Premise A- That, any course of action can be justified, if unknown information is ignored.
IE- Imagine that a foreign nation has been handling the interrogation of prisoners, and because they are effective, you don't ask any questions about how they go about accomplishing the intelligence gathering. Are you different from a country that openly condones the use of torture?
Imagine that you, as president, want a war, so you go to the FBI and ask for one. One month later, a major landmark within your country is destroyed in a terrorist attack. The war begins, and the FBI agents who were tasked with starting it are all awarded promotions. Are you superior to a president who directly orders an attack on a major landmark within your country?
It's easy to imagine scenarios where I can accomplish practically any deed without knowing the cost I paid to accomplish it. Willful avoidance of knowledge can easily dodge any moral question. The issue becomes a little less blatant when knowledge is not as readily acquired, but the principle remains the same.
IE- Should a job be done by the person best capable of accomplishing the job at the highest quality and the lowest cost?
The answer, should be by definition yes. If the answer given was not yes, then the job is being carried out for some purpose other than the completion of the objective of the work. In other words, the stated objective of the work is simply a cover for the true objective of the work, or at the least, there a exists another objective for the work that is not the stated objective.
The stated objective of work should always be the actual and complete objective of the work. This is because concepts can seem correct, until they become preposterous upon being stated. This doesn't mean that the stated objective of work must be public knowledge, only that those who decide to create work must have an understanding of what they are doing and why.
That said, the question posed of who should receive a job has some very interesting implications. First off, there is nothing that gives merit to someone's work outside of his ability to accomplish the work. In other words, the definition of work, is the payment of a price to receive a benefit. A high benefit at a low cost is always the measurement of a job well done. Putting the right people in the right job is thus superior to putting the wrong person in the same position. Any decision of job placement, is a question with the same moral implications as condoning attacks on your own territory, or torturing prisoners. Of course, who is placed in what job isn't an issue faced merely by management or recruiters. Decisions about employment are caused by factors such as direct political pressure, economic legal structure, cultural pressure, generally accepted theories, etc. For the same reasons that torturing someone is not okay based on a lack of knowledge that your actions led to the torture, firing a competent employee is not okay based on a lack of knowledge that you were doing so.
This means that no-one acts in a purely moral manner, because everyone is ignorant of the full implications of his actions. However, some of us are more ignorant than others. This ignorance is thence translated directly into evil action.
People who use the tools available to them to acquire what knowledge they can are superior to those who don't. Information gathering is therefore one of the most central requirements of moral society. In other words, a moral society requires that, as possible, all decisions be made using all available information related to the decision. A society that is better able to accomplish this goal is superior to society that cannot achieve this goal.
This presents two major issues- A method to categorize giant amounts of information such that the person who needs the information, knows that he needs it, and a method of gathering all of the information in the first place. In general, the best system we have come up with, for the purpose of controlling the flow of goods and services, is the price system. Anything that hampers the price system's effectiveness reduces the flow of information pertaining to those fields and is thus evil. It must not be forgotten that information gathering is not society's sole objective, that other objectives can sometimes take precedent. The core objectives of any society is of course, the achievement of desire. All other objectives are fractions of the whole, broken down so as to allow the viewing of issues pertaining to them. With that said, achieving any objective at the cost of another objective at an equal level, will not allow you to move forward. You will only achieve a string of pyrrhic victories.
The price system, as such, must not be distorted. Any action taken to modify the state of the environment must be taken in such a way that information is not lost.
Humans have a habit, of deciding that a certain amount of information is good enough. With this, they assume that any belief that is close enough to correct is equal to any other belief within the same circle. Once people stop considering how a decision should be made, the only relevant issue is that a decision be made. Hence, we place people in authority and treat their decisions as the best and most reasonable regardless of what decisions they make, or how they come to them. As structures of authority grow, the decisions become more distant from its effects, which in turn discards information pertaining to the decision.
The universe exists within the eye of the beholder. As a corollary, the specific nature of a given action can be known only to the actor himself. Forcing someone to take action, therefore discards this information. It cannot be known how much suffering was paid compared to the benefits received from an action unless the actor decides to take action to achieve a benefit. If the actor takes action to avoid another cost, the only known information is that the cost that wasn't paid is higher than the one that was. IE- that X>Y. Given the cost X was artificially created to force the actor into motion, and the benefit was Z there is no way to know whether the decision to pay Y in order to receive Z was the correct decision. In reverse, forcing someone not to receive a benefit also discards information.
