Nussbaum
Perhaps because he is home-grown, the philosopher of choice seems to be Peter Singer. While I appreciate the tightness of his analysis, I have reservation about his approach. Reducing ethics to accountancy misses something that's too important.
I met a Kantian who thought that doing right was doing one's duty. Again, there seems ed to me to be something important absented by this approach. How could one do one's duty when it felt wrong.
I have much sympathy for Moore's reliance on intuition.
With all this in mind, I read Nussbaum's Frontiers of Justice. Not an easy read, and probably a bad place to start with her writings.
The capabilities approach locks us in to considering our own feelings and those of others in a way that I find appealing. If one is not taking others into account one is not acting ethically. Flourishing at the expense of others is not acting ethically. Acting ethically is maintaining human dignity, and hence a life worthy of that dignity.
I'm not going to go into detail about Nussbaum's ideas here. History shows that the result would be a wilful misunderstanding on the part of my interlocutors of a story that will not fit in such small format as a series of forum posts.
SO the question I have is for those who have done some reading of Nussbaum, or have rubbed against the capabilities approach.
What do you think?
I met a Kantian who thought that doing right was doing one's duty. Again, there seems ed to me to be something important absented by this approach. How could one do one's duty when it felt wrong.
I have much sympathy for Moore's reliance on intuition.
With all this in mind, I read Nussbaum's Frontiers of Justice. Not an easy read, and probably a bad place to start with her writings.
The capabilities approach locks us in to considering our own feelings and those of others in a way that I find appealing. If one is not taking others into account one is not acting ethically. Flourishing at the expense of others is not acting ethically. Acting ethically is maintaining human dignity, and hence a life worthy of that dignity.
I'm not going to go into detail about Nussbaum's ideas here. History shows that the result would be a wilful misunderstanding on the part of my interlocutors of a story that will not fit in such small format as a series of forum posts.
SO the question I have is for those who have done some reading of Nussbaum, or have rubbed against the capabilities approach.
What do you think?
Comments (107)
I understand that I don't have strong grasp of Kant; but there is not much there that leads me to want to read him in primary sources.
The main divergence of Nussbaum from Kant, at least in what I have read, is that she does not take rationality as the mark of personhood.
Nussbaum says that GDP doesn't tell us how well a nation is developing because it's been observed that GDP can rise, but due to income inequality, the well being of the population can remain the same or even decline as GDP rises.
Nussbaum says that in order to bring the state of human dignity in line with our "common values" we need to look at how policies effect human capabilities.
If someone (with social Darwinists leanings, for instance) doesn't recognize these values as common, is there any response we could have (other than condemning this person for not having our common values)?
What would your response be?
I agree, but would go further. Reason is determinate for Kant not just for personhood but for moral action. It abstracts from particulars such as circumstances and intentions. Nussbaum returns to the Greek notions of phronesis (practical reason or practical wisdom, prudence), and sophrosyne (moderation or temperance, but also wisdom and discretion). Instead of universal rules ethics is about how one is to live and deliberation in particular situations.
This certainly isnt anywhere near being original or mind-blowing. People who understand other peoples intentions and their own and who find intelligent ways if navigating between the two are considered moral or ethical. Ethics is about having goals and finding ways to ensure a good compromise between different or conflicting goals. Ethical dilemmas arise as a result of seeing everyone as equals and therefore having equal rights to achieving their goals. If others didnt have goals or equal rights in achieving them, we wouldnt need ethics.
Such an understanding of ethics is at odds with the prevailing schools of thought - deontology and consequentialism. Nussbaum's views are not original, but are worth being heard given what for many are the default positions, deontology and consequentialism, that frame moral and ethical issues.
I have just acquired the book and will read it.
Not short.
Someone who does not see the sense of this is most likely to do so because of their disposition, not because they have been convinced by philosophical arguments. So there is a sense in which someone's disagreeing tells us about them rather than about ethical truths.
As for Social Darwinism, I'd point out that they are committing the Naturalistic Fallacy. I'd also point to a few of the many explanations of why this is not what evolution implies, and to the history of their doctrine.
I'd also draw their attention to a similarity between Social Darwinism and the capabilities approach. Both are about allowing folk to reach their potential unencumbered.
