Malaclypse the Younger

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luvluv

What the...

I invented shame?

luvluv

Question:

Is it possible for a subjectivist to choose a certain value system and then "reprogram" his shame, as it were?

Say Jerry were to decide for whatever reason that he did value time on the internet over time with his family. Could he then stop feeling shame over the issue?

And if he cannot reprogram his shame on the basis of his values, then where does shame come from? How does shame know to value family over the computer? Is shame a product of evolution? And does every action or lack thereof that triggers the response of shame a function of the same genetic accident, or was there a series of genetic accidents that subsequently attached the feeling of shame to a number of different responses? If it is a product of evolution, doesn't it follow that it should be listened to whenever possible for the preservation of the species?

tronvillain

Do you want us to give evolutionary explanation for every other emotion too? It's asking a bit much. Oh, and things do not evolve "for the preservation of the species" and that something has evolved does not mean we should value it.

As for the somewhat reasonable question, it might be possible to deliberately stop feeling shame about something, but subjectivists do not arbitarily choose a value system.

[ March 27, 2002: Message edited by: tronvillain ]</p>

Malaclypse the Younger

I generally don't feel shame, except at error. Of course, I'm very clear about what my values are, and if I detect a conflict, I seem to be consistently successful at resolving it.

luvluv

Dare I start a thread, "Has anyone read C.S. Lewis's Abolition of Man?" It deals with the issue of mankinds ability to reprogram the shame instinct and posits a world in which mankind's leaders are able to program sets of values into the great majority of us. It was a pretty interesting read. And I know how you guys just loooove C.S. Lewis.

Malaclypse the Younger

Rather than simply referencing the book, I recommend you restate and defend one of Lewis's points from the book.

luvluv

Basically, Lewis was tackling the notion that science could eventually make morals obselete. At the time I guess, some of the relativists he was arguing with proposed that science might one day have the ability to imbue the masses with the specific moral values that were scientifically proven to be the best for society.

Lewis's argument was that this approach would basically make the bulk of humanity the slaves of the scientists who were able to program these values into the rest of us. Since what values they program into us would be based on their own subjective values, they would essentially be making us into slaves, i.e. something less than men. His argument thus, was that the ability to control the values of other people would be tantamount to the abolition of man. If men were able to reprogram their morality, man would cease to be man as we know him.

This might not apply to alot of you, since most of you probably don't believe in reprograming the morality of other people, only your own, but apparently this was a popular idea in Lewis's time... the idea of scientific values replacing religious ones.

shamon

Why are scientific and religious values our only options? What about our innate humans values? What needs to be programmed anyway? Our innate morality is already correct. If you feel shame about spending so much time on the Internet, then don’t spend so much time on the Internet. The shame you feel is correct, so why second guess it?

Civilization always only gives you two extremes. Atheism vs. Theism is the classic concerning this. There really are more options than this logical fallacy .

Vorkosigan

Yes, this idea, that morals could be changed through scientific behavioral control, pops up in numerous negative utopias, such as Zamayatin's We, 1984 and Brave New World. It is based on an old and now discredited idea of the human mind as a blank slate on which culture writes.

Michael

There were a bunch of movements in the 1930s that resonated with that theme of improvement through science...like eugenics.