Necessary double standards?

[Ledan]

*snipped for simplicity*
I apologize, it was rather rude of me. Sorry.

"5 guys rape a girl. We could say that her unhappiness is greater than their happiness, but that depends then on how happy those guys became.
Now, what should that girl do? If she tells people then more people will be unhappy. If she doesn't tell anyone, then society will have a greater amount of happiness than if she doesn't tell them."

Well, if she doesn't tell them, said guys might rape again, generating even more unhappiness, or they might commit other crimes, or they might inadvertently teach their kids that women are worth less, etc.
And of course, not telling anyone will defeat the purpose of a working justice-system. If such a thought-system were to become dominant - I see you are aware of Kant, so I assume you are aware of the rationale of 'why to never tell a lie', and I will use the same premise here. It's a valid one - then it would undermine the entire justice-system. "I mustn't report my crime, because people will be more sad than if I do not". Thus, in the long run, GU is achieved by supporting the justice-system. HOWEVER, this problem is solved (but the previous ones is not) if she never comes clean with anyone that can spread the information of her rape onward. Then the system is not undermined, for no one will know. However, this is unlikely, and encouraging this kind of thinking is - surprise, surprise - also undermining the system.
If you are going to lie, you better be damn sure to never get caught, and oh, you can't encourage people to pull an Utilitarian lie (as per Kant's rationale), but you can still do it, provided you don't get caught.

Damn -_- you are right that she should tell them from a Utilitarian view. However! What she found out that the men who raped her died before she told anyone? (Car accident, giant chicken stomping them).
So being a hypocrite would be okay as long as people don't find out about it?

"Roman style gladiator fights could be argued for, as long as the people we force to fight are either breed for the role and their population is always relativity small or we use prisoners. Why just throw someone in a chair when you could entertain people with them?"

Breading someone for a certain role is widely frowned upon in society, as it takes away something we value the most (very high GU), freedom and authenticity. So until this changes (and it won't), this is a no-go.
Slavery overall is a no-go, simply because it's so widely frowned upon. It can still technically be valid, if say we somehow manage to create a machine that make a huge population happy, but it runs on the souls of a few slaves. Also, better not tell anyone, and pray that no-one ever finds out (which is very unlikely, so the Risk/Reward situation will probably be on in the negative zone. I.e the risk is to great that someone finds out that we are violating Freedom and Authenticity, than the possible net-gain in GU).

From a historical standpoint, people don't always care about other people's freedom. The Romans did generate happiness through the coliseum and through slaves. Arguably the slaves suffered to much for this to generate a net amount of happiness, but the citizens were happier and were able to increase production. What society frowns upon changes, our current societal standards are vastly different from those a few hundred years ago.
It is possible to change what society frowns upon (homosexuality, women working, women wearing pants, white people not being considered the only humans, "interracial" couples), so if the only objection to the issue is how society would frown upon it, I would argue that it can be changed and would be changed from a utilitarian standpoint. If the change in how society views the world creates more GU and GH, then that would be ethical would it not? So we could mold society to think that vat-breed beings are not human, or that a minority doesn't count as human.

"Forcing people to marry according to a government breeding department creates greater utility. We could eradicate genetic diseases, and breed intelligent and athletic people. A Brave New World would await us if we did so or perhaps a Republic
Say the majority of the community wants to subjugate or exterminate a minority within the community, their happiness would become greater at the cost of the minorities. Would still create a net amount of more happiness if the minority was small enough.
And as long as people don't know that things are happening they won't get sad by them. So they can live in bliss. Just don't tell people when you torture innocents, freedom of speech should only be allowed when it causes greater happiness."

Like I said before, the problem is Authenticity. The feeling that we are "our own" and "free in mind", that we are "authentic", is deeply ingrained in our minds.

I disagree. If we look at history people will give up their freedom. They won't rise against a system that denies their freedom unless that system cannot provide them with the first levels of Maslow's hierarchy. The French Revolution was due mainly to food shortages, and economic problems. The American Revolution was due in part to the lack of crown authority in the new continent. People have lived in oppressive system until new technology arrived. Without the interference from the outside world China would still have been as it was in the 1500s. I think we can learn a lot about humans from China, what we will accept due to a changed culture.