This leads once again to the principle of distortion. A government, wherein everyone acts exactly as if the government did not exist, would by definition be an anarchy. By definition, an anarchy has no cost. IE- something that does not exist cannot cost anything. A government that caused no changes besides the creation of opportunity, IE a government that managed somehow, for everyone to do exactly what they would have done, except that the people had access to an infinite amount of electrical power would also be non-distorting. (note: I am not describing a government that subsidizes electricity. The government conjures it out of thin air.) This is because the government is not discarding any form of information.
The price of government is thus, distortion, or information discard. The design of every form of governmental action should thus be, the minimization of distortion and the maximization of results. To achieve this function, a well made law code requires as few forced actions as possible to achieve the same result. At this point it becomes important to focus on what results should be achieved. Specific results tend to be petty and stupid. For instance-
Having a child attend a series of classes and do particular homework.
Such a result has created a value system that determines that good is measured against whether the child goes to class and does homework. This value system is pathetic compared to one that measures whether the child is happy now and in the future.
School, as a concept, must be measured against the results of the schooling. To do so, it requires that the taker of the measurements have some idea of the cost of the schooling and the benefits. It therefore becomes important that the people who are taught must decide that they wish to participate in the classes. Ignoring this, will discard all of the involved information. You cannot assume that a nation is morally sound while discarding all information on the damage done to around a fourth of the nation's population. As a corollary you can assume that nation is immoral, simply because it lacks the ability to make moral decisions. The same can be said of any society in which each of its citizens is expected to partake in a series of premeditated actions before being treated as a source of information. Every separate entity has information unique to itself, by definition, and if that information is ignored it is lost.
Any system that achieves the same results without losing that information is superior. Every decision must be made based on the results of those decisions, and the results must be inferred from basic values. The decision must come at as low a cost as possible with as high a benefit as possible. Costs cannot be ignored, and results cannot be inferred to exist just because we want them. Everything about a moral society must be decided based on careful and complete measurement of the applicable variables.
IE- Imagine that a foreign nation has been handling the interrogation of prisoners, and because they are effective, you don't ask any questions about how they go about accomplishing the intelligence gathering. Are you different from a country that openly condones the use of torture?
Imagine that you, as president, want a war, so you go to the FBI and ask for one. One month later, a major landmark within your country is destroyed in a terrorist attack. The war begins, and the FBI agents who were tasked with starting it are all awarded promotions. Are you superior to a president who directly orders an attack on a major landmark within your country?
It's easy to imagine scenarios where I can accomplish practically any deed without knowing the cost I paid to accomplish it. Willful avoidance of knowledge can easily dodge any moral question. The issue becomes a little less blatant when knowledge is not as readily acquired, but the principle remains the same.
IE- Should a job be done by the person best capable of accomplishing the job at the highest quality and the lowest cost?
The answer, should be by definition yes. If the answer given was not yes, then the job is being carried out for some purpose other than the completion of the objective of the work. In other words, the stated objective of the work is simply a cover for the true objective of the work, or at the least, there a exists another objective for the work that is not the stated objective.
The stated objective of work should always be the actual and complete objective of the work. This is because concepts can seem correct, until they become preposterous upon being stated. This doesn't mean that the stated objective of work must be public knowledge, only that those who decide to create work must have an understanding of what they are doing and why.
That said, the question posed of who should receive a job has some very interesting implications. First off, there is nothing that gives merit to someone's work outside of his ability to accomplish the work. In other words, the definition of work, is the payment of a price to receive a benefit. A high benefit at a low cost is always the measurement of a job well done. Putting the right people in the right job is thus superior to putting the wrong person in the same position. Any decision of job placement, is a question with the same moral implications as condoning attacks on your own territory, or torturing prisoners. Of course, who is placed in what job isn't an issue faced merely by management or recruiters. Decisions about employment are caused by factors such as direct political pressure, economic legal structure, cultural pressure, generally accepted theories, etc. For the same reasons that torturing someone is not okay based on a lack of knowledge that your actions led to the torture, firing a competent employee is not okay based on a lack of knowledge that you were doing so.