Scientists did come forward explaining that the basis of it was not scientific, but what really put it to rest was the moral gut punch which was the Holocaust.
I've been wondering lately why it settled so easily into conventional wisdom. Did it have something to do with the age? If the magic of the Holocaust were to wear off and that way of thinking arose again, would it really take another Holocaust to put an end to it?
I'm not sure if it would or not, but I have come to the conclusion that the fact that our present moral underpinnings are so weak is a potential problem. I think that foundation is weak because it's so easy for us to look at ourselves as mechanisms as opposed to persons.
I've also concluded that we aren't in a position today to deal with that issue. But still, do you have any thoughts about it?
I don't get it.
Are you asking for an answer to something you have declared there cannot be one to?
I'm not convinced of this.
And if one reflects on what we ought to do, then it is apparent that we ought to hope.
Hope is something that Nussbaum encourages. She argues with conviction that our choices and actions have improved over the last hundred years or so, and that there is good reason to think that this present malaise can be overcome.
And both positions have their criticisms and faults precisely because they fail to acknowledge the reality of morality - that there is no such thing as an objective morality and why there are ethical dilemmas. What it ultimately boils down to is that we all find ourselves as social beings sharing a world with others that have goals that we are trying to pursue both as individuals and as groups, and that sometimes those goals come into conflict.
When using ethical theories, I find it useful to apply them to alien species and see if it would apply to them. Is it ethical for an alien species to eradicate the smaller human population of Earth in order to save their larger population from their deteriorating planet (consequentialism)? Would it be ethical if they exterminated us without any awareness or pain on our part (deontology)? As a human, you'd be appalled at such a thing, but is what those ethical theories propose is ethical to do. What if aliens don't recognize us as having the right to exist? Do we hold the same ethical standards for other species - why or why not?
So, don't.
Quoting Sam26
She focuses on vulnerable populations and how government policies affect them. I think GDP directly impacts the flexibility and power of a government to help vulnerable people. I'm looking for whether she addresses that. Thanks for the Nussbaum tip. It's definitely in line with what I've been pondering lately.
This list of capabilities implies that this is something that people should be born to do. If suffering is a part of life, why bring more life into the world, in order for them to carry out these "capabilities" in the first place?
An alternative would be to not produce more people who even need to experience the execution of these human capabilities. Answer solved. But somehow, without justification other than, "we just want it", these capabilities being carried out, are deemed as of the utmost importance, even in light of suffering being brought into the world.
But really my question is, what makes this list of capabilities inherently more valuable than preventing suffering?
If I proposed an argument that said that suffering takes precedent over producing more people that should have opportunities to carry out capabilities, why would that be automatically wrong?
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that's all.”
But I don't expect you to agree. Nor am I that interested in arguing the point.
Granted, but if you were to be interested in arguing the point, I would ask for a justification that puts experiencing a list of human activities is more ethical than exposing new people to (theoretical) structural suffering and (definite) contingent forms of suffering. It is obvious that prior to birth, there is no actual person that needs anything. I would question then why have people that need to experience X, Y, Z experiences in light of the fact that all suffering could be prevented and no actual person would exist prior to be deprived otherwise.
Then my guess is the debate would go down to something like, "a majority feel that these experiences would be good" in which case I would bring up the thread I had about the happy slave. In other words, having an agenda for the new person of to experience X,Y,Z seems oddly unnecessary and circular being that the person did not need to experience those things in the first place (especially in light of suffering being a consequence).
Then it would devolve further into some "net benefit" form of utilitarianism that is arrived at through combining surveys of subjective evaluations of life. Then I would point back to the claim that it would always be wrong to foist known and unknown challenges and sufferings on a new individual, even for some X, Y, Z reason that purports that the person needed to born to experience those things, but without justification. Why would humans then be beholden to the principle of X, Y, Z? Saying, "they are just good" seems too brute fact to be much of a philosophical point.
But we shall not argue any of this.
Of course Craig has suffered, quite considerably. Is it worth it? When the Abyss stares into Craig, he turns around and waves his fat naked arse at it. Does what he does make up for the suffering? Is the suffering justified by anything? The question is absurd, irrelevant, obtuse.