That's why we will never support such a breeding program. People would be far too upset to even hear about such a thing. I actually wrote a thesis-paper on this very issue, concerning Nozick's Experience-Machine. The same reason said program would never be accepted is the same reason very few would ever step into Nozick's machine and live a life of illusions; Our belief that we are authentic, and experience authentic things, generate more GU for us than the happiness such a machine would provide (or so we believe. It is possible that the machine can generate authenticity as well, then it would be a null-and-void problem if we could force people into the machine. At least for the people IN the machine, not for the rest of us).

I'll agree with you that people want authenticity, but their views on what counts as authenticity can change. For a long period in our history when slavery was seen as normal, people did not feel a diminished authenticity due to that. For most of our history marriages have been arranged, and I believe that due to that we would accept a breeding program.
"Brave New World" is a good example of this. To some degree it is a utopia, and it shows how our culture and standards could change. I know it isn't evidence per say, but looking at how different our culture is today from yesterday, and from how different it is from other cultures today it is possible that humans would accept such a world.

All and all, I have no problems with lies and deceit, as long as no major lies will ever be discovered. Too bad we can pretty much never be sure of such either, and thus Risk/Reward is going to land in the Risk zone.

The U.S.S.R did a pretty good job of keeping information from its people. China is currently doing a very good job, and would be doing better without current technology making information so fluid. Take us back a thousand years and information was unreliable and a precious commodity. You could raize a town to the ground and ensure that few people knew about it.

My problem with utilitarianism as you've explained is that it allows for cultural relativistic ethics.

And Kant's "Never tell a lie" has some rather morbid problems of its own.

I'm guessing you are referring to the example where you are hiding Jews in your cellar and a Nazi officer asks you if you are hiding Jews? Or a similar situation?
We can still use Kant's categorical imperative and maxims to not tell the officer where the Jews are. Socrates(or Plato through Socrates) argued that you are not obligated to give a friend back a loaned weapon if he is mad(angry, not in a rational state of mind).
The imperative in the Nazi situation wouldn't be "Should you ever lie?" and instead "Should you help someone commit an unethical act?". The difficult part of using Kant's maxims is how to define the situation, and to not make that definition too broad or narrow.
If we imagine a world where people do help other people commit unethical acts, or rather to help them when they know that the person will commit an unethical act that would not be a stable society. So you should never help someone commit an unethical act.

Finally, if I remember correctly you said you do support Capital punishment but from a utilitarian standpoint I would say it causes greater distress in society. It is also impractical as it hasn't been proven to be a detterant, and in a hostage situation a criminal who has killed one hostage has no reason not to kill more. It can lead to criminals knowing that they will die when arrested, so they will fight to the death. In war you usually leave an avenue of escape(or a fake one) to your enemy so that they will rout instead of fight to the death.

Also, I do agree with favoring a woman in a job application situation if the all the other applicants have the same or worse applications than her. However, the law should be framed to not be sexist: the same law would apply in to a man if he applies to a company with over 60% women.

 

[Realitycrash]

*snipped for simplicity*
I apologize, it was rather rude of me. Sorry.

"5 guys rape a girl. We could say that her unhappiness is greater than their happiness, but that depends then on how happy those guys became.
Now, what should that girl do? If she tells people then more people will be unhappy. If she doesn't tell anyone, then society will have a greater amount of happiness than if she doesn't tell them."

Well, if she doesn't tell them, said guys might rape again, generating even more unhappiness, or they might commit other crimes, or they might inadvertently teach their kids that women are worth less, etc.
And of course, not telling anyone will defeat the purpose of a working justice-system. If such a thought-system were to become dominant - I see you are aware of Kant, so I assume you are aware of the rationale of 'why to never tell a lie', and I will use the same premise here. It's a valid one - then it would undermine the entire justice-system. "I mustn't report my crime, because people will be more sad than if I do not". Thus, in the long run, GU is achieved by supporting the justice-system. HOWEVER, this problem is solved (but the previous ones is not) if she never comes clean with anyone that can spread the information of her rape onward. Then the system is not undermined, for no one will know. However, this is unlikely, and encouraging this kind of thinking is - surprise, surprise - also undermining the system.
If you are going to lie, you better be damn sure to never get caught, and oh, you can't encourage people to pull an Utilitarian lie (as per Kant's rationale), but you can still do it, provided you don't get caught.

Damn -_- you are right that she should tell them from a Utilitarian view. However! What she found out that the men who raped her died before she told anyone? (Car accident, giant chicken stomping them).
So being a hypocrite would be okay as long as people don't find out about it?

