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How does > if you believe so, then you believe that human worth is predetermined constitute a challenge to > human worth should be tied to mental and physica

How does > if you believe so, then you believe that human worth is predetermined constitute a challenge to > human worth should be tied to mental and physical abilities ? Is there some implicit negative value attached to the hypothesis that human worth could be predetermined? (Edit -- counterarguments are more educational/enlightening than downvotes.)

claudiawerner 8y ago
>Is there some implicit negative value attached to the hypothesis that human worth could be predetermined? I think so, yes. It runs counter to the idea of a free and equal society, and necessitates setting up standards (subjective ones imposed by an authority) as to which qualities are good and which are bad; this very easily leads to narrow-minded elitism, for instance, preferring mental abilities over physical ones, or general intelligence over emotional intelligence etc. The notion of social equality is important, in my opinion.
- mmirate 8y ago
  Why, necessarily, must human value be remitted by a central authority and its inherent fickleness? Or, more importantly, why does belief in predetermined value, cause a belief that the State should suddenly take charge of measuring value and doling out its consequences? Mental and physical abilities seem useful insofar as they produce things of economic value. Different people, today, already, have different and diverse abilities to produce economic value; and as a result they come to possess diverse quantities of wealth. How does believing that people's potential wealth is predetermined, change things?
  - claudiawerner 8y ago
    >Why, necessarily, must human value be remitted by a central authority and its inherent fickleness? If human worth (I use "worth" because I detest the economism of "value") depends on abilities, there must be some way to collapse the qualitative differences in abilities down to quantitative values, to say that one person is worth more than another means that there is something within them that we can compare, separate from their concrete abilities but abstracted away. In the same way that 20 yards of linen exchange for one coat, although they are qualitatively different, there is a mechanism which allows them to be exchanged. The translation function must be defined somewhere, but I will admit that it need not be defined by the State, assuming we're not also discussing the notion of rights and justice in relation to abilities. Perhaps I should have said "(subjective ones imposed by an authority, either the authority of the State or the authority of the market)". In my view, the authority of capital is just as pernicious (if not moreso in some circumstances) as the authority of the state. >why does belief in predetermined value, cause a belief that the State should suddenly take charge of measuring value and doling out its consequences? I said it "very easily leads to", I didn't mean to say it's a necessity. However law is based on principles, and if the times replace the principle of equality with the principle of pre-determined worth then the laws will surely reflect that. >How does believing that people's potential wealth is predetermined, change things? We weren't talking about wealth, we were talking about the worth of a person. I do not mean that in economic terms. Mental and physical abilities are useful for much more than producing things of economic value, and for the great majority of human history they haven't been directed to producing things of economic value. > different and diverse abilities to produce economic value; and as a result they come to possess diverse quantities of wealth The qualitative diversity of abilities is not logically linked to the quantitative amount of wealth.
    - mmirate 8y ago
      > In the same way that 20 yards of linen exchange for one coat, although they are qualitatively different, there is a mechanism which allows them to be exchanged. Indeed. But because they are qualitatively different, the opportunity costs of producing one versus the other are probably different; and if they are, then even if Alice can produce both more efficiently than Bob, Bob has a comparative advantage in one. Similarly, one can say - and likely be correct - that an agricultural veterinarian is worth more than a stevedore. But if We, The Central Authority conclude that therefore We Shall Have ag-vets and not stevedores, then suddenly stevedores' value will increase, due to the decrease in supply as that policy is implemented. > >How does believing that people's potential wealth is predetermined, change things? > We weren't talking about wealth, we were talking about the worth of a person. I do not mean that in economic terms. Mental and physical abilities are useful for much more than producing things of economic value, and for the great majority of human history they haven't been directed to producing things of economic value. For the great majority of human history, humans have been without the invention called economics-as-we-know-it-today. And economics - even in the absence of a market - can, at least, analyze almost all of human action and reaction. (With a free market, it can also drive it, with all the resulting decentralized emergently efficient behavior.)
buboard 8y ago
For one thing worth is not measurable and depends on circumstance. Brawn would get you further than your game-playing abilities in many historical and pre-historical settings. Also, yes most people object to the central idea of racism, that people of certain ancestry are not worth being kept alive.
- mmirate 8y ago
  > racism Sorry, but I didn't actually say anything about drawing final conclusions about individuals' predeterminations based on their ancestry. What I will gladly say, however, is that individuals who don't contribute to the good of society (and this is easily measurable economically), are not worth being kept alive at others' expense. (... except insofar as individuals voluntarily commit acts of charity.)
  - buboard 8y ago
    genetic predetermination == ancestry It's a very weird idea that the universe belongs to a class of people.
    - mmirate 8y ago
      > genetic predetermination == ancestry You're the best kind of correct: technically correct. Different ethnicity+gender combinations do in fact produce differing relative-frequencies of IQs (and EQs, and VO2Max'es, etc.). However. These are only averages. Statistics. Scalar summaries of large groups. Human genetic diversity being what it is, you cannot confidently tell what someone's intelligence or strength is, based on solely their ethnicity. Attempting to do so, is what racism is. Furthermore, I am reasonably confident that there is no ethnicity in the entire human species which is incapable of producing, under the correct environment, an Einstein, a Gandhi and a Ryan Kipchoge. However, if you were to examine an individual's specific genetics, and if we knew enough about the details of how every specific gene interacts to produce the phenomemon of the human body ... then you could indeed determine the maximum, predestined mental and physical potential of that individual. Not their children, not their parents, not their brothers, not their close cousins. Meiosis and mutation are (one of the few aspects of biology that I actually think to be) beautiful.

