Talk:Anthropology of Unequal Society
--Poor Richard (talk) 01:52, 1 November 2012 (UTC) "Jean-Jacques Rousseau...argued that civilization, with its envy and self-consciousness, has made men bad. In his Discourse on the Origins of Inequality Among Men (1754), Rousseau maintained that man in a State of Nature had been a solitary, ape-like creature, who was not méchant (bad), as Hobbes had maintained, but (like some other animals) had an "innate repugnance to see others of his kind suffer" (and this natural sympathy constituted the Natural Man's one-and-only natural virtue).[22] It was Rousseau's fellow philosophe, Voltaire, objecting to Rousseau's egalitarianism, who charged him with primitivism and accused him of wanting to make people go back and walk on all fours.[23] Because Rousseau was the preferred philosopher of the radical Jacobins of the French Revolution, he, above all, became tarred with the accusation of promoting the notion of the "noble savage", especially during the polemics about Imperialism and scientific racism in the last half of the 19th century.[24] Yet the phrase "noble savage" does not occur in any of Rousseau's writings.[25] In fact, Rousseau arguably shared Hobbes' pessimistic view of humankind, except that as Rousseau saw it, Hobbes had made the error of assigning it to too early a stage in human evolution." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage#Erroneous_Identification_of_Rousseau_with_the_noble_savage
IMO Rousseau WAS enamored of the "noble savage" fantasy though he didn't use the phrase. However, this entire controversial and highly speculative side-track to his thought is irrelevant. What matters is the present social contract, not vague speculations about prehistory.
"For Rousseau the remedy was not in going back to the primitive but in reorganizing society on the basis of a properly drawn up social compact, so as to "draw from the very evil from which we suffer [i.e., civilization and progress] the remedy which shall cure it." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage#Erroneous_Identification_of_Rousseau_with_the_noble_savage
Civic/legal/moral equality is a relatively modern idea and derives little from evolution or past cultural traditions, with the possible exception that we are all equal “in the sight of God.” We need to replace both the legacy of evolution and the “sight of God” with the insight of a humanity which bases its ethics on reason rather than appeals to authority, history, nature, or divine revelations.
All rights, including property rights, are the products of contract. Regulation and enforcement of contracts (and thus rights) is a matter of jurisprudence and jurisdiction. Law determines what rights may be inalienable in a given jurisdiction, just as law determines what contracts are legal or illegal. This is all a matter of LAW. Theories based on or derived from "natural law," "natural rights," or even on economics are irrelevant to the question of rights and property except to the extent that such ideas have been (and still are) toxic to the evolution of jurisprudence.
"Natural law" is simply a modern facade for divine law. It is a fiction. I do not support morality or ethical systems based on religion or fairy tales. I prefer jurisprudence based on empirical (quantifiable and verifiable) equity, and preferably in a framework of the greatest good for the greatest number (general utility). IMO that is the only objective (non-fictional) basis for morality, ethics, law, or enlightened self-interest. I only wish this were considered self-evident by more people. Instead we constantly debate rights on the basis of philosophy, religion, ideology, or economic theory, none of which provide a sound foundation for rational human rights, civil rights, or property rights.
But where do we get the right foundation for a modern and rational social contract? Deontological ethics is after-the-fact consequentialism. If not based on prior experience and thus anticipation of consequences, what would deontological rules and duties be based on? General utility (my term for a generic form of consequentialism) is not arbitrary, authoritarian, philosophical, religious, ideological, historical, anthropological, or tradition-bound. Nor is it cruel or heartless. What kind of madman would calculate well-being or "the greatest good" without taking subjective needs into account? By general utility I mean much more (and less) than narrow market-based utility functions that are full of externalities. I explain this in more detail (still a rough draft) in "General Utility 2.0." http://almanac2010.wordpress.com/2010/10/05/general-utility-2-0/
--Poor Richard (talk) 01:52, 1 November 2012 (UTC)