It's the beings and doings that give value to life, and the enabling of these that sets up what it is we ought to do.
That is great for Craig Coombs. I commend him on "staring the void down with his arse" :lol: . I think my response in another thread works just as well here though so I will simply paste it below.
That's all fine and good, but then I will point you back to my thread about the happy slave. Foisting challenges on a new person by giving them life (which de facto requires challenges to overcome) is never right. If you answer that overcoming challenges is necessary, this would be a contradiction, as the person did not exist for anything to be necessary for. You are creating the situation out of nothing. You are then saying, "There needs to be someone who exists that then must overcome challenges". This is slightly sadistic, even if meant as gentle "doable" challenges. The point being that it is ethically never good to promote suffering or foist challenges to a new person who never needed to be exposed to it in the first place. Just like the happy slave scenario, even if the slave/child eventually identifies with their situation, it was not right to have been given challenges and exposure to suffering in the first place. The conceit is "something needs to get done by somebody!" But nothing has to get done by anybody. Your romantic vision perhaps that there will be no one around to enjoy things and love, is just that, a romantic projection.
What actually would be the case is that there would be no one deprived of anything, as there is no person to exist. You can then say, "We all agree life is better than not-life" but this doesn't make sense. Good experiences in life in and of themselves only matter relative to an actual person. However, overcoming challenges and suffering are the result of being born. Good experiences would not be missed out by an actual person, and challenges and suffering would be prevented. The hidden assumption here is that pleasure, relationships, flow-states, accomplishment, et al (the good experiences) need to be carried out by someone. No they don't. Nothing needs to happen for anyone. To bring up some odd socially constructed assent argument would not work either. Like zombies saying, "We the united people of peoplehood need more people to experience good things, because we need more people to experience good things, because we need more people to experience good things...". New humans aren't vessels for the mission of carrying out humanity's goal of furthering good experiences like they are a Starship Enterprise living out existence for humanity's benefit of having someone to experience the world. That would be using people with the conceit that existence is for them to make utility of, when it is not. Rather, the person would be used as a vessel to carry out romantic visions of humanity's need to have "someone" experience life. That would be using people, despite the harm they would be endure as well.
I'm not introducing anything into the contemporary discussion that isn't already there. I think for a Jordan Peterson fan, psychology is nothing other than looking at people mechanistically and essentially amorally (the way we examine giraffes or fleas).
The strongest counter approach is religious.
That's a potential problem. Being hopeful would mean believing that we'll discover the right answer when push comes to shove.
Quoting frank
How so?
Imagine that in the midst of an economic downturn, an anti-globalist, super-rightist, hawkish entity arises in your country and this forum is in charge of meeting them head to head in the public arena.
Your countrymen are particularly stunned and ailing psychologically because multiple Australian generations have lived out their lives without ever experiencing a real recession. Their pain makes them particularly vulnerable to the message of this rightist group which promises to return Australia to its former state of glory. The rightists explain that the real threat to Australia is its large non-white population.
I think this is pretty much this forum's response:
1. The rightist are employing the naturalistic fallacy.
2. The rightists have nothing more than a few potent myths.
3. The rightists are just stupid.
4. Ethics is in large part a matter of language use.
None of that means anything to people who are emotionally vulnerable. A religious group has the arsenal the situation calls for.
A religious group would have emotional force necessary to do something with Nussbaum's agenda.
Then we're sunk.
I don't see it as a paradox. There is a state of affairs whereby no bad will befall a new person and no good will be deprived of any actual person as well. That is the best state of affairs because no bad will occur for any actual person, but there will be no person who will be actually deprived of good. This is for future people. I have preferences because obviously I already exist. If there was a state of affairs where no one existed, this asymmetry argument need not matter. Once something exists with preferences and self-awareness, this asymmetry argument takes effect.
Yep. That's apparent.
Why not address my argument rather than the first sentence out of context? It did refute your claim or at least show your claim doesn't apply.
I'll take that as you dont want to address the issue. Taking another argument..if a tortured man prefers non existence are they just committing a paradox?
That would be incorrect. Rather I've said all that need be said. You've set up a neat little word game, and you like to play it. Have fun.