"Roman style gladiator fights could be argued for, as long as the people we force to fight are either breed for the role and their population is always relativity small or we use prisoners. Why just throw someone in a chair when you could entertain people with them?"

Breading someone for a certain role is widely frowned upon in society, as it takes away something we value the most (very high GU), freedom and authenticity. So until this changes (and it won't), this is a no-go.
Slavery overall is a no-go, simply because it's so widely frowned upon. It can still technically be valid, if say we somehow manage to create a machine that make a huge population happy, but it runs on the souls of a few slaves. Also, better not tell anyone, and pray that no-one ever finds out (which is very unlikely, so the Risk/Reward situation will probably be on in the negative zone. I.e the risk is to great that someone finds out that we are violating Freedom and Authenticity, than the possible net-gain in GU).

From a historical standpoint, people don't always care about other people's freedom. The Romans did generate happiness through the coliseum and through slaves. Arguably the slaves suffered to much for this to generate a net amount of happiness, but the citizens were happier and were able to increase production. What society frowns upon changes, our current societal standards are vastly different from those a few hundred years ago.
It is possible to change what society frowns upon (homosexuality, women working, women wearing pants, white people not being considered the only humans, "interracial" couples), so if the only objection to the issue is how society would frown upon it, I would argue that it can be changed and would be changed from a utilitarian standpoint. If the change in how society views the world creates more GU and GH, then that would be ethical would it not? So we could mold society to think that vat-breed beings are not human, or that a minority doesn't count as human.

"Forcing people to marry according to a government breeding department creates greater utility. We could eradicate genetic diseases, and breed intelligent and athletic people. A Brave New World would await us if we did so or perhaps a Republic
Say the majority of the community wants to subjugate or exterminate a minority within the community, their happiness would become greater at the cost of the minorities. Would still create a net amount of more happiness if the minority was small enough.
And as long as people don't know that things are happening they won't get sad by them. So they can live in bliss. Just don't tell people when you torture innocents, freedom of speech should only be allowed when it causes greater happiness."

Like I said before, the problem is Authenticity. The feeling that we are "our own" and "free in mind", that we are "authentic", is deeply ingrained in our minds.

I disagree. If we look at history people will give up their freedom. They won't rise against a system that denies their freedom unless that system cannot provide them with the first levels of Maslow's hierarchy. The French Revolution was due mainly to food shortages, and economic problems. The American Revolution was due in part to the lack of crown authority in the new continent. People have lived in oppressive system until new technology arrived. Without the interference from the outside world China would still have been as it was in the 1500s. I think we can learn a lot about humans from China, what we will accept due to a changed culture.

That's why we will never support such a breeding program. People would be far too upset to even hear about such a thing. I actually wrote a thesis-paper on this very issue, concerning Nozick's Experience-Machine. The same reason said program would never be accepted is the same reason very few would ever step into Nozick's machine and live a life of illusions; Our belief that we are authentic, and experience authentic things, generate more GU for us than the happiness such a machine would provide (or so we believe. It is possible that the machine can generate authenticity as well, then it would be a null-and-void problem if we could force people into the machine. At least for the people IN the machine, not for the rest of us).

I'll agree with you that people want authenticity, but their views on what counts as authenticity can change. For a long period in our history when slavery was seen as normal, people did not feel a diminished authenticity due to that. For most of our history marriages have been arranged, and I believe that due to that we would accept a breeding program.
"Brave New World" is a good example of this. To some degree it is a utopia, and it shows how our culture and standards could change. I know it isn't evidence per say, but looking at how different our culture is today from yesterday, and from how different it is from other cultures today it is possible that humans would accept such a world.

All and all, I have no problems with lies and deceit, as long as no major lies will ever be discovered. Too bad we can pretty much never be sure of such either, and thus Risk/Reward is going to land in the Risk zone.

The U.S.S.R did a pretty good job of keeping information from its people. China is currently doing a very good job, and would be doing better without current technology making information so fluid. Take us back a thousand years and information was unreliable and a precious commodity. You could raize a town to the ground and ensure that few people knew about it.

My problem with utilitarianism as you've explained is that it allows for cultural relativistic ethics.

And Kant's "Never tell a lie" has some rather morbid problems of its own.

