Wisdom and Cheese- Deadly Thigamajiggers (General)

by dhw, Wednesday, December 07, 2011, 22:44 (4735 days ago) @ Balance_Maintained

TONY: Functional means something works as it is supposed to work without causing dysfunction in another, unless that is its intended purpose.

Dhw: I don’t agree that functional means [as above]…Functional means “something works as it is supposed to work.”

TONY: 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

I still disagree with your definition, so taking the example of the suicide bomber, let’s analyse it: 1) “something works as it is supposed to work”: you can’t know how something is supposed to work without knowing the intention (the suicide bomber intended to kill people and did, so his action was functional); 2) “without causing dysfunction in another unless that is its intended purpose” could hardly make it clearer that the suicide bomber’s action was functional, since its intended purpose was to cause dysfunction in others. But even if the dysfunction is not the intended purpose, e.g. I lie/steal/murder for the sole purpose of making myself rich, I will still claim functionality if I succeed. Your argument that my actions cause dysfunction in others is correct, but it does not change the fact that my action worked as it was supposed to – i.e. I became rich. The action itself, then, is not dysfunctional (it worked) but, as you point out yourself, it caused dysfunction in others, which I would call “harm” (you called it “hurt”), and that for me is the point at which functionality ends and morality begins.

You wrote: “This is precisely why I have a problem with morality. It is not the person’s 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.” I see it exactly the other way round: It is the person’s intention that sets the criteria for functionality, and it is the consequences of his actions that set the criteria for morality. You accepted my definition of morality, but did not mention the important criterion that followed, so for the sake of brevity and clarity, I will telescope the two sections: “Relating to human behaviour, esp. the distinction between beneficial (good) and harmful (bad) behaviour.” In other words, we have two separate questions: has the (subjective) intention been fulfilled (functionality), and has the behaviour been harmful or beneficial (morality)? The criteria for functionality are as subjective as those for morality.

The rest of your post hinges on this crucial difference between us, and I think the distinction will become much clearer if we go back to our starting point, which if I remember rightly was your contention that the bible did not talk in terms of good/bad, but in terms of function/dysfunction. You therefore set out to remove subjective morality from certain passages, and I took up the example from Galatians. So let me change my earlier question. Do you think St Paul meant to eliminate subjective intentions from the definition of dysfunction, and only wanted to concentrate on the harm that his listed “sins” might cause? And do you think he wanted to stop people from performing the relevant actions because of the harm that they might cause? If your answer to both questions is yes, would you not agree that St Paul’s list of sins constitutes what nowadays we would call bad (= harmful) behaviour, and his message is therefore a moral one, as I have defined “moral”? If you don’t agree, please tell me what you think he was hoping to achieve. And please accept my apologies for pushing a point I know you don’t want me to push!