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I haven't read the book, but I suspect you're disagreeing with Rousseau and not Bregman here. I don't think Bregman recommends removing the civilization, but ra

I haven't read the book, but I suspect you're disagreeing with Rousseau and not Bregman here. I don't think Bregman recommends removing the civilization, but rather augmenting it based on the moral principles that we already accept as humans.

Joker_vD 6y ago
Last time I checked, it was agreed that there are no universally accepted moral principles. In fact, counting purely by headcount (India and China do exist!), quite a number of things you consider to be universally or widely accepted may actually be accepted by the minority of the people. Is it "eye for an eye" or "turn another cheek"? More than half of the world would take the first options as morally correct.
- asgard1024 6y ago
  Maybe I am reading too much into this argument, but I think this is moving the goalposts. So Bregman comes and proves, presumably mostly based on history of Western civilization, that humans are (at least in some ways and on average) better than they think they are. Your response to that is, well, those darn Indians and Chinese, they are not part of Western civilization, therefore, Bregman's proof does not hold. Not to mention that it has a little bit of a scent of white man's burden. And BTW, I do believe in universality of human rights, I don't care what the consensus is. While I agree with Bregman, I think it is kind of a moot point (as any argument from nature), because the values we have (or rather decisions we make) are much more a function of the environment we live in.
  - Joker_vD 6y ago
    > "universality of human rights" That's a somewhat overcompressed term. Does it mean "the human rights, as they're generally perceived in the beginning of the XXI century in <your country>, are applicable to all humans in the past, the present, and the future, at any place on (or in, or outside of) the Earth"? Or does it allow for some human rights that will be discovered one day in the future to also cover everyone, including you and me today? And I certainly did not intend "the white man's burden", on the contrary, "the white man's nosiness". The Western people, objectively judged by their own standards, turn out to be better than they generally tend to judge themselves by those standards? Good for them! Now could they please allow other people to judge themselves by their own, maybe different, standards?

Joker_vD 6y ago

Last time I checked, it was agreed that there are no universally accepted moral principles. In fact, counting purely by headcount (India and China do exist!), quite a number of things you consider to be universally or widely accepted may actually be accepted by the minority of the people. Is it "eye for an eye" or "turn another cheek"? More than half of the world would take the first options as morally correct.

asgard1024 6y ago
Maybe I am reading too much into this argument, but I think this is moving the goalposts. So Bregman comes and proves, presumably mostly based on history of Western civilization, that humans are (at least in some ways and on average) better than they think they are. Your response to that is, well, those darn Indians and Chinese, they are not part of Western civilization, therefore, Bregman's proof does not hold. Not to mention that it has a little bit of a scent of white man's burden. And BTW, I do believe in universality of human rights, I don't care what the consensus is. While I agree with Bregman, I think it is kind of a moot point (as any argument from nature), because the values we have (or rather decisions we make) are much more a function of the environment we live in.
- Joker_vD 6y ago
  > "universality of human rights" That's a somewhat overcompressed term. Does it mean "the human rights, as they're generally perceived in the beginning of the XXI century in <your country>, are applicable to all humans in the past, the present, and the future, at any place on (or in, or outside of) the Earth"? Or does it allow for some human rights that will be discovered one day in the future to also cover everyone, including you and me today? And I certainly did not intend "the white man's burden", on the contrary, "the white man's nosiness". The Western people, objectively judged by their own standards, turn out to be better than they generally tend to judge themselves by those standards? Good for them! Now could they please allow other people to judge themselves by their own, maybe different, standards?