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OMG so funny. (pg. 2)
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by gehzumteufel
i just dont accept the thought they CANT make it. |
Neither do I, since many people do make it off the streets, even some who had very poor and abusive childhoods. I just think that there exists a very wide range between "fully responsible for one's current state" and "not responsible at all for one's current state," and that the vast majority of people exist somewhere in the middle, which means that each person has a story that deserves a hearing and easy dismissals do nobody any good. |
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| gehzumteufel |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
Neither do I, since many people do make it off the streets, even some who had very poor and abusive childhoods. I just think that there exists a very wide range between "fully responsible for one's current state" and "not responsible at all for one's current state," and that the vast majority of people exist somewhere in the middle, which means that everybody's story deserves a hearing and easy dismissals do nobody any good. |
if they exist somewhere in the middle then they have some sort of opportunities available to them. what they do to squander or take advantage of them is all decided by their actions. if they arent taking advantage of the resources that are available to them then why should we be giving them the time of day? |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by gehzumteufel
what they do to squander or take advantage of them is all decided by their actions. |
We may have reached a dead-end here. I explained in my first post why an exclusive focus on present actions misses the point. |
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| gehzumteufel |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
We may have reached a dead-end here. I explained in my first post why an exclusive focus on present actions misses the point. |
while past actions weigh heavily on the current and future actions, they also make way for approaching things in a different manner. where does reason come in? are they not able to reason? |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by gehzumteufel
where does reason come in? are they not able to reason? |
Past experiences also influence how a person reasons about situations.
Basically, what I think is this:
Some people grow up being taught, whether by parents or by someone else, something like the following: that hard work will pay off, that good people will succeed and get what they want, that the world holds a tremendous variety of opportunities waiting to be picked up, that there a huge variety of good lives waiting to be lived, that it is good to save for the future, that savings are stable and will be there later, that the maxim "eat and drink, for tomorrow we die" is a poor one by which to direct a life. Even if they grow up poor, they grow up being taught about big horizons and relatively certain, better futures.
As a result of this upbringing, they go through life looking forward to the future. They put lots of effort into work that has a delayed but ultimately bigger monetary payoff. They take precautions. They take care of their bodies. They educate their kids. Summed up, they invest in the future because they see the future primarily as a story of steadily increasing hope, happiness, and profit.
Other people grow up being taught pretty much the exact opposite: that hard work is for suckers, that good people often get ed over or killed, that the world is a static place where people and their lives rarely change for the better, that saving for the future is mostly pointless because someone will steal your savings or a disaster of some kind will suck them up. They grow up being taught about limited horizons and uncertain, possibly awful futures.
I think that success and failure in life, as those are defined by each individual in his own terms, are a result of these two kinds of upbringing combined with how much natural desire a person has to spend his time doing "economically viable" activities. People who succeed at doing what they want succeed because someone along the line gave them hope, made them believe that a good, desirable life was possible to them, even probable. People who fail are the ones who never had such hope in the first place, or who had it and then saw it crushed by the reality of their lives. |
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| Arbiter |
| quote: | | I just think that there exists a very wide range between "fully responsible for one's current state" and "not responsible at all for one's current state," and that the vast majority of people exist somewhere in the middle, which means that each person has a story that deserves a hearing and easy dismissals do nobody any good. |
You seem to be suggesting here that someone who makes poor decisions because of some "naïve pessimism" towards which they have been "conditioned" is less responsible for his or her current state than someone who has made the same poor decisions for some unspecified other reasons.
If that is the case, then I think that I disagree with an unstated premise here: namely, that the variations in the mental processes by which individuals arrive at their decisions affects the extent to which they are responsible for the outcomes of those decisions. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| It's fine that you disagree with that "premise," because in addition to being unstated, it is also non-existent. |
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| Arbiter |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
It's fine that you disagree with that "premise," because in addition to being unstated, it is also non-existent. |
Well in that case: what is the relevance of your entire line of reasoning?
Or is that non-existent too? :stongue: |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
Well in that case: what is the relevance of your entire line of reasoning? |
If all you got from those three massive posts is "different kinds of thinking imply different levels of responsibility," then I'm not sure what I can say. |
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| Arbiter |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
If all you got from those three massive posts is "different kinds of thinking imply different levels of responsibility," then I'm not sure what I can say. |
I'll take that as an affirmative response to the latter question. |
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| MrJiveBoJingles |
To expand, this...
| quote: | Originally posted by Arbiter
You seem to be suggesting here that someone who makes poor decisions because of some "naïve pessimism" towards which they have been "conditioned" is less responsible for his or her current state than someone who has made the same poor decisions for some unspecified other reasons. |
...is mostly correct, but this...
| quote: | | If that is the case, then I think that I disagree with an unstated premise here: namely, that the variations in the mental processes by which individuals arrive at their decisions affects the extent to which they are responsible for the outcomes of those decisions. |
...is not. I do not hold that "premise." I think that the important difference is not in the mental processes themselves (and I have no idea how you drew that conclusion from my posts), but in the different personal histories that led to those different mental processes.
Once again, an exclusive focus on the present seems to be the culprit. |
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| Arbiter |
| quote: | Originally posted by MrJiveBoJingles
To expand, this...
...is mostly correct, but this...
...is not. I do not hold that "premise." I think that the important difference is not in the mental processes themselves (and I have no idea how you drew that conclusion from my posts), but in the different personal histories that led to those different mental processes. |
Ah, I see the source of confusion. I probably stated my disagreement too simplistically when I used the term "mental processes." I intended to refer to the total sum of mental activity, including the perception and integration of past experience, which could influence the decision in any way.
In any case, I don't agree that the differences in the personal histories which led to different mental processes affect the degree to which a person is responsible for the outcome of their decisions.
My point of view is based on the simple fact that, well, your personal history is a part of you. That is, your personal history, to the extent that it can influence you, at least, has been physically integrated into your brain (i.e. you.) Therefore, even if your personal history did determine your choice, it would only do so insofaras your personal history is you, and therefore you would still be fully responsible for the outcome of your decisions. And, at least if responsibility is to be a useful concept, we have to at least be responsible for ourselves -- "i'm not responsible, my genes and my personal history made me do it!" suggests a sort of dualism that I simply do not believe in. You can't separate genetics and the cognitive effects of your personal history from "you," so if that's why you made a decision, then you're fully responsible for it.
Well, at least that's my opinion. |
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