Thrakum

Argument from progression and argument from prosperity

Two arguments from the stand point of utilitarian realism (as applied in practical ethics)
Exemplified in the context of European colonialism in the new world.

Materialistic prosperity isn’t gained by sniffing flowers or watching the clouds. Throughout history people have done what is necessary, and even more often they have done what , in the eyes of history, haven’t been necessary, but simply in their best interest. For generations beyond counting people have sacrificed time and wealth, sometimes their lives, and sometimes the lives of others, in order to progress civilization. Most of the time they have not done so intentionally, but progression has rather been a secondary effect of primary, short-term motives. These motives, the same as always – wealth, power, and somewhat more recently, knowledge and information.

This progression of ideals is exclusively at the expense of others. No single invention, whether it be a cultural, religious or technological one, has been made without suffering as a cause, and suffering as a consequence, but in the world view of a modern idealist this doesn’t seem to be true. In his mind there is a perfect image where there is always an option where no one gets hurt, and everyone gets what they want. The example being used above all others is that of the indigenous peoples of the Americas. According to the idealist they lived harmonious, fulfilling lives as one with nature, without prejudice and without suffering. This is no doubt a romanticized view. When studying the history of pre-Columbian America, specifically north America, it becomes clear that this is simply not the truth. The philosophy behind it is the same, but reality was far from the perfected version described.

This is where I choose to argue from the standpoint of progression. Even if what is described was true, then the fact remains that these tribes and clans were disorganized nomads, who over a timeline as long as that of Europe and China had not gotten any further than the Chinese had in 3000 BCE, and the Europeans had at the beginning of antiquity. These peoples did not have the cultural preconditions for organized civilization. Just as with biological evolution there is an evolution of thought, where there are dead branches of the tree of life, branches that are there for no other purpose than to become victims of prevailing schools of thought. That is not to say the indigenous peoples of America were any less human than the Europeans who came to colonize their land, or that it was written in stone that they would ended up being the backward natives of a distant shore, rather than the explorers who made the 30 day trip across open sea to discover new land.

Here the argument from prosperity takes over and states that since the idealist reaps the benefits of expansionism, imperialism and colonialism he is just as guilty as those who actually enslaved the tribal societies of the new world.
However, the argument from prosperity also states that the idealist, and everyone else for that matter, shouldn't feel bad about what their ancestral community did, because without those very deeds he would not be here thinking about it and without these deeds, science and reason would not have developed. Without these acts of cruelty and oppression, modern tolerance would not have evolved, because it is a precondition to any new ideal that it has other branches of the tree of thought to be tested against.
There is no reason to think that the native American tribal society would have evolved into a flourishing civilization of trade, culture and innovation, like the European and Chinese did, even if it had gotten another thousand or two thousand years. This branch was a dead end for the progress of humanity, and therefore was a necessary evil in the long evolution that led to modern society.

To summarize:

The argument from progression - It is preconditional for any ideal to have other ideals to compete with. Without dead branches on the tree of thought there would be no progression; failed ideals are necessary evils.

The argument from prosperity - If the argument from progression is true, then subsequently the decisions of the ancestral community were necessary, and to argue against those decisions would be to bite the hand that feeds. Anyone who, by declaring those decisions wrong, and is yet taking advantage of the benefits of those decisions, would be without credibility.

Are these two arguments valid from an ethical point of view?
Does this help in making a seemingly all-together cruel world less so?
Can suffering ever be justified or is this type of utilitarianism taking it one step too far?

Plan9

This is a discussion forum, chief.

What's your question?

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The_Jazz

This is a nice lecture, but what do you want us to discuss? You've taken both sides of the argument and made it difficult to do much more than nod in agreement.

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Thrakum

Edited a few questions.

The_Jazz

Oh, I can't wait until Pai Mei finds this thread. That will inject some life into it.

Now, that said, there are some obvious exceptions to your claim about pre-Columbian folks, most notably the Aztec and the Inca (although there were several others). Both had cultures and technology far beyond China c. 3000 BCE. There were significant cities and innumerable towns/permanent settlements that stretched ran the length of both continents. Calling these a "dead branch" of humanity ignores the very real impact of disease on those cultures. Cortez's subugation of the Aztec was no foregone conclusion and was a very close thing. It has been argued that it wasn't Cortez who actually overthrew the Aztec but the dominated neighbors who had been waiting for the opportunity.

So it's hard for me to answer your question since the premise for the arguement is based on a basic misunderstanding.