But why would capabilities be their own end without something like happiness adjoined with it? Robots also have capabilities.
But you do not see their worth, so you cannot see their worth. I can't fix that for you.
People on all sides of a moral issue could end all discussion by saying something like this: you don't understand, so you won't understand.
And I think it's true for the most part. We just have a limited ability to persuade one another when it comes to morality.
Your replies are an odd thing. So don't.
Here's an odd thing: The introduction of the word, "paradox" freezes ethics.
Here's an interesting thing: It's not a paradox when you understand that the world doesn't have goals and you do - that there is no such thing as an objective morality.
First, they are descriptive of the realization of a full human life, of eudemonia or flourishing.
Second, to impede them without justification is thus unethical.
Yep.
We want Indian girls to gave access to education and we measure the development of India by this standard.
If some Indians see that as foreign manipulation, this means they don't share our values.
Discussion stops. What proceeds has to do with banks and corporations, not morality.
What happens when life is full and flourishing? Do people get a thumbs up on their gravestone? Why does someone need to live a full life in the first place? Interesting what hidden just so theories lurk behind most ethical claims.
When life is full and flourishing one is not dead.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Would you prefer the opposite? Would you prefer that everyone else live such a life?
Quoting schopenhauer1
What hidden just so theories lurk behind Nussbaum's enumeration of capacities?
But this is relative to another type of life. Perhaps there is an argument for a better life in relation to another, but the question was why does someone need to live a full life in the first place?
Quoting Fooloso4
That people need to live X, Y, Z type of life in the first place.
I don't understand the question. There are a few basic needs that are required for life. One need not live well, and in many cases one does not to a greater or lesser extent, but we each want what is good, although we may have different ideas about what that entails. Nussbaum examines what contributes to a good life not in order to come up with a one size fits all recipe, but to allow for the development of our capacities.
Right, but why does someone need to exist in the first place to develop capacities? In other words, should people be born to develop capacities over not being born at all? I don't think you can automatically justify that "yes, being born to develop capacities" is something worth starting for someone else.
Since this thread is about Nussbaum I am going to leave off on this line of inquiry.
Well, really any ethical system or how to live the good life, I would put under this scrutiny. Do people need to be born to live out X system. Of course the answer is no. Once a person is already born, I agree that that person then has to figure out how to live in the world. Clearly having the capabilities for opportunities to experience certain inherent goods of life would be better than not if our preference is to maximize opportunities for good experiences. But there is no justification for needing good experiences in the universe in the first place.
In other words, all other ethics beyond the procreational decision are after-the-fact and relative to something else. The procreational decision is the only one that is getting closer to a metaphysical and existential truth of some kind. Why? Starting a life is making a statement about life itself- that it should be started. Everything else comes from that.
I have started the book and it is interesting to me how much emphasis is put upon distinguishing the "original contractors" from the inheritors of the "social contract" deal.
In terms of having a seat at the table, the "capabilities" factor reminds me of Kierkegaard saying that freedom is the ability to do things.
So participation is, in that sense, shaped by ability, even if not specifically recognized by a particular deal.
Discussion stops, but what do you do?
As Nussbaum presents it, the difference between the designers of the deal versus who the deal is made for is critical.
So there is an element of representation in the scene where agents are supposed to be acting directly for themselves.
Highest? No wonder I always lose.
After the opening section on the State of Nature and halfway through the section: Three Unsolved Problems.
I don't think I'd know what to do with an ethical theory. I think I understand what we mean by "morality" though.
Morality is meaningful in the context of personhood (as opposed to aggregate humanity as Nussbaum says).
Nassbaum doesn't want us to look at people as statistics, but as individuals with the capacity to choose.
Maybe I haven't read enough of her writing yet, but I don't see her offering a moral outlook or ethical theory. She's assuming a sort of standard morality that is lacking in a mechanistic view of people.
You said that if a person doesn't conform to our moral standards, it says something about them. Among other things it may tell us that a certain person is from a different culture. True?
Well, if a moral theory must be algorithmic - seeking the greatest happiness of the greatest number, or seeking to do one's duty, then probably not. And to me that is a strength. And in so far as the values she advocates are standard liberal values, that's well and good, too.
