Wiki Jimmy Wales versus Westminster ...

... in the battle for the moral high ground.

The Guardian article by Alan Travis, home affairs editor can be read here so you can make up your own mind.

Myself, the civil-servants and their very dim politicians behind the proposals are full of the proverbial, the information that can be gained that is so powerful has little to do with solving crimes, it is to do with profiling ...

... what value to the unelected civil servants and other string pullers being able to profile political puppets of the future ?

... the United Kingdom's (government) "snooper's charter" is a blackmailers dream, in 20 years the British public could be reduced to servitude because few politicians will be cast in the mould of Joan of Arc, where will be the activist when secrets are published.

Jimmy "the High Plains Drifter" Wales wins the argument for me, but I'm afraid with politics so full of career politicians, who care for their personal future before the future of the electorate, the future is a future that will travel back in time to serfdom.


For the philosophers of the world ...

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, remember the mayonnaise jar & the 2 Beers.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, he wordlessly picked up a very large empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls. He then asked the students if the jar was full. 

They agreed that it was. The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between the golf balls. He then asked the students again if the jar was full.

They agreed it was. The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else. 

He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded a unanimous 'yes. ‘The professor then produced two Beers from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar effectively filling the empty space between the sand. 

The students laughed. 'Now,' said the professor as the laughter subsided, 'I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.

The golf balls are the important things, your family, your children, your health, your friends and your favourite passion, if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. 

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house and your car. 

The sand is everything else, the small stuff. ‘If you put the sand into the jar first, there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. 

The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. There will always be time for the small stuff. Take care of the golf balls first the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand. 

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the Beer represented. The professor smiled and said, 'I'm glad you asked. 'The Beer just shows you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of Beers with a friend.

Libby Enstrom wrote ... The Psychology and Philosophy of Morality and Happiness

Many think that the pursuit to understand and heal the mind will give humans more insight into how to perpetuate their contentment and happiness. More students are entering the field every year to help in this pursuit and earning a psychology degree on-line - something once unheard of - is now allowing for advancements within the growing community. Every day more types of therapy are developed and discoveries made that are helping people revolutionize their lives. It appears the perpetual pursuit of happiness has, at the very least, piqued the interest of humanity in general.

George Washington said: "Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected." Therefore, if you know how to apply the objective moral law to yourself, you must be very happy: right or wrong? Wrong, according to the 18th-century Prussian philosopher Immanuel Kant. He argued that moral
requirements are based on a standard of rationality called the Categorical Imperative. Morality is thus achieved through reason, whereas happiness is achieved through the instincts. There is not necessarily any virtue in happiness. English philosopher John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism, on the other hand, links morality with happiness. It is possible to argue that some forms of morality make us happy, while others do not, so each philosopher is both right and wrong.

The difference lies, to some extent, in differing views of what is right and wrong. Murder is universally considered wrong, and generally speaking, only a morally depraved or psychopathic person would achieve happiness by committing it. A person who murders another to get rich -- to collect on a life insurance policy, for example -- might think that the wealth acquired will make him happy. But the blood money wouldn’t give the killer the same satisfaction as wealth acquired legally, and there would be an ever-present chance of getting caught and spending life in prison, which forfeits access to the wealth and can’t possibly make anyone happy. In this case, the overwhelming majority of people would be made happier by moral behaviour, i.e. refraining from murder.

For Mill, moral behaviour increases the overall happiness of the world. For Kant, however, the highest good is not happiness. Inclinations are the opponent of moral disposition in Kant’s synthesis of virtue. Virtue is fortitude, or the ability to withstand the vigorous and unfair enemy that inclination is. A person engages in many types of behaviour because of inclination. If a person calls in sick to work when he is not really sick, he is following an inclination. It may very well make him happy to stay home from work or school like Ferris Bueller; he may engage in all sorts of stimulating, fun activities instead of subjecting himself to the drudgery of work. Will he be contributing to the overall happiness of the world? What if, during his day off, he rescues a child from a burning building? Here, Mill would be conflicted, but it would be a case in point for Kant: the right thing, going to work, would have been the less happy thing.

When it comes to those moral directives about which huge swaths of society disagree, from abortion to gay marriage, Kant probably would have been on the conservative side. Morally, he would say, by a process of reason, only a man and a woman should marry. If two men do, they will be following a base inclination, and they may well be happy. Mill might have found that gay marriage was a moral possibility because it increased the overall happiness in the world.

Clearly, in some areas, Americans, who love happiness, don’t agree about what causes it.

A guest post, most welcome ................

I guess Vodafone is amongst the robber ...

... baron companies of the world that steal taxes from countries in which they operate.

Nicholas Shaxson in his "Treasure Islands" (£8.99 from Amazon), subtitled "Tax Havens and the Men Who Stole the World", explains what is wrong with global finance  ...

