Institutions

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spdjeanne
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07 Sep 2007, 3:03 pm

Institutions (academic, religious, political, medical, mental, etc.) good or bad?

richardbenson
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07 Sep 2007, 3:28 pm

bad. even though i hate religion, it does provide some morals for people to live by and if it wasnt there the wrld would probably be alot worse off. acedemic institutions are breeding grounds for bullies, mental institutions are just plain terrible, political institutions are just plain bS, medical institutions are probably the only good guys up there

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rideforever
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07 Sep 2007, 3:37 pm

richardbenson wrote:

even though i hate religion, it does provide some morals for people to live by

Like : "A child who hits or curses his parents must be executed."

Like : "If you make God angry enough, he will kill you and your family with his own sword."

Like : "And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities."

richardbenson
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07 Sep 2007, 3:44 pm

thats the extreme side of religion way back when. some of it still exists today but could you imagine if there was no ten commandments? or holy books? people wouldnt regard life as valuable and we'd have a sociaty run by one person. that sounds like alot of fun

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rideforever
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07 Sep 2007, 3:51 pm

richardbenson wrote:

Hey man. You know they were from the bible, not from a cult. Just the bible.

Every Christian has a bible. Every bible teaches ... violence, revenge, murder, pettiness.

Poysonally I regard life as extremely valuable and have a very strong moral code and it has nothing to do with the 10 commandments, so I must disagree with you !

TheMachine1
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07 Sep 2007, 4:05 pm

There good for society but bad for certain individuals (like myself).
I called it "Institutional Regimentation" in my mind in the past.

EatingPoetry
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07 Sep 2007, 4:09 pm

Institutions are a good idea, but often bad in practice.

The 10 Commandments are also good ideas, and not particularly religious. They're logical and need no divine inspiration.

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Awesomelyglorious
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07 Sep 2007, 4:31 pm

Institutions are necessary for a functioning human society or for human organization. If we hold society or organizations as being good then institutions must be considered good. I believe that society or certain organizations are good therefore institutions are good.

TheMachine1 wrote:

There good for society but bad for certain individuals (like myself).
I called it "Institutional Regimentation" in my mind in the past.

Ah, but is your good so separate from your society that you can benefit even if it disintegrates? If we did not have legal institutions, or academic institutions, or economic institutions, or things of that nature can you truly see yourself doing better? I would argue that any individual who would say so would prefer to be a lonely hermit or is supported by another institutional structure that will thrive when others fall. I might think that you did worse than others within the institutions but that you still benefited.

EatingPoetry wrote:

Institutions are a good idea, but often bad in practice.

Can you really imagine a society without institutions though? Bad in practice means that they make things worse, but I don't think that most would argue that institutions cause net damage but rather that they are less beneficial than ideal.

Quote:

They're logical and need no divine inspiration.

Actually, I completely disagree. Morality is not logical as it relies on premises that cannot be derived from observation. Observation tells you how the world does work, morality tells you how it should, you cannot derive what should happen from what does happen though. The premise must be invented to determine what should happen and logic does not tell you to make stuff up.

rideforever
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07 Sep 2007, 4:38 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

A number of issues come to mind immediately :

a. "Institutions are necessary for a functioning human society" says who ?
b. "If we hold society or organizations as being good then institutions must be considered good." no, this is incorrect
c. Institutions has a specify meaning in the OP's statement, you seem to be using it in a more general sense

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07 Sep 2007, 4:40 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

I would argue that any individual who would say so would prefer to be a lonely hermit

I am a hermit.

Even medical care I've needed I have gone without the official methods. I have bought fish tank antibiotic for example when I developed a major infection from a cat bite a few months back.

EatingPoetry
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07 Sep 2007, 4:44 pm

Awesomelyglorious wrote:

EatingPoetry wrote:

They're logical and need no divine inspiration.

I don't think this makes sense. If everyone behaved in exactly the same manner, all we would observe is a single type of behavior, and then, perhaps, be unable to imagine any other way of doing things. Perhaps.

But our behavior is varied and we could decide if one type is better than another, for whatever reason, based on that alone.

I think our disagreement actually has to do with the nature of morality, however. I side with Shakespeare: Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so. I don't believe we are so stupid that we cannot imagine all the options without divine guidance.

And I believe that we are animals with a limited number of choices to make. And everything we do is natural, or it wouldn't happen. Whether an action is moral or not depends on what it does to or for you.

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Awesomelyglorious
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08 Sep 2007, 1:33 am

TheMachine1 wrote:

I am a hermit.

Even medical care I've needed I have gone without the official methods. I have bought fish tank antibiotic for example when I developed a major infection from a cat bite a few months back.

Then if you are at that point, institutions might very well be your evil. Sorry if I misjudged or sounded harsh!

Awesomelyglorious
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08 Sep 2007, 1:38 am

rideforever wrote:

A number of issues come to mind immediately :

a. "Institutions are necessary for a functioning human society" says who ?

There are no examples of a society bereft of institutions and I cannot even think of one that could work. All organization ends up being an institution on some level, societies must have organizations, and on some level society is merely a grouping of many different institutions.

Quote:

b. "If we hold society or organizations as being good then institutions must be considered good." no, this is incorrect

If they are necessary for a greater good then we must accept them as good all else being equal.

Quote:

c. Institutions has a specify meaning in the OP's statement, you seem to be using it in a more general sense

Not really, it is very generic. It is anything set up for any purpose, some examples are given but etc does clearly follow. The OP really did not specify well enough because here is how I read the examples: colleges/schools, churches, political parties/action groups/governments, hospitals/medical organizations, mental hospitals, etc. All of those are institutions that would be implied by the original post and a society lacking these tools would end up being severely lacking to the point of failure as I think that even anarchists believe in institutions just not so much forced association.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 08 Sep 2007, 2:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

Awesomelyglorious
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08 Sep 2007, 1:45 am

EatingPoetry wrote:

Well, possibly we couldn't imagine other things, but that has little to do with my statement. That one action is still how the world works.

Quote:

But our behavior is varied and we could decide if one type is better than another, for whatever reason, based on that alone.

No, we cannot do that. I explicitly stated that the two are different forms of knowledge. Variance does not give us value ranking, individuals provide that.

Quote:

I think our disagreement actually has to do with the nature of morality, however. I side with Shakespeare: Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so. I don't believe we are so stupid that we cannot imagine all the options without divine guidance.

I know it does have to do with the nature of it. This isn't a matter of imagining options, this is a matter of valuing them. We can imagine an infinite number of worlds, some full of pain and horror, others full of joy, but neither option is inherently better or worse unless we assign value and assigning value is not something that we can do based upon knowledge. I am not sure that Shakespeare really proves anything, if anything his statement can mean that morality makes things immoral for arbitrary reasons as thinking does not mean flawless logic which is what I am asking for.

Quote:

And I believe that we are animals with a limited number of choices to make. And everything we do is natural, or it wouldn't happen. Whether an action is moral or not depends on what it does to or for you.

I did not say that anything we did was unnatural. No, whether an action is moral does not depend on what it does to or for you, you have not proved that and many philosophies disagree with that statement. If you disagree with my assessment then prove morality in a manner where all premises must be accepted.

calandale
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09 Sep 2007, 5:00 am

Necessary.

Pandora
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18 Sep 2007, 6:31 am

TheMachine1 wrote:

There good for society but bad for certain individuals (like myself).
I called it "Institutional Regimentation" in my mind in the past.

I wanted to say both "good" and "bad". Good in principle but often very lacking in practice.

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