I'm guessing you are referring to the example where you are hiding Jews in your cellar and a Nazi officer asks you if you are hiding Jews? Or a similar situation?
We can still use Kant's categorical imperative and maxims to not tell the officer where the Jews are. Socrates(or Plato through Socrates) argued that you are not obligated to give a friend back a loaned weapon if he is mad(angry, not in a rational state of mind).
The imperative in the Nazi situation wouldn't be "Should you ever lie?" and instead "Should you help someone commit an unethical act?". The difficult part of using Kant's maxims is how to define the situation, and to not make that definition too broad or narrow.
If we imagine a world where people do help other people commit unethical acts, or rather to help them when they know that the person will commit an unethical act that would not be a stable society. So you should never help someone commit an unethical act.

Finally, if I remember correctly you said you do support Capital punishment but from a utilitarian standpoint I would say it causes greater distress in society. It is also impractical as it hasn't been proven to be a detterant, and in a hostage situation a criminal who has killed one hostage has no reason not to kill more. It can lead to criminals knowing that they will die when arrested, so they will fight to the death. In war you usually leave an avenue of escape(or a fake one) to your enemy so that they will rout instead of fight to the death.

Also, I do agree with favoring a woman in a job application situation if the all the other applicants have the same or worse applications than her. However, the law should be framed to not be sexist: the same law would apply in to a man if he applies to a company with over 60% women.

Getting on a plane to Italy in a few hours, so I'll respond when I have the strength for it (I generally do not care for lengthy online discussions, as the typing wears on my fingers, and something that would take fifteen minutes to discuss IRL now takes hours if not days, not counting all the misunderstandings, but I'll make an effort).

And oh, the very last part I can respond to now; I said I cared for Capital Punishment from an utilitarian stand-point as a principle. I.e I would be a-okey with it if it actually made society a better place to live. As you have pointed out, it does not. Thus, I am against it.

Now, I need sleep before I board my flying death-contraption.

 

[ElPatron]

Are you fucking serious? If Goths and guys with "paedophile glasses" (which is a stereotype anyway, and one that I, at least, wasn't even aware of as a kid) intimidate a 10-year-old, then they're the ones with a problem. And you're literally just going in to piss/shit, wash your hands, dry them, and get out. I must've been going to public toilets alone since I was, like...six? Around that time.

Preaching to the choir. Of course I am fucking serious. I just know that pedophile glasses and goth people would scare the shit out of me *without their action*. The problem is on kids being easily scared, not the people in the public restroom.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUU...

I'm sorry if I did not make myself clear, but you Escapists have the habit of just claiming I said things I never typed instead of just asking for a clarification.

 

[SuperScrub]

I like girls with big boobs (not too big) but I don't think guys should have big boobs.
Actually it not really that big a double standard, as male boobs can't be used for breast feeding.

You clearly have not heard of futanari.

Those aren't men; they're just girls with dicks.

Sorry I mean't dickgirls.

 

[Sexy Devil]

Which double standards do you think are necessary? I was just thinking about how female-on-male sexual harassment is often used as a topic of humour for sitcoms, but if it wasn't funny to so many, it wouldn't be used, would it? Admittedly, that kind of sexual harassment is pretty rare. So I'm not sure whether or not it's bad for them to use it, even if it is a double standard.

One day I want to see a sitcom have the balls to shake up the formula to the male sexual harassment episode. Halfway through the episode have the sexually harassed male fight back by sexually harassing the woman. Just see how much shit they can stir from people who completely ignore the first half of the episode.

 

[Caffiend]

I think the main "double standard" that's been bothering me for a while is the fact that I, as a female, can wear men's clothing and no one will take issue, but when a man wants to wear a dress or something generally "feminine" he's treated like he's mentally unwell or that there's "something wrong with him" or that he's gay. It all leads back to the misogyny that's still rampant in our society, that says being feminine is inherently bad and seen as weak, and that being masculine is awesome and better which is incredibly annoying. If I can wear a suit and be applauded for it, then there is absolutely no reason for a man in a skirt to be insulted or looked down upon. Wearing feminine clothing does not make you weak, and it certainly doesn't make you gay. The only thing wearing a skirt should say, is that you like wearing skirts. Sex should not dictate what you can and cannot wear, and it does not determine your sexuality.

My significant other wears women's jeans, because he's a bit curvy on the bottom and a lot of pants cut for men just don't fit him properly. He wears them pretty tight too, because that's just what he prefers. He likes the look and feel of tight jeans. It's absolute bullshit that he and I can wear the exact same jeans, but he's insulted for wearing them and I'm not. There is no reason for that. None.