Runningismylife,
(the numbering of my paragraphs in this post corresponds to the
paragraph order in your previous reply)
1) PAP clearly follows the utilitarian theory, I think. Anyway, a
large chunk of our laws date from colonial times, even including
the Sedition Act, and most of our laws are based on British laws
too. (So is our education system supposed to be too, but that's
debatable.) So I can say that our law is monolirhic in that it
follows the British model, I guess.
2) Check wikipedia for Criticisms of Utilitarianism.
I agree that I am making a regress argument, or appear to be at
least. I was using this "regress argument" to counter *your*
regress arguments. Because of utilitarian theory's inadequacies,
its basic premise on satisfaction is a regress argument, since you
cannot accurately measure the level of satisfaction. Psychology
also informs us of the existence of the conscious and the
subconscious, while thinking lies in the conscious. Feelings
usually lie in the subconscious, thus somebody who THINKS s/he is
for the Death Penalty might actually FEEL against the Death
Penalty. As such, ven interviews may not be a gauge of the actual
level of satisfaction. And the standard analysis given, which what
would you feel if... is insufficient because in the first place, it
is insufficient or irrelevant to this issue, and thus is a regress
argument, and secondly, feelings and emotions may change over
periods of time. Even trauma will fade, although some traces may
remain and the memory of it may remain. But the real trauma itself
is no longer present.
One of the things I'm learning in school right now is that much of
classical economic theory can be debunked easily by empirical
observation i.e. they are not facts in real life. In fact, Marx is
famous for his theory of worker Alienation, which reminds people of
the human element involved in labour, contradicting the utilitarian
reference to labour that is present in Capitalist analyses. So
there; there will always be some die-hards who will stick to a
theory even if they are sinking along with it.
3) Be my guest.
4) You nailed yourself here.
Cheers,
the pikamaster (who's panicking for promos)
1) I'm afraid you're either very dumb or very dense. No
difference when it boils down to your intelligence. I'll repeat it
one last time, if you still don't get it, i'm afraid there's
nothing much i can do. Law has its roots in philosophy; it evolved
out of the need for greater expression of social consciousness and
what is deemed right in morality. As such, law is not a homogenous
concept in that it is rigid and uncompromising. On the contrary,
law has proven to be otherwise. Your argument that we're following
British law thus making our law monolithic is laughable. Law
encompasses all variants of different law codes used in different
countries. IN FACT, the difference in law in different countries
show the ability of law to deviat in different circumstances to
suit different needs. (Be it, philosophical or political.) Hence
you're either arguing for the sake of arguing, or being very
careless in your arguments.
2) No one is advocating the implementation of utilitarianism in all
attributes of life. What i've merely said was to justify the
existence of utilitarianism still in this world. Utilitarianism
cannot be debunked but it can be criticised. Nothing is perfect,
and it would be incredibly naive to view utilitarianism as useless
just because it has be criticised. We're taught economics in
utilitarian terms for a simple reason: the world is too complex for
us to make it more complex. We do not need grandiloquent
philosophies which cannot be executed practically. Quixotic
idealism cannot dominant one's thought. Hence, it is fair to say
that most government in the world rely (i did not say sorely) or
refer to utilitarianism at some point in their policies. Stupid you
think? Pragmatic i'd say.
I would like to appeal to other forumners out there to evaluate the
argument between me and pikamaster. It's better to have outside
evaluation than to have anyone of us, in case he's mistaken, to
believe the entirety of his argument. Thanks