This means that no-one acts in a purely moral manner, because everyone is ignorant of the full implications of his actions. However, some of us are more ignorant than others. This ignorance is thence translated directly into evil action.
People who use the tools available to them to acquire what knowledge they can are superior to those who don't. Information gathering is therefore one of the most central requirements of moral society. In other words, a moral society requires that, as possible, all decisions be made using all available information related to the decision. A society that is better able to accomplish this goal is superior to society that cannot achieve this goal.
This presents two major issues- A method to categorize giant amounts of information such that the person who needs the information, knows that he needs it, and a method of gathering all of the information in the first place. In general, the best system we have come up with, for the purpose of controlling the flow of goods and services, is the price system. Anything that hampers the price system's effectiveness reduces the flow of information pertaining to those fields and is thus evil. It must not be forgotten that information gathering is not society's sole objective, that other objectives can sometimes take precedent. The core objectives of any society is of course, the achievement of desire. All other objectives are fractions of the whole, broken down so as to allow the viewing of issues pertaining to them. With that said, achieving any objective at the cost of another objective at an equal level, will not allow you to move forward. You will only achieve a string of pyrrhic victories.
The price system, as such, must not be distorted. Any action taken to modify the state of the environment must be taken in such a way that information is not lost.
Humans have a habit, of deciding that a certain amount of information is good enough. With this, they assume that any belief that is close enough to correct is equal to any other belief within the same circle. Once people stop considering how a decision should be made, the only relevant issue is that a decision be made. Hence, we place people in authority and treat their decisions as the best and most reasonable regardless of what decisions they make, or how they come to them. As structures of authority grow, the decisions become more distant from its effects, which in turn discards information pertaining to the decision.
The universe exists within the eye of the beholder. As a corollary, the specific nature of a given action can be known only to the actor himself. Forcing someone to take action, therefore discards this information. It cannot be known how much suffering was paid compared to the benefits received from an action unless the actor decides to take action to achieve a benefit. If the actor takes action to avoid another cost, the only known information is that the cost that wasn't paid is higher than the one that was. IE- that X>Y. Given the cost X was artificially created to force the actor into motion, and the benefit was Z there is no way to know whether the decision to pay Y in order to receive Z was the correct decision. In reverse, forcing someone not to receive a benefit also discards information.
This leads once again to the principle of distortion. A government, wherein everyone acts exactly as if the government did not exist, would by definition be an anarchy. By definition, an anarchy has no cost. IE- something that does not exist cannot cost anything. A government that caused no changes besides the creation of opportunity, IE a government that managed somehow, for everyone to do exactly what they would have done, except that the people had access to an infinite amount of electrical power would also be non-distorting. (note: I am not describing a government that subsidizes electricity. The government conjures it out of thin air.) This is because the government is not discarding any form of information.
The price of government is thus, distortion, or information discard. The design of every form of governmental action should thus be, the minimization of distortion and the maximization of results. To achieve this function, a well made law code requires as few forced actions as possible to achieve the same result. At this point it becomes important to focus on what results should be achieved. Specific results tend to be petty and stupid. For instance-
Having a child attend a series of classes and do particular homework.
Such a result has created a value system that determines that good is measured against whether the child goes to class and does homework. This value system is pathetic compared to one that measures whether the child is happy now and in the future.
School, as a concept, must be measured against the results of the schooling. To do so, it requires that the taker of the measurements have some idea of the cost of the schooling and the benefits. It therefore becomes important that the people who are taught must decide that they wish to participate in the classes. Ignoring this, will discard all of the involved information. You cannot assume that a nation is morally sound while discarding all information on the damage done to around a fourth of the nation's population. As a corollary you can assume that nation is immoral, simply because it lacks the ability to make moral decisions. The same can be said of any society in which each of its citizens is expected to partake in a series of premeditated actions before being treated as a source of information. Every separate entity has information unique to itself, by definition, and if that information is ignored it is lost.
Any system that achieves the same results without losing that information is superior. Every decision must be made based on the results of those decisions, and the results must be inferred from basic values. The decision must come at as low a cost as possible with as high a benefit as possible. Costs cannot be ignored, and results cannot be inferred to exist just because we want them. Everything about a moral society must be decided based on careful and complete measurement of the applicable variables.
