What is fairness?

All’s fair in love and war.

Is everything that is legal also fair?

What is fairness? Why is fairness important?

Who wants a fair-minded journalist?

What is a fair-minded thinker?

One of the things we learn when we study CT (Critical Thinking) is that we must be critical of our self. We must question and understand what we “believe” in order to begin the process of becoming a fair-minded thinker, the very heart of CT.

Critical Thinking should be taught in high school, in my opinion. This is a very important learning experience that every high school graduate should have. Since it is not generally taught in high school everyone would be wise to learn it on their own initiative. It is not difficult and any normal person can easily learn this subject. This is not something one learns through social osmosis and it is a mistake to think that it just “comes naturally”. Learning this subject matter is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for developing good critical thinking skills.

What means do we have to discover, to criticize, and to modify our biases, our prejudices, and our ideologies that guide our everyday performance in the world?

I think that an analysis of our speaking is a guide to the manner in which our unconscious is structured. Our speaking—the words we use can indicate the nature of the ideas that we have. Speech is a guide to the structure of our ideology, which is the product of our past experiences and understanding, which in many cases is the result of many unconscious developments.

We use such metaphorical expressions as: Tomorrow is a big day. I’m feeling up today. We’ve been close for years, but we’re beginning to drift apart. It is smooth sailing from here on in. It has been uphill all the way. Get off my back. We are moving ahead. He’s a dirty old man. That was a disgusting thing to do. I’m not myself today. He is afraid to reveal his inner self. You need to be kind to your self.

All of us use metaphors constantly and we all recognize the meaning of these metaphors when others speak them. This leads me to the inference that our everyday speech is a means for insight into our understanding of what we really believe. Most of these metaphors can be a guide to what our unconscious has stored up in our brain regarding the nature of reality. These metaphors can guide us into an understanding of where we are and perhaps why we are there (notice all the metaphors I use in trying to convey my conceptions). Metaphors provide insight to the self.

Most, if not all, judgments we must make are subjective to a degree. In the case of values it seems to me that a person must have a value that might be considered "an uncaused value" and further values relate to that uncaused value, that sui generis value.

What is correct thinking? I would say that correct thinking is that quality of thinking which will best help each of us to reach our goals.

How do we establish our goals, i.e. our values? To establish proximate goals we must have an ultimate goal.

I think that we must find a ‘value North Star’?

It appears to me that we sapiens need a ‘value North Star’ upon which to fix our voyage. We need a reference point upon which we can focus our attention when trying to determine what of value we can and should do in life.

Religion, or God, serves as the ‘value North Star’ for some people; for others it is nationalism; for others, that fix is to own as much good stuff as possible; to others it is power; for some it is family; and I guess there are many other such ultimate values.

I have tried to examine my inner voices to determine just what my value North Star is and does it need to be changed. I have determined that, by some turn of events, perhaps completely willy-nilly, my value North Star is life on this planet. My guidance for fixing value is ultimately dependent upon its aiding or hindering life on this planet.

I often speculate that human life is a hindrance to maximizing the ‘good life’, of all life, on this planet. I often speculate that if all life on this planet were given a vote in this matter that they would throw sapiens overboard.

I understand that you said your value North Star is perhaps random, but why would you give loyalty to "life," rather than your species? Why would you accept (indeed, invent) a value system that treats a tse tse fly as having equal value to your mother?

I often speculate that human life is a hindrance to maximizing the ‘good life’, of all life, on this planet. I often speculate that if all life on this planet were given a vote in this matter that they would throw sapiens overboard.

You're assuming that "your species" is somehow a default. It isn't.

I'll let you know when I am assuming something. Here, I was implying something, not assuming.

I asked a question about why he would choose a value system that valued a fly as much as a member of his own species for the purpose of implying criticism of his value system; I was asserting that a value system that does not favor your own species is flawed, I was not assuming it.

That this should be the case seems self-evident to me, but I certainly do not assume that every one would agree. It would take an uncommonly silly value system to place the same value on the life of a fly as on the life of a human being, but certainly people exist who equate the worth of a person to that of, if not a fly, certainly a chicken or a pig or a cow or a deer.

well, considering that we routinely eat them and exploit them in other ways, i feel certain you are correct.

so what? this doesn't make us bad, it just makes us the most successful predators in the food chain/life web. ask the herd animals in kenya if they would vote out the carnivores, you'd get the same answer, I imagine. ask the grass if it would vote out the herbivores...

there comes a point where this attitude is just silliness. As heinlein said, people are nothing more than an animal "with the wit and will to survive, thus far, against all comers." the world is a kill or be killed place.

Your view is modern and certainly not self-evident. If you view it as self-evident, then it's one of your premises (that's a fancy word for "assumption").

Humans have evolved to favor the tribe, not the species. It makes no sense for humans outside the tribe to have any value, and it makes no evolutionary or "natural" sense for a person with white skin to value a person with dark skin.

Almost all human groups have raped, killed, tortured, and even eaten humans from other tribes. In most cases throughout human history, this has been considered ideal. According to your natural law argument, this is the best state of affairs.

You choose to extend a view that violates this argument by valuing all human beings (and not just those of your tribe), and yet you criticize others who do the same. You're being inconsistent.

i think you are trying too hard to be clever.

the question was whether a value system "ought," to favor one's own species over other species, not whether one could also have hierarchies within the species.

nice try, though.

I'm not talking about hierarchies.

According to the argument you're using, a human from a tribe other than your own has the same value as a tsetse fly. That's the fact of the matter.

um, no. that would be according to the argument you wish i was making so you could show off your B+ in anthropology 101.

I'm glad you went to the trouble of clarifying your argument to illuminate how it differed from madnak's interpretation.

he seemed to be the only one who cared and he seemed to think that he knew better than i did what i was arguing.

all I ever meant to ever say i said pretty clearly--that a value system as hypothesized by the OP that values all life on the planet equally with "his mother," is, in my opinion, inferior to the more traditional value system where people close to us are valued more highly than flies.

Madnak tried to impose on me a set of beliefs that he believed were inconsistent with my original position. I was irked.

My apologies to you and others who may have been irritated by my previous post.

The logic you've presented here is broken.

If you want to make a prop bet about grades though, please look me up.

I don't think it is broken, but:


OP, back to the subject:

I would like to know where this speculation is leading you. Please elaborate?