have chairs in our world, but in the world of the forms there is a perfect chair. And something was judged as good or bad depending on how much it correlated to its version in the world of the forms. This belief is also commonly used using God as the ideal. In this view, God is the perfect standard, the things we do that are closest to God are considered good and the things we do against God's nature are considered bad or sin.
Another philosophical school, the utilitarians, argue that good is quantifiable in the greatest utility for the greatest number. Here's an example: Let's say you have five people dying in a hospital: one needs a kidney, one needs a heart, one needs a lung, etc. Then a semi-healthy guy comes in for a check-up. In the utilitarian view, the "good" thing to do would be to carve up the healthy guy and give his healthy organs to the five other people. So, you have five healthy people vs. one. The greatest utility for the greatest number.
Perhaps the most famous ideal of the good is the "Golden Rule." Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. The philosopher Immanuel Kant called this the Categorical Imperative. Which basically said "People are never to be used as a means to an end, but should be viewed as an end unto themselves."
So, there are a lot of views on this subject. What do you think?
Reason for Hope this week: Check out this website:
http://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/
Check out this poem by Mother Theresa titled "Anyway"
People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you've got anyway.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
The Beginning
Welcome everyone to The New Humanist blog. Apparently, it's not as "new" as I thought, as there are a couple of other websites out there titled "The New Humanist," but technically speaking since they've been around longer than me, this is still "The NEW Humanist."
The genesis of this idea came from this slide show:
http://www.scottmcleod.org/didyouknow.wmv
If you haven't seen it, check it out before proceeding.
The slideshow is concerned with how fast our world is changing and what life could look like in the 21st century. There was one particular section concerned with technology and how by 2020, there will be one computer that will surpass the entire human race in brain power that costs...1,000.00 dollars!
That started me thinking, do we really understand the path we're going down? Will having those sophisticated computers make human beings obsolete? Do we control technology or does technology control us? And, perhaps most importantly, what does it mean to be a human being in this age of insane technology?
A friend of mine commented that we're living in an age dominated by technicians and if you think about it he's right. Google, Apple, Microsoft, and several Information Technology companies are dominating the US, and soon, the World economies. The point he raised is that there doesn't seem to be any philosophy or moral context for these technicians to follow. Just because we can do something, does that mean we should do that thing? Think about some of the issues that this century is going bring to light; cloning, genetic enhancement, Artificial Intelligence. All these things and other things we can't even conceive of will become possible in this century. How do we decide if these things should be pursued or not.
Well, those are the issues I'd like to debate and discuss in this blog. And I'm really counting on you all to participate in this dialogue and to bring others into the discussion. To hopefully develop and discuss a philosophy that can help us to make those decisions. Each week, I'll present a new topic to guide us through these decisions.
Secondly, I'd like to take this blog to celebrate some of the positive things that human beings are capable of; we often hear of all the negative things out there but it's rare to hear about all the good that happens, which as you will see far outweighs the bad. If you hear or see a story that shows the positive side of humanity, please share it.
Finally, a third theme that will be running through this blog is the idea of technology and how we as humans can positively interact with technology vs. being dominated by it. And let me say up front that I'm not against technology, as I write this blog from my awesome MacBook Pro. I'm just interested to see if technology has really made our lives better. That is, once we figure out what living a good life means.
So, this week's philosophical topic is: What does it mean to be a human being?
Philosophers and theologians have been debating this question for milennia. Aristotle used something called "The Function Argument," to describe what he thought constitued a human being. He posited that things are defined by what they distinctly do, for example, the Eye is defined as something that sees. Using this logic, Aristotle went on to say that the distinguishing factor for the human race is something that is rational or thinks. So, for Aristotle, what it meant to be a human being was to be a rational being. And I can certainly buy that, but it seems somewhat deficient. Isn't there more to being a human than just something that thinks? Don't we also feel emotions, have aspirations, build systems to support those aspirations, and a myriad of other things?
So, that's the question for this week: What does it mean to you to be a member of the human race?
On the positive note: this past Tuesday was National Sportmanship Day, I was watching Sportscenter and ran across this nice video clip demonstrating good sportsmanship. Check out the ESPN on NSD link in the bottom right hand corner.
http://www.internationalsport.com/nsd/index.cfm#
Have a great week and I look forward to hearing from you.
The genesis of this idea came from this slide show:
http://www.scottmcleod.org/didyouknow.wmv
If you haven't seen it, check it out before proceeding.
The slideshow is concerned with how fast our world is changing and what life could look like in the 21st century. There was one particular section concerned with technology and how by 2020, there will be one computer that will surpass the entire human race in brain power that costs...1,000.00 dollars!
That started me thinking, do we really understand the path we're going down? Will having those sophisticated computers make human beings obsolete? Do we control technology or does technology control us? And, perhaps most importantly, what does it mean to be a human being in this age of insane technology?
A friend of mine commented that we're living in an age dominated by technicians and if you think about it he's right. Google, Apple, Microsoft, and several Information Technology companies are dominating the US, and soon, the World economies. The point he raised is that there doesn't seem to be any philosophy or moral context for these technicians to follow. Just because we can do something, does that mean we should do that thing? Think about some of the issues that this century is going bring to light; cloning, genetic enhancement, Artificial Intelligence. All these things and other things we can't even conceive of will become possible in this century. How do we decide if these things should be pursued or not.
Well, those are the issues I'd like to debate and discuss in this blog. And I'm really counting on you all to participate in this dialogue and to bring others into the discussion. To hopefully develop and discuss a philosophy that can help us to make those decisions. Each week, I'll present a new topic to guide us through these decisions.
Secondly, I'd like to take this blog to celebrate some of the positive things that human beings are capable of; we often hear of all the negative things out there but it's rare to hear about all the good that happens, which as you will see far outweighs the bad. If you hear or see a story that shows the positive side of humanity, please share it.
Finally, a third theme that will be running through this blog is the idea of technology and how we as humans can positively interact with technology vs. being dominated by it. And let me say up front that I'm not against technology, as I write this blog from my awesome MacBook Pro. I'm just interested to see if technology has really made our lives better. That is, once we figure out what living a good life means.
So, this week's philosophical topic is: What does it mean to be a human being?
Philosophers and theologians have been debating this question for milennia. Aristotle used something called "The Function Argument," to describe what he thought constitued a human being. He posited that things are defined by what they distinctly do, for example, the Eye is defined as something that sees. Using this logic, Aristotle went on to say that the distinguishing factor for the human race is something that is rational or thinks. So, for Aristotle, what it meant to be a human being was to be a rational being. And I can certainly buy that, but it seems somewhat deficient. Isn't there more to being a human than just something that thinks? Don't we also feel emotions, have aspirations, build systems to support those aspirations, and a myriad of other things?
So, that's the question for this week: What does it mean to you to be a member of the human race?
On the positive note: this past Tuesday was National Sportmanship Day, I was watching Sportscenter and ran across this nice video clip demonstrating good sportsmanship. Check out the ESPN on NSD link in the bottom right hand corner.
http://www.internationalsport.com/nsd/index.cfm#
Have a great week and I look forward to hearing from you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)