Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Orkeosaurus wrote:

dogma wrote:The question here is one of efficacy.

You can't have efficacy without assigning some things as positive (contributing to efficacy) and others as negative (detracting from efficacy). In the context of social desirability this necessitates assigning value to things, doesn't it?

Kilkrazy wrote:A long term solution needs to include education and training for poor people so they can get better jobs, and the development of an economy which provides good quality jobs for people to take.

But how does, say, a Bachelor's Degree make a janitor more productive? Or a garbageman, or a truck driver? Not everyone can be a middle manager, after all.

Quite true, however unless we cull the lower orders they have to be allowed to earn a decent wage.

dogma wrote:Yes, but it isn't an emotional, or preferential sort of value. Feeding children has a positive effect which can be noted, and described using traditionally physical terminology; whereas notions of fairness and justice are essentially attempts to 'transcend' reality by discussing existence.

I don't follow you here.

If you're using positive as a synonym for "good", then how can tell something is positive without assigning it preferential value?

If you're using positive in contrast to "normative", then you can measure the positive effect of any action, but you still can't determine efficacy without declaring some result to be desirable (i.e. to contribute towards efficacy). I still don't see how you can decide what public policy ought to be on purely positive grounds; you would have to say "policy ought to be X if you desire Y as an outcome (because it is the most efficacious way of attaining Y)".

Kilkrazy wrote:Quite true, however unless we cull the lower orders they have to be allowed to earn a decent wage.

Hmm. Well, the training of others could help with an untrained person's wages; if a potential janitor has more options for career paths, someone who needs a janitor will have to pay a higher wage to convince janitors to continue working for them. (Of course, making land or physical capital available to the poor would have much the same effect as making education more readily available, I should think.)

Orkeosaurus wrote:
If you're using positive in contrast to "normative", then you can measure the positive effect of any action, but you still can't determine efficacy without declaring some result to be desirable (i.e. to contribute towards efficacy). I still don't see how you can decide what public policy ought to be on purely positive grounds; you would have to say "policy ought to be X if you desire Y as an outcome (because it is the most efficacious way of attaining Y)".

I am using it in contrast to normative, and you are correct that any action can be measured in that sense. That said, efficacy is independent of desire. Stabbing someone in the heart remains an efficacious way of killing a person even when the desire to kill is not present.

You are right that preference is a prerequisite when determining a future course (classic is/ought problem), and my use of the word 'preferential' was poor. I'm attempting to make a distinction between issues which are purely cognitive (justice, fairness, etc.) and those that possess a more tactile quality (food, shelter, drink, etc.) in order to illustrate the way such things can obfuscate a social problem; ie. people frequently refuse an excellent solution of moral grounds rather than material ones.

dogma wrote:I am using it in contrast to normative, and you are correct that any action can be measured in that sense. That said, efficacy is independent of desire. Stabbing someone in the heart remains an efficacious way of killing a person even when the desire to kill is not present.

"Desire" wasn't the best word; I only meant that whatever was "desirable" was what one was using as the standard for whether or not something is effective.

You are right that preference is a prerequisite when determining a future course (classic is/ought problem), and my use of the word 'preferential' was poor. I'm attempting to make a distinction between issues which are purely cognitive (justice, fairness, etc.) and those that possess a more tactile quality (food, shelter, drink, etc.) in order to illustrate the way such things can obfuscate a social problem; ie. people frequently refuse an excellent solution of moral grounds rather than material ones.

Ah, I see; it's not so much a matter of absolutes so much as it is avoiding poor decision making by relying on too abstract of concepts.