In a message dated 12/8/2003 8:01:07 AM Eastern Standard Time, mtiller at ntlworld.com writes: > Oops, only sent this to the sender initially. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Philip Hart [mailto:philiph at SLAC.Stanford.EDU] > Sent: 04 December 2003 22:37 > To: dragaera at dragaera.info > Subject: Re: OSC on the virtues of writer's block > > >Rather I should say that it seems to me people have a set of mostly > >emotional viewpoints on what's right, and > >that they effectively practice their religion and politics accordingly. > > Sorry, I've been away from email for a while (dead Primary master drive). I > see both religion and politics as 2 attempts to solve the ethical dilemma. > I can't remember the name for it, but it's the old one that goes as follows: > > If everybody contributes to a society, each receives back many times more > than their own contribution and thus logiocally everybody should > contribute.....BUT if you DON'T contribute and everybody else does, you are > even better off.....However if everybody does that, everybody loses. > > Seems to me Politics and Religion are both attempts (neither terribly > successsful) to get everybody to contribute so that > everybody is better off. > > Mark The "free rider" phenomena is one of the central problems facing any society. Several studies, (I cannot quote them as I am away from books), have concluded that it is the other members of society punishing the free rider, (ie:social censureship) that actually limits the free rider problem. Remember that most times the social punishment of a member of a society takes place because of altruistic motivation. In most cases the punisher may not gain anything directly from the act of punishing, in fact, the punisher may face social punishment themself if the other members of society do not agree with the act of punishing. Government, religeon and social structure only give the individual the frame work to act within. If these institutions have provided a framework whereby the free rider may be punished effectively, without the punisher being subject to social sanctions themselves, then the free rider problem may be controled or even eliminated. which gets back to the point, that polotics and religeon may not be successful in eliminating or controling the problem. I tried to keep it short and to the point, I hope I summarized correctly. John D. BArbato, OD