As for your last question, though, until humanity develops foresight, it's a moot point since humans will always act on what they think the best solution for "right now" is, not what is best for 100 years from now.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Thrakum

I did specify that I was talking about north america.
"When studying the history of pre-Columbian America, specifically north America, it becomes clear that this is simply not the truth."

The rise of environmentalism would beg the differ?
We could quite happily live out our days blissfully ignorant, and our children could probably do the same. It would only be after that people in our part of the world would start getting into trouble.

The_Jazz

North America includes Mexico under all definitions, so my example of the Aztec remains accurate. If you're going to get technical, subsitute the Maya for the Inca. Add in the Tarascans for effect.

And environmentalism only took hold when it became obvious that one could turn a profit from it.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Thrakum

And yet none of these landed on the shores of France.
Yes, there were several interesting aspects of pre-culumbian civilization in the americas. The mayans understanding of astronomy for example. At large however, they were several centuries behind Han China, golden age Islam and Renaissance Europe.

Note as well that I'm mainly talking about civilization here, i.e. culture and government, not so much about science. Most of these civilizations, even the Aztecs and Mayans, were still living in largely tribal societies. At a time when most of Europe was under the influence of a handful of great powers, the middle east was divided between the Ottoman empire and Persia, and China was unified into one nation, those dozen cultures in the americas that had anything resembling organized culture, were decetralized to the point that historians still argue that calling them empires is nothing but bad wording.

The_Jazz

Wait, now the metric for civilization is sailing technology? Then as soon as the Han Chinese dumped the Treasure Fleet, they went back to the Stone Age. And that makes this conversation now include the Norse and (probably) the Irish monks in their little leather boats.

Let's remember that Renaissance Europe landed on the beaches of North America not because that's where they wanted to go but because of a fundamental and huge mistake in the understanding of the shape and scale of the globe. It's a bit difficult to point to Renaissance Europe as the high-point-to-date in terms of technology when they were behind both the Arabs and the Chinese in almost all real metrics in November, 1492. The Chinese had recently sailed a fleet to Africa, portaged huge ships to the Nile (albeit using some pre-existing canals built by the Arabs) then to Venice in the 1450's.

The Mayans were behind the Han, Islam and the Renaissance how exactly? Using what as a measuring stick? The Mayans had a more advanced calendar and the most advanced understanding of astronomy until the advent of the telescope. The Aztec had the only mandatory educational system in the world and Tlatelolco (Mexico City) was one of the largest in the world when Cortez got there.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Thrakum

As I wrote before:
Note as well that I'm mainly talking about civilization here, i.e. culture and government, not so much about science.

Yet none of this seems to have mattered. Just as in a science experiment, you need the right amount of all ingredients for a successful blend.

A savour of curiousity toward exploration and innovation.
Enough governmental centralization to be able to support a substantial non-agricultural population.
Enough regionalism and/or a robust legal system to dissolve cultural monopolies.


EDIT:
Everything except astronomy and mandatory schooling

The_Jazz

Exactly how does one go about measuring cultural or governmental acheivements? You can't quantify them. Actually, I don't see how you can measure one against another without bias. If you want to get technical, most of Renaissance Europe was still operating as tribal societies - look at the Holy Roman Empire, the British Isles, feuding Italian states, etc. for prime examples. Homogenous Europe was still generations away in 1492. It's by pure accidents in geography that Europeans ended up in Europe first.

As I said, the Aztecs were conquored their tributory holdings, not by the Spanish. The Spanish provided the excuse and were able to take advantage of the subsequent confusion. And disease played such a huge role in the ability of indigenous peoples to fight back that to ignore it makes this an excercise in futility.

If not for the fall of a Chinese dynasty, they could have very easily crossed the Pacific to North America and colonized. It's only by the Chinese habit of eliminating the acheivements of preceeding dynasty (in this case the Treasure Fleet) that Mandarin isn't the Lingua Franca today. Most of the basic "inventions" in Europe were either stolen directly from the Chinese or reinvented later (the clock, gunpowder, paper, drilling, lightning rods, etc. etc.).

So again, I just don't see how we can have a discussion on the ethics of exploration when the premises you're using ignores basic historic facts.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

roachboy

most "arguments" that compare "civilizations" end up being simple restatements of the premise in a tautologically circular kind of way. and so it is not surprising that here the o.p. repeats itself in a tautological and circular way as well because of the way in which the premises are the same as the conclusions and they are said twice, once with the abstraction "utilitarian realism" which reduces to "crude utilitarianism" and again in the restatement of the abstraction in the form of some "demonstration" and so the circular tautology of premise being repeated in the definition/demonstration is repeated.

like this:

is presu,ably a restatement of whatever "utilitarian realism" is this week.

i've noticed the tendency of graduate students looking to differentiate their version of the same thing from previous versions of the same thing to throw around the word "realism" lately. just saying.