Yep.
It's a rejection of relativism. Other cultures can have it wrong, just as can my culture.
For Rawls setting up a just society involved setting the rules up before one knows what role one will play in that society. The contention - agreed to, apparently, by Rawls- is that the three problems mentioned are not amenable to this approach. Rhetorical, she is building on Rawls' inability to deal with these three problems; an inability she diagnoses as the result of a social contract approach in which the individuals entering into the contract have roughly equal standing and seek mutual advantage - bullshit.
The capabilities approach seeks to leave this behind and instead to promote the potential of each individual.
If one seriously considered playing the role of the ball, or the grass, the rules of football would be very different.
Quoting Banno
Does it not fall into the same/equivalent problem of deciding criteria of individuality? On the face of it, it would lead to a hard line against abortion...
Seems to me that a functional moral map depends on two supplementary things (apart from the territory), a moral compass, and a legend.
Capacities for murder and cruelty, my compass tells me are not to be promoted, and so the map can be oriented. Legends of dignity and rights, or of good Samaritans, give scale and meaning to the map.
I don't read Nussbaum's description of Rawls' starting point of "equal" parties to the deal to be a sham. The end of the State of Nature comes about either through something idealized as the rule of one person (as Hobbes conceived it) or a system of reciprocal exchange. The latter is not possible without leveling the participants to be equal in so far as they invest in a system instead of shooting whatever gets too close to their compound.
So, that element of reciprocity is important to keep alive and well fed but is not sufficient as an arbiter in matters where participation is limited by either capability or status under law. When referring to "representation" in my previous comment, I was thinking there is a continual criticism of the "original" deal because that articulation concealed those who were being spoken for without their participation.
Fair point. This is part of many people's criticism of having children. No participation. The conditions of life are something that cannot be negotiated- survival or death (a choice everyone born is forced into). That is the originary political state of affairs all humans are born into. Next is how society deals with this survival or death in its economic-social-political relations. In this part, people are beholden to forces and historical developments far beyond their control or knowledge. It is too stultifying to do anything really, thus we simply get some sort of recapitulation of what is already the ideals of the society, but with some hemming and hawing over minor details. The structure itself cannot be moved. You still need steel, electricity, large industrial plants, housing, and all the other stuff. Once you see the immensity of this, any other thing regarding redistributions, political participations or the like is laughable.
I agree that there is an incredible quantity of inertia in regards to what binds our lives to the means of continuing to live in the way we do.
On the other hand, it is interesting how dependent those forces are upon our simple compliance with particular requirements.
Having children is not only replicating the conditions that will cause them to suffer. It is not all just about receiving or not receiving an inheritance. If you want your kids to be smarter than you are, that can be arranged. If you want them to be stupid, that can be done.
Generations of choice.
The inertia is a large part of the compliance. People tend not to do more than they need to. The path of least resistance is literally and figuratively, the easiest course of action.
Quoting Valentinus
For standards of living to be maintained all must comply. The equipment- the tools and knowledge to maintain and upgrade the systems are in place. We are here to maintain and upgrade the equipment and then spend the remainder time using other equipment to entertain ourselves with. We are equipment maintainers now, each and every one of us.
I don't know.
You seem to be saying that all attempts to limit authority as a means to predetermine conditions for subsequent generations is a loser's game.
If you are correct, you run into the problem of Job. He complains while also dismissing his interlocutors on the basis of not accepting his righteousness.
In that way, Job is wrong or right. he is either getting a raw deal or his "friends" are correct.
I'm not sure I'm saying this. Rather, the economic/political/social conditions will de facto stay the same with various upgrades for each generation as that is the path of least resistance. Have children, have them maintain and upgrade the equipment and so on. And this is taken as a given and called "good".
But no generation is interested in giving the one before them the last word.
Let's say, for the sake of argument, you are correct. The next generation could not care less about that judgement.
That is why the problem is like Job's.
