Paternalism + NCs of moral judgment & sensitivity + mixed bag

[C C]

Paternalism - First published Wed Nov 6, 2002; substantive revision Sun Feb 12, 2017
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paternalism/

EXCERPT: Paternalism is the interference of a state or an individual with another person, against their will, and defended or motivated by a claim that the person interfered with will be better off or protected from harm. The issue of paternalism arises with respect to restrictions by the law such as anti-drug legislation, the compulsory wearing of seatbelts, and in medical contexts by the withholding of relevant information concerning a patient’s condition by physicians. At the theoretical level it raises questions of how persons should be treated when they are less than fully rational....

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Neural Correlates of Moral Judgment & Sensitivity
http://philosopherscocoon.typepad.com/bl...ation.html

EXCERPT: A new meta-analysis just appeared in the Journal of Moral Education on the neural correlates of moral judgment and moral sensitivity in parts of the brain associated with self-hood (full paper available here). Here are some of the key findings...

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A philosophical history of the Identity
http://www.the-philosophy.com/a-philosop...e-identity

Contents

1 From the Ancients to the Renaissance: an identity dominated by God
2 The break of the Enlightenment: an identity in crisis
3 The Deregulation of Identity: The Case of Madness
4 The search for identity, the end of the philosopher
5 The pitfall of solipsism

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Kant vs Hume
http://www.the-philosophy.com/kant-vs-hume

EXCERPT: In this article, the positions of Kant and Hume will be presented regarding the relationship between reason and morality. Through their respective works, A Treatise of human nature, and Grounding for the metaphysics of morals, they both advocate a position on this issue. For Hume, morality comes from the feeling while for Kant, morality must be based on a duty that applies a moral law, i.e. morality is a rationality matter. The position of each author will be exposed in detail, as a result of their analysis. Finally, we discuss a criticism of Hume‘s position with respect to moral judgments based on feeling....

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Descartes: I think therefore I am
http://www.the-philosophy.com/descartes-...efore-i-am

EXCERPT: In daily life, nothing is really sure for the subject. Even obvious thruths are doubful : should i live here or there, should i forgive to someone, should i bet everyday day or not, could my life be happier? During his entire life, Descartes was looking for the first knowledge, the one on everyone can build his own life....

[Secular Sanity]

Paternalism is something that I haven’t given much thought to.  

Thanks, C C.

Does your intelligence ever cause you any problems in your social life?  Do you think that people may feel threatened by it?

No danger of that. I'm a female version of the Claudius template. No limp, no deafness, no superficial appearance of being an idiot... But if there's ever an uprising, I'm the still the one who's going survive because I don't seem to be a threat to the rebels or the barbarians at the gate.

You know, C C, some of your replies can be just as prickly as mine, but the barbarians and rebels don’t realize you’re a threat because of your pedantic and sesquipedalian vocabulary.  

I know it’s time consuming but I would love for you to toss in a few of your own thoughts on some of the articles that you post. I really liked your answer about the authority that science should have on moral issues.  

What are you some of your thoughts on equality, C C?

[Ben the Donkey]

Paternalism is something that I haven’t given much thought to.  

Thanks, C C.

Try living in Australia. You may not know or understand the terminology, but the "Nanny State" is alive and well, and growing fat feasting on the apathy of 26 million-odd feebly protesting souls.
Having said that, though, I suppose a particular irony is that much of it is the result of an earlier, justifiable or explainable law. 
By way of example, we have government-subsidised (I'm not going to say "free", because technically it isn't) healthcare system here which works remarkably well.
If a bicycle rider were to be hit by a car while riding to work, and require ambulance transport and hospitalisation, the entire experience might end up costing only a couple of hundred dollars in the end... whereas (to my understanding) if such an event were to occur in the USA, one may as well give up the dream of home ownership for a while. And sell the car. Maybe even the kids, if you have one or two you didn't particularly like.
On the flip side, of course, it being recognised that such hospitalisations are extremely expensive for the government, it is required by law to wear a bicycle helmet at all times while riding one. Fines payable to the state if you're caught not wearing one. Bear in mind, we're talking bicycles here, not motorcycles. 

Now, I really don't like spurious laws being made to "ensure my own safety". The entire idea is demeaning and... well, paternalistic. 
I do like to think that, as a grown man, I'm possessed of a degree of common sense and intelligence. Innocent until proven guilty, as it were, notwithstanding the efforts of the movie industry in presenting the hapless cyclist trying to get out of the way of drunken fools in a car as an exceedingly comedic scene. 

It makes it worse realising that the government is not, as they purport to do, implementing these laws out of concern for my safety, in particular, but in an attempt to recoup the expense of a universal healthcare scheme. 
Worse in that the lie doesn't seem to be obvious to many at all, including those responsible for the laws being implemented in the first place. 

Paternalism is just a huge goddamned bowl of spaghetti that no one really has the stamina to eat, but is served day after day because grandma has forgotten how to serve anything else, and no one has the heart to complain about because everyone knows grandma's heart is in the right place and it isn't her fault she doesn't know any better.... even if one can remember a time when she probably did.

[C C]

I know it’s time consuming but I would love for you to toss in a few of your own thoughts on some of the articles that you post.

"Time consuming" is a problem in the sense that submitting my own thoughts (which I might have to also cook-up on the spot occasionally due to my not even having a lopsided opinion about an _X_ beforehand) eats up what space is available, to begin with, for tracking down something either "recent news-worthy" for a particular forum-category or a subject just potentially interesting to somebody. Also, it could often wind-up being a redundant attempt at balance or a mitigated examination of multiple POVs on my part, anyway, like the third-person spectacles of the journalist, blogger, media-person, or writer supplying the example (when happenstance the latter literally does try to be neutral or unbiased for once).

[Ben the Donkey]

Excuses...

[Secular Sanity]

I think what Ben is trying to say is that you’re interesting, C C. 

Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, because I do enjoy some of your links, but I’d also like to know what you liked, agreed with, or disliked about the articles.  Not an essay, of course.  Just a line or two.

You’re a smart one, C C, and your opinion is valuable to us.

[RainbowUnicorn]

Paternalism is something that I haven’t given much thought to.  
Thanks, C C.

Ben the Donkey
It makes it worse realising that the government is not, as they purport to do, implementing these laws out of concern for my safety, in particular, but in an attempt to recoup the expense of a universal healthcare scheme. 

Worse in that the lie doesn't seem to be obvious to many at all, including those responsible for the laws being implemented in the first place.

Spurious laws of re-couping cost ?

just wanted to add that there appears to be a intellectual failure by the majority(media & those discussing and talking about it from government polititions to self annointed critics) when it comes to defining a health care system.
i suspect that soo many people have such a personal litigious bias that they are unable t apply common language to it.

universal health care Vs national health care ...
is the "national" label removed to try and sell the lie of caring about everybody instead of feigning to be applying dog whistle politics of pro privatisation ass kissing ?

i think its a mix of selfish greed & social culture of pretending to care while showing you recognise the game of pretending to care while being out for your self at the loss of others at any opportunity.
a fool and their money.... etc etc

maybe "universal" label sells a nice un-achievable ulturistic lie to sell to children ?(as much as "free" is sold to adult capitalist children)