@Putin - you just described the way our republic is set up. Three branches of government each with the ability to over ride the others under certain conditions (veto, veto override, declare something unconstiotutional, amend constitution, etc.). And yet you have a problem with the US government... Hmmmm

"And yet you have a problem with the US government... Hmmmm"

Because it is too weak to enforce rules, yes. It is if anything, too fragmented. Governments need to be able to govern. The idea that the main problem we have is rule enforcers having too much power is rather laughable.

"a handfull of people who call themselves "the party". "

By a 'handful' you mean millions. The CPSU had 20 million members. The CCP has 80 million. The CPV has 3.5 millon. The CP of Cuba has a little less than a million.

"So it a physical impossibility to create neutral institutions or referees that could govern human action, instead we must trust evil greedy people to not be evil greedy when they have no rules or policemen enforcing rules. The only way this makes sense is if youre completely hostile and or dismissive of both democracy and the rule of law."

Those institutions would necessarily be run by... the same humans who are evil, greedy, rapacious, what have you. That's the whole point. Government isn't immune from this. My contention isn't that either state of affairs (strong government or no government) would be better than the other, were humans as described, so much as it is that neither outcome would be anything resembling good. If humans are fundamentally evil, they will act evilly. Giving some more power over others doesn't fix this.

Again - I think the original question is entirely too vague. Absent some criterion for defining what being "fundamentally good" or "fundamentally evil" means, we can't reasonably sit down and discuss what forms of governance or philosophical outlooks are preferable in certain situations.

Of course government isn't immune from this, that's why you construct forms of oversight and fragment control to some extent. Nobody is above the law. If humans are evil, then you create mechanisms to check this evil. You dont let it run wild and without hindrance. Basic Hobbes, man.

Wow, KA missed the mark on all 5 , that's quite an accomplishment, really. I guess when your views are retarded, your capacity to comprehend meaningful ideas is minuscule as well.

"Of course government isn't immune from this, that's why you construct forms of oversight and fragment control to some extent. Nobody is above the law. If humans are evil, then you create mechanisms to check this evil. You dont let it run wild and without hindrance. Basic Hobbes, man."

But why would evil people be incentivized to construct a watchman that actually prevents them from carrying out their evil? Remember, ultimately the 'you' in 'you construct forms of oversight' is a human - per the hypothetical, an evil being. The notion presupposes that humans have some interest in curbing evil. If their nature is evil, they do not.

Aw man, I'm missed some great feedback from Draug and Ulytau there...Shame I wasn't sitting at my keyboard with a snappy response ready.

Because, PE, even if humans are evil, they still have an interest in preventing evil being done to them.

Well, presumably even evil beings want to survive. As in diplomacy (or a gang of thieves), where expansionist world conquering monsters nonetheless manage to create mechanisms for curbing any one of their order from inflicting their conquest upon the rest, humans decide to fragment power among themselves to limit the war of all against all.

That's what I said.

I didnt read your comment until I hit post.

Well we're both right anyway. PE's comment seems to imply he thinks that saying humans aren't inherently good is the same as saying that all humans are working together towards one evil end - which simply doesn't follow.

I'm not following this completely though. So you fragment power among different subdivisions of a government still run by evil people, in the name of using these fragmented subdivisions as checks and balances against one another. Presumably the subdivisions are each strong enough to govern those not in power (a prerequisite for a government in the first place; I could deem myself the arbitrator of justice in America right now, but I don't have the strength to enforce it) but weak enough that none could overthrow the others and establish hegemony for itself.

Why would the empowered subdivisions care about fighting one another, though? I would assume from this situation that they would perpetrate evil against the humans that don't have power and try to stay away from costly struggles against other subdivisions. Think of the Concert of Europe, for example, where the great powers delineated spheres of influence and tried to avoid great power-great power conflicts. (That the system collapsed is, at least for now, beside the point - just drawing a hypothetical example based on a real-world situation I've been thinking a lot about lately.) Within their spheres the great powers weren't going to be impeded from doing roughly whatever they wanted, as long as that whatever didn't lead to them becoming powerful enough to upset the balance of power.

Or the hypothetical world of 1984 (ignoring that it's anti-communist for a bit and focusing solely on the three great powers as authoritarian states, not necessarily with any specific ideology) - where obviously, rather a lot of evil was carried out by the government of Oceania against the citizens, but without that being an impetus for Eastasia or Eurasia intervening. I would envision such a scenario reaching an equilibrium like one of the above, where your empowered evildoers enjoy hegemony within their specific areas - "enjoying" it by perpetrating evil against those not empowered.

And, again, I'm not arguing that the no government alternative is any better, here. Whether or not it is would be mostly inconsequential: in either case, life would suck for the vast majority of people. Which is precisely what one would expect from a world of evil assholes.

"Well we're both right anyway. PE's comment seems to imply he thinks that saying humans aren't inherently good is the same as saying that all humans are working together towards one evil end - which simply doesn't follow."

Not at all, each works toward his/her own individual evil ends. But the very fact that everyone is fundamentally evil would mean that they're not going to be interested in checking one another's evil unless that evil means suffering for them. So the natural equilibrium would be the empowered evildoers having an implicit (or perhaps explicit at some point) agreement not to step on one another's toes while they all have their evil jollies or whatever* at the expense of the unempowered.

(*: Not that I know what those jollies would be. Like I said, this discussion still lacks enough definition to be as precise as I'd like. I'm assuming evil people (a) want to perpetrate evil, or if not actively want, at least are naturally inclined to do so and aren't inclined to fight that impulse; and (b) want to prevent suffering being inflicted on them, a fundamental human want as you two rightfully point out.)