Well, you can deny what is the case, but if it is the case, it is the case. I don't see how subsequent generations can dodge characterizing the social/economic/political sphere as pretty much maintaining and upgrading the equipment. That's what we are essentially doing. If this is in some way uncomfortable or disturbing to some, I don't blame them. It does seem that we are either being used in some way, and cannot escape being in this system, and most glaringly, are absurdly keeping it all going. It's absurd in the fact that we agree to keep it all going. We have more people so as to maintain and use the equipment to have more people to maintain and use the equipment. To ask a really simple question to all this: What's the point? It is a circularity that begs the question. When put in terms of procreation, it is a vicious circularity. No one needs to be born to maintain and use the equipment in the first place.
What is it about making more equipment-maintainers that needs to occur? To say that this brings value into the world is then begging the question that value needs to be brought into the world. That is, even if a world with equipment and its maintainers can be argued to be valuable.
Also to note is the aspect of who is pulling whom? Are we for the equipment or is the equipment for us?
But while most people can agree that "radical philosophies" lead often to misery and oppression politically, people don't stop to think that "common sense notions" also lead to misery and oppression.
Also let me add.. the situation is, "Hey buddy, you get a chance to have to maintain the equipment (survive) or die...that is the choice you are given! Along the way contingently harmful circumstances will befall you and frustrate you... but don't worry you get chances to also use the equipment you are maintaining for 6 or so inherent 'pleasures' (physical pleasure, aesthetic pleasure, flow-states, relationships, etc. etc.). This is a consolation, and not guaranteed, and often contingently less applicable or available to some character-types/people than it is to others. But that is okay, because we are deeming this all 'good' because something is better than nothing. Experience is better than non-experience! Equipment maintained is better than equipment not maintained".
Well, at the very least, do you accept that "people" are not accepting the role you describe because it sickens them?
If there is nothing in the package but what you describe, I would kill myself.
There's much in the detail.
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=public_law_and_legal_theory
The capabilities for a map; dignity for a compass.
If opportunities are not guarantees, then where does that leave the CA? There is no clear path to any endeavor labeled "well-being", if that can even be so defined arbitrarily.
People don't question the role. There is no real way out of the situation. You either accept it (survive in a socialized context of equipment-maintaining and updating), or you do not (essentially take on the view of philosophical pessimism and decide not to put more people into the situation). There is no middle option, unfortunately. There is no stepping back from the equipment unless you want less complex (advanced?) equipment. You can perhaps become an ascetic hermit ala Schopenhauer's suggestion for those characters who are capable of "denying their wills". You can be homeless, but that would still be using the system in a different way. Existence just has so many options. The constraints of survival and the contingencies of the society as it has already been developed dictate that.
A neat summation.
Perspectives on when personhood starts vary. If we say we'll only consider capabilities of those identified as persons in a particular country, should we also honor views about who should be thought of as a second-rate people?
Cheers for the correction.
But I'm still unclear as to what you are asking.
Should it read "Opportunities are not guaranteed"? If so, then we ought do what we can.
Not having a clear path... well, at the least we have a direction in which to move!
There's something amiss with ethical theories that set out an algorithm for evaluating actions - as the greatest happiness, or to do one's duty. Pretending that the complexity of human life can be so reduced... It's more complex than that.
And, continuing the line I introduced earlier, given that you think the sum of the value of human life is negative, you are not going to agree with this approach anyway.
All that is left is for we others to maintain that human life is worth living.
It's nice that a multivalent approach like this looks like the complex system we actually have as a legal system, where one thing has to be weighed against another, and then their lengths and widths and colours compared too and taken into account. It's not going to satisfy anyone looking for easy absolute black and white systems though. One can see how the shortage of human carers for the aged could become a factor to consider in the abortion calculus, or even, a la Handmaid's Tale, how widespread infertility could make reproduction a vital social good.
There's a similar moral conflict over vaccination, with moves to make it compulsory, and one can see the conflict between the health protection afforded by herd immunity having to be weighed against the loss of autonomy to the individual.
So wrt the foetus, one of the first choices it can exercise beyond waving a limb or sucking a thumb, is to initiate the birth process. Should we ban induced labour and Cesareans?
Let's say a lot of opportunities are a product of contingency- right person, right place, right time. What works for some people, doesn't work for all. Some people will win out and benefit from opportunities, and others will not. Benefits of finding ideal preferences and circumstances are not equally distributed. Some people will just have better outcomes given the same opportunities. That means people are used in statistical ways so that the losers are paying the price so some people can win.