... he write, while many might dismiss tax havens as offshore homes for spivs, money-launderers and the odd celebrity, in fact they help big companies and the super-rich to avoid paying tax, tax that totals "$1000 billion" each year.

... that's a trillion dollars, a trillion dollars unspent in the countries that the wealth is created, a trillion dollars that should be underpinning the health and welfare of the little people who have no voice in this unjust world.

Update on my entry for yesterday ...

The dispute has severely dented India’s reputation as a safe place for foreign companies to do business. Many are facing similar tax cases that could be affected by the judgment, including Cadbury, GE, Vedanta, AT&T, Sanofi-Aventis and SABMiller. The companies declined to comment on the decision, although one representative said: "Clearly, it does provide some encouragement."

... recognise the household names that are siphoning off the taxes from India through the use of offshore tax havens or countries that give advantage to business.

Time to create a level playing field that includes "justice" in the rules of the game.

Kant wrote in his ...

... famous essay on "Perpetual Peace":

"Many say a republic would have to be a nation of angels, because men with their selfish inclinations are not capable of a constitution of such sublime form. But precisely with these inclinations nature comes to the aid of the general will established on reason, which is revered even though impotent in practice. Thus it is only a question of a good organization of the state (which does lie in man's power), whereby the powers of each selfish inclination are so arranged in opposition that one moderates or destroys the ruinous effect of the other. The consequence for reason is the same as if none of them existed, and man is forced to be a good citizen even if not a morally good person.

The problem of organizing a state, however hard it may seem, can be solved even for a race of devils, if only they are intelligent. The problem is: 'Given a multitude of rational beings requiring universal laws for their preservation, but each of whom is secretly inclined to exempt himself from them, to establish a constitution in such a way that, although their private intentions conflict, they check each other, with the result that their public conduct is the same as if they had no such intentions.'

A problem like this must be capable of solution; it does not require that we know how to attain the moral improvement of men but only that we should know the mechanism of nature in order to use it on men, organizing the conflict of the hostile intentions present in a people in such a way that they must compel themselves to submit to coercive laws. Thus a state of peace is established in which laws have force."

 ... but is his observations of a Europe seemingly in perpetual warfare relevant today, in Britain, in Wales ?

... a story from the Far East made me think ...

... of the responsibility we might have for the effect our consumption has on the environment and its peoples on the other side of the world, to wit lead pollution on the young people of Zhejiang province.

The assumption I make is that the Health & Safety of people working in industry in the UK is more rigorous than found elsewhere in the world.  In other words, we should pollute ourselves because our pollution will be less than those less protected.  In the case linked above in paragraph 1, we should only use the batteries we produce.

A major player in the battery market is the US company Johnson Controls Inc ...

Due to increasing global demand for high-quality automotive batteries for environmentally friendly Start-Stop technology, Johnson Controls is investing $100 million to build a Start-Stop vehicle battery plant in China........ the company also announced ......... "We project that China will continue to be the fastest growing market for automobiles through the end of this decade".

Nothing wrong there, the business has forecast its best future rests on mainland China so there it invests its capital, but, there is often a "but", there is sufficient anecdotal evidence to suggest the people of  Zhejiang province and elsewhere are not sufficiently protected against a process based on the lead industry, a metal that has catastrophic effects on people.

The moral dilemma is, should we use products in the knowledge that people elsewhere are being hurt by our consumption, made in China might be problematic .........

AC Grayling has published ....

... an alternative "The Good Book", a distillation of all things secular, he writes ...

"Unlike religious ethics, humanism does not invoke the commands, promises or punishments of divinities.  Instead, humanism is drawn from human experience and offers to people everywhere a basis for living good, courageous and flourishing lives.

That is what the best secular thinkers of all ages dedicated themselves to and it is their wisdom that has been distilled into the pages of The Good Book".

... unfortunately Mr. Grayling does not attempt to ask the two most thought provoking questions ...

• where do we come from?
• why are we here?

... the first question might be answerable by science, but the second question needs philosophy or religion (is there a difference).

I remember a lady speaking on the radio sometime last year, it was late Summer or early Autumn, the trees had leaves and I wasn't wearing a coat, she said ...

"when I get up in the morning, my faith gives me a purpose for my existence, I couldn't imagine living life without purpose".

... odd thing religious faith, you either have it or you don't; my mother had faith, believed in a Christian god, believed in heaven, she worried that when she saw my father once again she would look so much older than him, he died at an early age.  That was faith.

Why does AC Grayling spend so much time trying to take away from people their faith, it belongs to the individual, it is much like freedom of speech, a very personal and private explanation of things inexplicable.

I have no religion, but to Mr Grayling I would send the message...

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts."  Einstein.