Metaphysical significance in politics

[trenton]

This will be a broad and deep discussion regarding the deeper truths underlying every political issue.  This includes the metaphysical assumptions and epistemic assumptions we make in our thinking and how addressing these assumptions changes our approach to various issues.

I think animal rights is a huge one.  There are assumptions like rationality makes us more valuable than animals.  One problem is that rationality is being used to make these conclusions and it becomes circular and arbitrary.  Not only do we assume that we are more valuable than animals, but we also assume that we are humans.  The significance of animal rights is that it challenges the idea that we are humans and that humans exist.

A similar example is abortion.  If there is no objective point at which a clump of cells becomes a human being, then these positions are arbitrary.  It implies that humanity is a collective mental construct.

A big one is nationalism vs. Globalism.  This is related to COVID. To COVID national borders do not exist.  As citizens we believe that we are live in a nation and that we are separated from the rest of the world.  As the world becomes more interconnected with the internet, it dissolves the distinction between self and other on a national and global level.  This is the illusion of separation.

Relativism vs. Absolutism is a common philosophical conflict.  It points to the corruption of religious fundamentalism even though the content may be true in sometimes.  This is the limitation of belief and it suggest that humans can't believe their way to the truth.  This includes moral relativism.

Capitalism assumes inherent value.  Without this assumption money would be without value.  What would happen to the world of everybody just stopped thinking money was valuable?  Are there other assumptions aside from this?

What other issues have deep underlying metaphysical and epistemic assumptions and implications?  How would it change your approach to these issues of you were conscious of these things?  

[DocWatts]

I thought that what Ken Wilber termed the Basic Moral Intuition, meaning that we should work to promote the greatest depth for the greatest span, an insightful way of approaching Ethics which explores the implications that arise from a metaphysics consisting of Holons (a structure that is both a whole and a part).

The basic gist of it is that because more complex Holons need a more complex support structures to Survive, it allows us to make qualitative distinctions as to what Rights and obligations we extend to different categories of Holons.

A chimpanzee is reliant on a far greater number of Holons to sustain its existence than an ant, so it can be said to have greater depth. And precisely because Holons with greater Depth need more complex support structures for its continued existence, it makes sense to extend more rights and protections to a Chimp than to an Ant.

But because the Basic Moral Intuition covers span as well as depth, the chimp does not hold infinite intrinsic worth above Holons that are less complex than itself. An entire species of ants would likely have more intrinsic value than a single chimp in this imagined scenario.

Likewise, as to an issue like abortion, the Basic Moral Intuition would suggest that a fetus still has intrinsic value, but not more value than the Life of the mother who is a fully formed adult human being. What's interesting is this is something that we already intuit (for example even many pro-life advocates are willing to max exceptions if a pregnancy would result in the death of the mother).

This Basic Moral Intuition is a good alternative to both Consequentialism and Deontology precisely because it is flexible (which deontology is not), and because Self Actualization is a far less crude Value metric than pleasure and pain (a metric preferred by Materialist paradigms that deny most qualitative distinctions between subjective states).

Edited August 21, 2021 by DocWatts

[trenton]

@DocWatts very interesting response.  This seems like a decent way to apply concepts of holons to a society.  How does this concept apply to international conflict?  It seems like China and India would take priority over some countries and isolated tribes deep in forests.  In this case these heavily populated nations seem to have a greater depth and greater span.

[DocWatts]

@trenton While it makes sense to treat human beings as a category of Holons with important qualitative distinctions from other animals, the notion does become problematic if one attempts to use Holons to assign more intrinsic value to one group of humans over another.

Because such judgements are prone to self bias and easily abused. At the extreme end this can be warped in to social darwinism and eugenics, which is obviously to be avoided.

Better by far to treat all Humans as category of Holons possessing equal intrinsic Value.

Growth hierarchy models such as Spiral Dynamics offer a good solution to this, by recognizing that there are important progressive qualitative distinctions as to how Survival Needs work in different socio-cultural environments, while at the same time stressing that all Stages are in fact necessary and have an equal right to exist.

 

Edited August 21, 2021 by DocWatts