To be fair, "not inherently good" =/= "inherently evil"

I was discussing inherently evil humans, in the spirit of what KA described in his laughably bad objection to humanism. Honestly the above is but an academic discussion to me of little impact on my philosophy, because I don't believe humans are inherently evil, but I figured I would talk a bit about it anyway.

If you want what I think - first, as noted before, the terms "fundamentally/innately/inherently good/evil" haven't yet been defined (I offered a working definition above for the discussion in question), so I find it hard to say what I think regarding either. But I'm of the belief that if we define "inherently/etc. good" to mean that humans strive toward what they believe to be morally good, then yes, the overwhelming majority of humans are inherently good. I don't believe the overwhelming majority of humans have any intention to hurt others or to violate their moral principles. That's not to say that they don't fail; indeed, as a group, we fail our own principles often enough, let alone others' principles, and those failures have led to some substantial evil being done by humans to humans. But if we understand fundamentally good to mean that humans generally try to be what they perceive as moral, upstanding human beings, then yes, humans are fundamentally good. (Whether that definition stands is contentious - not to be a broken record, but I'm really not sure how to define these things.)

Sorry, PE, that comment wasn't directed at you. I read the thread and posted before your previous two comments had been posted.

KA is a fuciing idiot....but Morons like Putin say "blah blah blah KA doesn't know what humanism is..." when he GIVES HIS FUCKING DEFINITION. Jackass....if you want to spew your vile shit, answer his post, Fuck off Putin. KA is a raging hemorrhoid...but you are the roughage that make him bleed.

Fuck off.

But, krellin. If I define "conservatism" to mean "hardcore socialism," you'd call me a moron, right? (Ignoring that you would regardless, you'd certainly consider that moronic.) Isn't it a valid criticism to say that KA's definition of humanism - which is, undoubtedly, nothing like the actual definition of humanism - is bad, just like it would be if I started critiquing conservatism by quoting Mises or Hayek?

Who's to say YORU definition is correct.

he at least defined what he means.

I've seen all sorts of assholes in these forums *RE-DEFINE* common terms to mean something else. "Athiesm" means "Oh....there might be a God...", for example, as you, no doubt, supported that idea...or not. whatever. the point is FOR THE MOST PART the idiotic liberals on this site BRISTLE at the idea of labels, and claim label are bullshit....UP TO AND UNTIL they want to use them for their own arguments.

So fuck off....give KA the fucking credit. Ignore his "label" and argue for or against his specific definition.. Otherwise you are just being an asshole hypocritical dickhead.

"Of course government isn't immune from this, that's why you construct forms of oversight and fragment control to some extent."

The perfect example of this is police departments all farming out their officer involved shooting investigations to neighboring police departments in the name of "impartiality". The predictable result is that all officer involved shootings are always ruled 100% justified. What happens when the different 'fragments of control' all decide that solidarity between the government class is more important than a bunch of dead taxpayers?

"So fuck off....give KA the fucking credit. Ignore his "label" and argue for or against his specific definition.. Otherwise you are just being an asshole hypocritical dickhead."

That's... exactly what Putin did when he said KA's definition of humanism was a straw man of the actual thing. He argued against KA's definition of humanism.

**did not read thread**


If humanism is defined as the philosophy that holds that a person's primary moral preoccupation should be with the welfare of the human race, then I support it fully. It has nothing to do with human nature.

I feel it should actually be relatively uncontroversial as a moral philosophy, unless you:

A) Have a vested interest in oppression
B) Believe you know of something other than human beings to concern yourself with
C) Are selfish

You can take your pick, I guess.

#KrellinIsNotReal

Im perplexed that federalists would think subdivisions dont compete. They compete bevause their influence is zero sum. If the congress expands, it expands at the expense of the executive, and vice versa. If the feds expand, the states weaken. If the state dept expands, the dod is weakened.

They might disagree over the fine points of their respective spheres - much as states might disagree over adding a smaller state to one sphere of influence or the other. But you don't see the State Department making serious efforts to undermine the core mission of the Department of Defense over those fine points, or anything of that nature. They still ultimately collude. Competition over a few details doesn't equate to the system required to check evil humanity.

Departments jealously guard their turf and compete over control of fixed resources, size of budgets and so forth. The greatest recent example of this is the Iraq War. The influence of the Dept of Defense in the conduct of this war was so great that they did succeed, actually, in significantly reducing the power & influence of the Dept of State, as well as the influence of the CIA. Everybody reported to Rumsfeld in that war. The whole logic behind the creation of the Dept of Homeland Security was explicitly this notion that our intelligence gathering agencies and related departments *did not collude* and share information as much as wed like. The disputes over jurisdiction between federal & local police agencies are legendary. They cooperate where they have to, but overall if this kind of collusion that you & Tolstoy are talking about actually occurred, our government would be a much more streamlined, organized, and efficient entity. But that's not the case.

I just don't buy this line that "the government" floats out there in space as some kind of more or less monolithic entity, completely separated from classes & divisions of the society it governs. In absolutely every country, there are serious faultlines within the political class, and these groups all reflect and represent different classes & groups within society as a whole, and these competing factions or faultlines do not share the same priorities and vie for fixed resources so they cannot possibly collude to the extent you are claiming they do.

"Ignore his "label" and argue for or against his specific definition."

In no programme of 'humanism' that Ive ever seen is the idea that "humans are inherently good" asserted. Rather the claim is that morality is possible without the need to appeal to any kind of supernatural entity. The 'choice' between moral nihilism & supernatural based ethics is a false one, etc.

The only point made by KA that actually tries to counter that claim is the argument about 'voting' on what is just, etc.