I'm also not sure there's such a thing as 'objectively good' apart from basic necessities needed to live, and how can it be both objective and variable?
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What Is The Government For?
- Thread starter Rival
- Start date
Providing a set of public services to its citizens.
The "these things" that matter commonly arise, literally, out of being life-forms. Think of the flowers sitting quietly in a field: provided their material needs are supplied (prosperity), their security is maintained (no one eating them), they are safe (e.g. from wind and storm), and able to reproduce, as a "people" they flourish. These are what, in the nature of the flower, makes it a success. It's not someone deciding, so much as old philosophers looking at flowers in the field and saying, "Aha!"
Apart from those, we have many issues but not all of them are common good. Most are fancies.
Why can it not be both objective and variable? (I don't understand the question.)
"X" in mathematics is objective and variable.
Why is a government needed for any of this? Plenty of communities exist and flourish without governments. We don't need a Monarch, Prime Minister or otherwise to help us eat well, be secure and build shelters. We've been doing that since we've been human.
2+2=4 is objective.
'4' here is never variable. It can never be 6.
X+19 = 24 provides us with a fixed X. But X + X reveals the nature of X.
X in this instance is still never going to be anything other than 5 though.
X + X = 24
In some communities, it is the common good to hunt (providing for prosperity), in others to have strong borders (safety), and in others to protect an individual's security of person. It needn't be the same nor consistent across humanity, but it is provided by the needs of the group to survive.
But why does this require a government?
To guarantee it. To fix it in writing and in practice that this is what will be.
Governments are not necessarily a good thing (says the anarchist who works for the government).
I can see where you are coming from but this seems a little far fetched. Nothing like this is ever guaranteed and people seemed to be more equal when it came to recieving food &c. in hunter-gatherer societies, if we are to believe what the historians and archaeologists tell us. In HG societies, as far as I am led to believe, women weren't second-class, food was communally shared and shelter also. No-one seemed to need any guarantors. It's only after we had governments that we started needed to fight for these things. One might argue that agrarian societies produced governments, needful or not, as well as inequality.
Daemon Sophic
Avatar in flux
Not even remotely close.
No government equals no organized civilization. Yes humans like any other tribe, pod, herd, troop of animals, have “survived” for many tens of thousands of years. Disease, predators, inter-tribe warring, fires, etc.....always took their toll.
If you believe that those (now almost never) rarely discovered tribes of inbreeding, poorly nourished hunter/gatherers living in crude huts in the jungle are all that we should aspire to be, then go ahead. Strip off your clothes, abandon your computer and home, and walk (barefoot) to Africa or South America. If you survive that trek, then maybe you’re fit enough to not have a government/civilization.
I'm not saying this at all. I am only saying that they do not need a government in order to survive. The mere fact that these tribes still exist is a testament to that. Disease and predators and so on are a part of life and always will be for absolutely everyone.
Not even remotely close.
No government equals no organized civilization. Yes humans like any other tribe, pod, herd, troop of animals, have “survived” for many tens of thousands of years. Disease, predators, inter-tribe warring, fires, etc.....always took their toll.
If you believe that those (now almost never) rarely discovered tribes of inbreeding, poorly nourished hunter/gatherers living in crude huts in the jungle are all that we should aspire to be, then go ahead. Strip off your clothes, abandon your computer and home, and walk (barefoot) to Africa or South America. If you survive that trek, then maybe you’re fit enough to not have a government/civilization.
Government wasn't always an entity separate from the people, like it is today. Explicit. Where it is not separate from the people, it is implicit.
I'd say this is a very subjective statement. In any case, I refer to state governments which are visible.
What I want from government....
Be useful to us.
With minimal interference.
Be useful to us.
With minimal interference.
Daemon Sophic
Avatar in flux
Ah... Then it’s a quality of life issue. a.k.a. -“the common good”
Infant mortality of 30 to 50%. No teeth by 28 years old. 10 pregnancies by age 25 (assuming she lives through the deliveries). High chance of disease or predator-related death, or starvation. Giardiasis as a way of life.
or......
Weatherproof houses. Foam mattresses and all the blankets you wish. Dental and health plans. No disease. Food, every freakin’ day. Clean water, always. No risk of predators. Low risk of violence. Phones; TV; video games; internet; scientific achievements;....... That is the result of humans gathering together in numbers larger than 20 to 40. And for that you need rules.....and the enforcement of said rules....you need government.
Other animals appear to do just fine. Have we a right to a long, painless life? Could we have, perhaps, just let evolution taken its course and women's bodies become more adept? Human bodies as a whole more resistant? The rise of cities only contributed to disease spreading. Certainly infant mortality seems bad, but is it for the worst? People dying is exactly what we need to keep populations stable, babies, women or otherwise. With governments, we have successfully achieved overpopulation, morbid obesity, climate change, mass extinctions, holocausts and potential nuclear war.
Also, most people (at least on Europe) prior to the introduction of sugar had perfectly healthy teeth; peasants in particular:
"The average medieval European peasant actually had very strong teeth and few problems with decay. In fact, based on surveys of archaeological data, only 20 percent of teeth found at medieval sites showed any sign of decay. By contrast, some early 20th century populations showed decay on 90 percent of teeth, and today even with all our modern knowledge half of American teenagers have tooth decay."
While I see your point, all those good things you mentioned come at a huge, huge cost. Is it worth it?
(I'm not taking a side here, I'm just sort of playing).