Also, not only are the outcomes uncertain, but it is implied that everyone wants an opportunity to seek the outcome of an opportunity. Why is the race to get the benefit of the opportunity itself deemed a good thing or necessary for people to deal with and overcome? It isn't that hard to analogize life to a work camp with bad slogans that don't hide it very well.. "You get the 'opportunity' to work to survive." This implies a) people want to be foisted into this scenario of working to survive and b) that they like going through the process of obtaining the least worst preference they can find (which will most likely not be their ideal optimal preference anyways). So somehow struggle for maintaining opportunities is implied as good, but with no other justification.
Quoting Banno
I agree with this too once people are already born. The procreational decision is easier to assess based on the asymmetry of obligations for happy people and suffering people when there is no actual person born to be deprived. But this decision is more important than any other as it actually makes existential and political statements in the very act itself- that life should be lived by a new person and that this person should continue the societal ideals as instantiated in the habits and forms of life of that new person.
Quoting Banno
This is true, but I am also trying to give some details on what I see as some inherent inconsistencies and assumptions overlooked that at least should be addressed.
As I continue to read the book, I think she is arguing for a third thing.
Maybe a different way to conceive of the state of nature as a starting place.
SO after a bit more reading...
I gave ten plastic cups to each of a group of five year olds, and asked what they could build. After half an hour of trying this and that, they cooperated to build pyramids taller than themselves.
I am okay with hanging with the five year olds.
From that point of view, it is difficult to tell if your comment is directed to Nussbaum or myself.
So there is a fact 'the state of nature'- cooperation can do more (is better?) than competition. Which is why cats make poor architects.
There are ten architect-potentials. They all have the opportunities to allow their productive forces free. eight of them do well, achieve success. Their potential was to some extent actualized in the form of esteem, financial reward, and creative success. Two make mediocre designs, are eventually run out of the industry for poor performance, get jobs that were not their original ideal, start resenting it for not being their ideal, don't find much success, esteem, or financial reward, live a constantly struggling life, middling, sometimes dabbling in self-destruction. So opportunities for capacities doesn't really mean great outcomes. In this sense, purely probablistically speaking, if the only way for winners to reach the outcome is for losers to be born, as we cannot know beforehand who will win or lose, then perhaps we should put no one in this situation in the first place.
Hell, let's take something as simple as sleep. There are ten sleep-potentials. Eight of them are really good sleepers. They can sleep for 8-10 hours with no problems, in just about any condition. They are well-rested. They never have to figure out how they are going to overcome sleep problems, as it comes naturally to them. Two of them are really horrible sleepers. They have sleep apnea, general insomnia, and psychological problems that constantly keep them awake. They have to struggle to overcome all of these deficits. Either a) they have to deal with it and live a generally sleep-deprived life, or they have to "overcome the initial deficit" and spend much money and time going to experts to get each component of their sleep problem dealt with. The solutions took a lot of time and energy, and are a much higher effort to sustain than the eight good-sleepers. Much of two bad-sleepers life is trying to chase the sleep through much effort. The only way to know there are winners is to have losers who will have a less than ideal situation to overcome. Opportunities for capacities does not mean good outcomes will result. This seems then be not as moral... It is nice and dandy to list a bunch of values, but if in actuality they cannot be actualized, then what does it matter? Giving opportunity itself doesn't mean much then, and there is a flaw in the system or theory about the system. If the answer is, "Oh well, at least there will be some winners born, so fuck em", then you have lost footing of any moral theory.
I'm not sure how one might compete over sleep. Trying to Imagine 'America's got Shuteye' or 'The Great British Sleepover'. I suppose we could cooperate a little - I could read you a bedtime story and kiss you goodnight and tuck you in. But in the end, sleep is a solitary affair to the extent that neither competition nor cooperation can be a feature beyond not waking someone up.
Architects, though, never get anything much done without cooperating with builders, town-planners and financiers.