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Baraka_Guru

I think much of this likely stems from postmodernism's (arguable) collapse, and the hangover we're experiencing from nearly 100 years of modernism and its dependent successors.

What we have is the apparent fall of irony and a craving to return/rebuild what the (post-)modernists spent decades destroying or otherwise mucking around with. So I think this is what leads us to—somewhat naturally perhaps—utilitarianism. This is what leads us to find use value in everything. This is what marginalizes anything that cannot be commodified or otherwise tied into our material reality.

What frustrates many is that a post-colonial, post-imperial world is essentially post-capitalist. We aren't quite there yet, but we see the capitalist system (which really was a driving force even in its proto-capitalist/post-mercantile forms since the Age of Enlightenment and subsequent industrialization) lurching and spiralling through crisis.

The world is finite and capitalism is running its course. This is not to say that capitalism as a mode of economics isn't going to be around; however, capitalism as a primary mode of governance, as a primary mode for building and managing societies, is, perhaps, in crisis. Growth for the sake of growth is a fool's game. Prosperity and growth aren't the same thing.

I suppose one measure of a culture is whether it's still around.

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Thrakum

By making a historical overview of which ideals persist and which perish. By blade or by quill, just as in biological evolution there is a chain of thought going all the way back to pre-civilization. Some ideals spread and conquer the world while others never reach beyond their makers. This is the way I measure cultural acheivments. All your "what if"s are interesting thoughts, but they never happened, and behind them are reasons why. Utilitarian ethics is a way of explaining these "why"s.

You keep talking about that year... I hope you're not reading "pre-columbian" literally.

I think we're talking around each other. As I wrote in the OP, I'm not arguing that this is all written in stone, that the Europeans were destined to colonize the world or anything like that. However, certain cultural traits made the European want to explore the world in a way barely ever seen before. This combined with other factors led to the eventual rise of European colonialism/imperialism.

The premise is that the Europeans traveled across the sea and colonized america. It seems you are trying to make these "what if"s into reality. It's precisely because the Chinese dynasties tried to outpreform each other (by erasing history), unlike the Europeans who tried to do the same by simply being better. These are the cultural traits that utilitarian realism tries to pinpoint and draw conclusions from.

Hope I cleared this out a bit.



On to roachboy.

Care to show me?

I would argue that, from a historical perspective, apathy/laziness/deference are not traits that lifts society, in any direction. Do you have a few examples maybe?

It's only to distinguish it from other forms of utilitarianism, as this is in the context of applied ethics, not in economics or philosophy or anything else. I guess since utilitarian means practical it's kinda superfluous to add realism on top. Utilitarian determinism sounds any better?

Couldn't agree more. However, capitalism in it's current form has not been around any longer than previous socio-economic doctrines. If we are indeed at roads end of liberal, global, free-trade capitalism, then both mercantilism and manorialism outlasted it by at least a century.

The_Jazz

Pre-Columbia is a very definite time period - it ended in November, 1492. You're the one who set the rules for the comparison, not me. If you're going to contrast two cultures, what's the point of selecting random moments? Or are you seriously trying to compare modern Western civilization and pre-Columbian cultures? That's completely pointless? We might as well add in 19th Century Russia, 5th Century Greece and the Mongols.

The Europeans weren't trying to "be better". They were trying to turn a profit by cutting out the Arabs in the spice trade with Eastern Asia. Your premise of Europeans as noble explorers making maps simply for the glory of it isn't true except in imaginations. Every single explorer had an economic agenda of one form or another. There was no pressure other than economic to set sail. That's why the Portuguese went south and the Spanish went west. And why the Portuguese and Dutch had colonies in Southern Asia - to facilitate trade.

I see only one cultural trait present - greed. And that was certainly not unique to Europe or even in short supply elsewhere in the world.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

Thrakum

"The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during the Early Modern period."

No, trying to compare indigenous american cultures at the time of european colonialism in america.

"be better" might have been a bit sloppy. But, since you seem to be so into your semantics, they were trying to be better than the arabs were they not?
Oh and by the way, they weren't arabs, they were turks.

Well then you fall short, as something enabled european colonialism and disabled it to all others. Something isn't a good enough answer for most people. Utilitarian ethics tries to explain that something.

Zeraph

To OP
I believe there is a flaw in your logic. You assume progression only comes on in an industrial way. What about spiritual? Renewable? Pollution? What if industry kills us as a race (nukes, global warming etc)? Then it in fact would be the opposite of progression.