claudiawerner 8y ago

>Is there some implicit negative value attached to the hypothesis that human worth could be predetermined? I think so, yes. It runs counter to the idea of a free and equal society, and necessitates setting up standards (subjective ones imposed by an authority) as to which qualities are good and which are bad; this very easily leads to narrow-minded elitism, for instance, preferring mental abilities over physical ones, or general intelligence over emotional intelligence etc. The notion of social equality is important, in my opinion.

mmirate 8y ago
Why, necessarily, must human value be remitted by a central authority and its inherent fickleness? Or, more importantly, why does belief in predetermined value, cause a belief that the State should suddenly take charge of measuring value and doling out its consequences? Mental and physical abilities seem useful insofar as they produce things of economic value. Different people, today, already, have different and diverse abilities to produce economic value; and as a result they come to possess diverse quantities of wealth. How does believing that people's potential wealth is predetermined, change things?
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  >Why, necessarily, must human value be remitted by a central authority and its inherent fickleness? If human worth (I use "worth" because I detest the economism of "value") depends on abilities, there must be some way to collapse the qualitative differences in abilities down to quantitative values, to say that one person is worth more than another means that there is something within them that we can compare, separate from their concrete abilities but abstracted away. In the same way that 20 yards of linen exchange for one coat, although they are qualitatively different, there is a mechanism which allows them to be exchanged. The translation function must be defined somewhere, but I will admit that it need not be defined by the State, assuming we're not also discussing the notion of rights and justice in relation to abilities. Perhaps I should have said "(subjective ones imposed by an authority, either the authority of the State or the authority of the market)". In my view, the authority of capital is just as pernicious (if not moreso in some circumstances) as the authority of the state. >why does belief in predetermined value, cause a belief that the State should suddenly take charge of measuring value and doling out its consequences? I said it "very easily leads to", I didn't mean to say it's a necessity. However law is based on principles, and if the times replace the principle of equality with the principle of pre-determined worth then the laws will surely reflect that. >How does believing that people's potential wealth is predetermined, change things? We weren't talking about wealth, we were talking about the worth of a person. I do not mean that in economic terms. Mental and physical abilities are useful for much more than producing things of economic value, and for the great majority of human history they haven't been directed to producing things of economic value. > different and diverse abilities to produce economic value; and as a result they come to possess diverse quantities of wealth The qualitative diversity of abilities is not logically linked to the quantitative amount of wealth.
  - mmirate 8y ago
    > In the same way that 20 yards of linen exchange for one coat, although they are qualitatively different, there is a mechanism which allows them to be exchanged. Indeed. But because they are qualitatively different, the opportunity costs of producing one versus the other are probably different; and if they are, then even if Alice can produce both more efficiently than Bob, Bob has a comparative advantage in one. Similarly, one can say - and likely be correct - that an agricultural veterinarian is worth more than a stevedore. But if We, The Central Authority conclude that therefore We Shall Have ag-vets and not stevedores, then suddenly stevedores' value will increase, due to the decrease in supply as that policy is implemented. > >How does believing that people's potential wealth is predetermined, change things? > We weren't talking about wealth, we were talking about the worth of a person. I do not mean that in economic terms. Mental and physical abilities are useful for much more than producing things of economic value, and for the great majority of human history they haven't been directed to producing things of economic value. For the great majority of human history, humans have been without the invention called economics-as-we-know-it-today. And economics - even in the absence of a market - can, at least, analyze almost all of human action and reaction. (With a free market, it can also drive it, with all the resulting decentralized emergently efficient behavior.)

buboard 8y ago

For one thing worth is not measurable and depends on circumstance. Brawn would get you further than your game-playing abilities in many historical and pre-historical settings. Also, yes most people object to the central idea of racism, that people of certain ancestry are not worth being kept alive.

mmirate 8y ago
> racism Sorry, but I didn't actually say anything about drawing final conclusions about individuals' predeterminations based on their ancestry. What I will gladly say, however, is that individuals who don't contribute to the good of society (and this is easily measurable economically), are not worth being kept alive at others' expense. (... except insofar as individuals voluntarily commit acts of charity.)
- buboard 8y ago
  genetic predetermination == ancestry It's a very weird idea that the universe belongs to a class of people.
  - mmirate 8y ago
    > genetic predetermination == ancestry You're the best kind of correct: technically correct. Different ethnicity+gender combinations do in fact produce differing relative-frequencies of IQs (and EQs, and VO2Max'es, etc.). However. These are only averages. Statistics. Scalar summaries of large groups. Human genetic diversity being what it is, you cannot confidently tell what someone's intelligence or strength is, based on solely their ethnicity. Attempting to do so, is what racism is. Furthermore, I am reasonably confident that there is no ethnicity in the entire human species which is incapable of producing, under the correct environment, an Einstein, a Gandhi and a Ryan Kipchoge. However, if you were to examine an individual's specific genetics, and if we knew enough about the details of how every specific gene interacts to produce the phenomemon of the human body ... then you could indeed determine the maximum, predestined mental and physical potential of that individual. Not their children, not their parents, not their brothers, not their close cousins. Meiosis and mutation are (one of the few aspects of biology that I actually think to be) beautiful.