I think I'm missing your point. Or you mine.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Matter? why would it matter? What's the value of a value? You keep asking, and asking again of every answer. It's a silly play of words. Let's bite the bullet - nothing matters at all. Nothing has any value at all in actual actualisation of actuality. Not suffering not joy. Your problem is you give value to the negative. so here is a valueless argument that will not convince you that your arguments are valueless and unconvincing. Enjoy.
So Nussbaum's theory seems to say that morality is based on values that are defined by the opportunities for people to use their capacities. I am saying that there is a flaw in the theory- that it does not account for outcomes. You can have opportunities, but if there are people who don't achieve the outcomes, what then? The word "opportunity" does not have some magical power. Potential means not much if it is not actualized. We fetishize the idea of opportunity and overlook actual outcomes- real time. So if a moral theory is based on opportunities for capacity, and people fail to achieve certain capacity, what then for that moral theory? Screw the people that fail, because at least some will win out? That seems amoral.
Quoting unenlightened
Not sure what you are trying to argue here. I am arguing that if this specific morality of opportunities of capacities is never actually achieved by a certain percentage, then what does that say of that moral system? Further, by just shrugging your shoulder at it and saying, "Well, at least there are at least SOME winners who will achieve their capacities if given an opportunity, oh well about the rest" then this seems out of whack too.
Right, you weren't addressing my point at all which was about capacities being grounded in physics, the way potential energy is. Instead you seem to be suggesting that if anyone fails to realise some potential it isn't valuable. The world is not kind or fair, therefore kindness and fairness have no value. *shrugs*. The whack with which you whack is such a moralistic whack.
Not all capacities are actualized, sorry. You gave examples of ones that can be, but certain whales will not actualize the capacity to find proper food and will die, for example. A pint glass has a capacity to be used for various amounts of time, but some will be dropped right away and break.
No, that is not what I said. Rather, what is a response in a world where there are losers and winners when it comes to actualizing capacities? The losers will be pay the cost for winners, as you cannot know beforehand who will actualize and will not. There is collateral damage. This doesn't seem to be good if a moral system is based on this collateral damage. Just saying that people have an opportunity to live up to their capacities would not be enough here for the damage to those who do not actualize their capacities.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Sure, and a broken glass has no capacity. Glad we agree.
Quoting schopenhauer1
What is what? I'm really struggling to make any sense of this at all. There are winners and losers when there is competition and comparison, and otherwise not. Is that much agreed, or do you can something else?
It is something else. Winners and losers here are not necessarily against other people, but against the fulfilling their own capacities. So some people will actualize their capacities if given opportunities and others will not. It is not enough to just take into account the idea of "potential" to reach capacities as some people will not actualize their capacities (for doing X, Y, Z). To just say, "Fuck em, at least SOME people will actualize their capacities if given the opportunities", would seem a bit strange for a moral theory.
So I am a loser if I am not as big as a whale, or cannot fly faster than a speeding bullet? Where is the line between capacities that I don't have the opportunity to fulfil, and capacities I just don't have? There seems to be a difference between complaining that I have been born without wings, and complaining that I have been born without arms, but the difference seems to depend on comparing myself with other humans and not other birds. Expound a little, and put me right.
I am on board with cooperation not being outside of the "state of nature."
As Rawls presents it, the "original" contract is not so much about that question but who gets a say in the space of equal agents.
Rawls recognizes that the equality has to be supposed to some extent. There is also this emphasis that deals get made, we live with them for a while, the need to renegotiate appears.
So, in one way, Nussbaum seems to be saying Rawls was too successful. The original deals let a lot of things happen and they have their own inertia.
Yes, it's in comparison to other humans. So human achieves their capacity for X, Y, Z (e.g. jobs, love life, achievements and capacities in general as outlined by Nussbaum). Human A fulfills his capacities and Human B does not. In this case, human A is the "winner" in this. He has lived up to the capacities that he had the opportunity to achieve, but human B did not. A moral system should account for actualities not potentialities. If we just say, only potential to achieve capacities for a "good" human life (as outlined by Nussbaums list of values), then we are essentially ignoring the rest in this system. There will be winners and losers in fulfilling capacities then. If we say, "Screw em, at least SOME people will fulfill their capacities (like human A)", then there is something missing.