As a society we need to separate compassion for the weak from the promotion of weakness.
We need to get rid of the latter without sacrificing the former.
We need to get rid of the latter without sacrificing the former.
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What I mean is that we should try to solve the problem of people being weak without building a society based on "might makes right".
Too often people fall into the trap of conflating the two concepts in the OP, leading either to people rejecting the concept of strength as "fascism" (left mistake) or actually supporting fascism or something like it (right mistake).
Too often people fall into the trap of conflating the two concepts in the OP, leading either to people rejecting the concept of strength as "fascism" (left mistake) or actually supporting fascism or something like it (right mistake).
I'm not sure how to explain what I mean but what I said comes pretty close, I think.
@toiletpaper I disagree that the responsibility for enforcing rights should fall solely on the individual. That seems to me to be incompatible with "compassion for the weak".
To be weak is to be incapable of using force and thus, in your view, incapable of enforcing their rights. So we're right back at a situation where weak people have no rights.
I think community enforcement of everyone's rights is perfectly legitimate.
I also don't like the egoistic reduction of rights and ethics (I see rights as just another way of framing ethics/morality) to a collection of self-interested agreements. I believe that ethics is objective. But it's good enough that people believe in the egoistic conception, I suppose.
To be weak is to be incapable of using force and thus, in your view, incapable of enforcing their rights. So we're right back at a situation where weak people have no rights.
I think community enforcement of everyone's rights is perfectly legitimate.
I also don't like the egoistic reduction of rights and ethics (I see rights as just another way of framing ethics/morality) to a collection of self-interested agreements. I believe that ethics is objective. But it's good enough that people believe in the egoistic conception, I suppose.
@m0xee I see your point, but people who perform worse shouldn't be left in abject poverty. There should be a minimum acceptable line of wealth IMO.
@toiletpaper My ethics is objective. If you don't agree, kill yourself.