Wisdom and Cheese- Deadly Thigamajiggers (General)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Tuesday, December 06, 2011, 23:16 (4544 days ago) @ dhw

I don’t agree that functional means “something works as it is supposed to work without causing dysfunction in another, unless that is its intended purpose.” Functional means “something works as it is supposed to work”. “Without causing dysfunction in another” is the point at which your concept intersects with morality. Functionality depends entirely on the intention of the action. (You knew this was coming, didn’t you, as you wrote: “We can argue about how something is ‘supposed to work’!)

I never suggested that the two concepts, functionality vs. Morality, would not intersect, rather, that one was objective and the other subjective. I meant my definition precisely how it was written, but perhaps I was unclear as to why I added the 'without causing dysfunction in another, unless that is its intended purpose.' For the sake of clarity, lets move the analogy away from the moral arena for a moment.

If I build a damn to control the flow of the river and generate electricity for the town in the valley beyond, then we have a working set of criteria.

Control the flow of the river.
Provide electricity, and by extension, promote a better quality of living.

If that fails in any of those, it is dysfunctional. What if it disrupts the wildlife in the area, or causes negative impacts in the quality of the water, soil, or air? Because part of it's functionality was to promote a better quality of living, the damn is dysfunctional if it does these things. In other words, it meets some, but not all of the requirements to be considered functional. It may fulfill part of its task, but not all of it. It doesn't function as intended because of the side affects which 'cause dysfunction in another' system.

Now, you keep falling back on things like rape to support your stance. Let's analyze the situation. What is the functional purpose of sex:

Reproduction
Pleasure(as you have often pointed out)
Health Improvements (As medical science has proven)
Psychological Improvements
Emotional Improvements
Emotional Bonding between individuals.

We can haggle over which of those you accept or don't if you like, but for now, this is what I am going with. Rape, does not promote pleasure in the person being raped, it causes physical, psychological and emotional damage, and certainly does not promote healthy emotional bonding between individuals. Therefore, it is dysfunctional.

Your argument for homosexuality meets most of those criteria, but not all. So, yes, it is dysfunctional in that it will not produce offspring, but it does fulfill the other criteria. However, it is still not completely functional. It's not. Very simple.

A suicide bomber’s intention is to fulfil what he believes to be God’s intention, so if he kills a hundred Christians his action must be deemed functional. Hurting someone does not make his behaviour dysfunctional for HIM or for his fundamentalist mentors, because he has achieved his intention, his actions have worked, and there is no universal, objective authority that can relate his intentions to their effect on other people.

This is precisely why I have a problem with morality. It is not the persons intention that sets the criteria. It is the action itself. That is where morality has it all wrong. The man in your scenario is causing dysfunction in a hundred others. No matter his intent, the dysfunction is clear.

You were clearly aware of this dilemma when you wrote about causing dysfunction in another, and earlier when you said: “All of these things are things that will hurt you, hurt someone else, or degrade the functionality of the group.” These qualifications are the very basis of morality as I have defined it above (substitute harm for hurt).

I knew that you would try to change my definition and would focus on intent, yes. We have had similar discussions before I can normally spot the parts of my argument that you will try and pick apart :P hehe

In the OT, it talks about cities of refuge and how if a man killed someone, even accidentally, he would have to leave everything behind and flee to one of these cities where he would live for 7 years in what amounts to exile in atonement. If he was caught by the family of deceased, they had clear right of vengeance against him and could take his life without penalty. The reason I bring this up is that it illustrates quite clearly that the society that was responsible for the authorship of that book obviously did not give a lot of credence to 'intent'. Functional and dysfunctional are not a function of intent. They are empirical criteria. Yes, it means that the definition of a thing must be complete. It has to have a clearly defined scope and purpose, but how is that different than any other thing we design?

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.