Is humanity perfectible?

Probably because no one has reached omni-perfection, a perfection everyone recognizes, so we don't know what absolute perfection is like, so it's largely opinion based?

EDIT: Second page topper in this topic. Go me or something.

edited 24th Feb '11 8:53:01 PM by Usht

For example, my parents believe that Perfection can be obtained through living a godly life, and that women ought to stay in the home and be completely subservient to their husbands.

I believe that I can obtain Perfection by going out and achieving self-set goals, and that I ought to live an enjoyable and independent life.

Two ideals that directly contradict one another. We can't even agree on "good enough", what makes you think that we can agree on "perfect"?

edited 24th Feb '11 8:55:56 PM by DrunkGirlfriend

^ There is that, yes...

So in your individual case, where do you stand, E?

The answer depends on how several terms are defined. What does ought mean? Unless we have a clear understanding of this term, the discussion can only be extremely vague.

In my personal ethical philosophy — a variant of utilitarianism — there is no concept of whether a given situation is "as it ought to be". There is only a notion of whether an action in that situation is as it ought to be. Likewise, I don't see the concept of good and bad as applying to people, except as an informal, subjective judgment; only actions are formally deemed good or bad.

Also, while it is possible in principle to be morally perfect in this system, this exists only as a limit. One cannot adhere perfectly to this philosophy in practice, because doing so would require taking the best course of action at every single moment in time.

If you define a perfect state of affairs to be one in which everyone always does the right thing (as this ethical system defines it), then such a situation cannot exist in reality. It is possible, though improbable, to get arbitrarily close to this ideal state; however, anything even close to this will almost certainly never happen, for a similar reason to why the laws of thermodynamics make large decreases in entropy extremely unlikely.

Under this definition, my answer is B. However, the example of a totally inclusive society brings to mind an important caveat: Even if a goal is impossible, it can still be worthwhile to pursue that goal. The important question is whether the particular actions taken will have good consequences, not whether the ultimate goal in mind is actually possible.

Of course, starting with different definitions and axioms can change this answer entirely.

EDIT: Oops, I seem to have slipped into rather mathematical-sounding language there. Sorry if that makes my post confusing. Guess that's what I get for writing this while doing math homework.

edited 24th Feb '11 9:30:02 PM by Enthryn

Humanity cannot be perfected because perfection is subjective.

C with shades of B and E.

@Vorpy: That's just your subjective perspective.

Full circle alert, full circle alert.

So... is a topic's objectivity/subjectivity always subjective?

@Usht: This is contingent upon the definitions of objective and subjective. I suggest the following: A statement is

• objective if it is purely a function of what is; and
• subjective if it is not objective.

Sound reasonable, at least in this context?

These definitions make the question of whether something is objective or subjective itself an objective question.

edited 24th Feb '11 10:37:58 PM by Enthryn

I DEFY YOUR DEFINITIONS, OBJECTIVE IS A MATTER OF OPINION AND SUBJECTIVE IS FACT!

Anyway, I'll just kill this derail here and instead get back to the topic:

So, what's the closest we can get to an agreed upon perfection?

I think that we can get arbitrarily close to perfection; that is, given any state less than perfection, we can get closer to perfection than that, even though we can never reach perfection.

Actually, I think it's reasonable to define perfection in these terms. Suppose we have agreed upon a notion of what is good (like that'll ever happen ). Then a state of affairs is "perfect" if it meets the following criteria:

1. it is at least as good as any other possible state of affairs;
2. there are possible states of affairs that are almost as good as this perfect state. In other words, the perfect state is either possible or almost possible to attain.

This makes me wonder, is the concept of perfection useful in any way?

edited 24th Feb '11 10:47:07 PM by Enthryn

I'd say yes. If you have a definition of good, perfect then means that which is the most good it is possible to be. That seems like it would be useful in terms of, e.g. goal setting.

I find C interesting. If God/Supreme Being is unknowable, then how do the religious profess to know that God is supremely good?

Because supreme goodness is one of the Supreme Being's defining attributes. If it's not supremely good, it isn't the Supreme Being.

Personally, I don't claim to know that God exists, but if some similar entity exists who isn't perfect, that's not my God. Other people are, of course, free to call them what they like.

edited 25th Feb '11 3:29:55 AM by BobbyG

If being supremely good is a defining attribute of God, then assuming that our concepts of good are anything alike and that omnipotence is also a defining trait of God, it's quite easy to show that God doesn't exist. Just observe that this is not the best possible world (which is pretty obvious). But by the definition of omnipotence, there's nothing preventing God from making it so. Hence no being exists which is both perfectly good and omnipotent.

I'm inclined to agree with your reasoning there, but obviously not everybody agrees. I think the normal practice is to define "good" in relation to God's definition of the word, although this appears to be a tautology to me. It's probably also worth bearing in mind that such belief systems tend to introduce a number of metaphysical elements which complicate the universe greatly, and make it harder to say whether this is the best possible world or not.

Personally, I'm content to worship a God who doesn't exist.

edited 25th Feb '11 4:24:31 AM by BobbyG

But is it really worship if you don't fully believe said God exists? Regardless, I'd be content with simply going with the general Christian word of "God loves us all and wants to help us", because trying to comprehend anything deeper is apparently impossible seeing as we're talking about a being that's:

• Perfect
• Omnipresent
• All powerful
• All knowing
• Non-linear as far as time is concerned

Trying to figure out all of what God is doing is like trying to eat the Earth in one bite, it's too much.

edited 25th Feb '11 4:28:01 AM by Usht

Oh, I believe in God more than I believe in anything. I just don't think it terribly probable that He actually exists in any physical or material sense. But I'm derailing; this isn't the place for airing my bizarre religious views.

Anyway, if God has an objective definition of "good", and human beings accept this definition, then it really isn't a stretch of the imagination to consider that God is indeed perfect, within a definition of perfection which God Himself operates under.

So basically then, there is perfection, we just can't comprehend it, and therefore, can't reach it?

Well, I don't believe that, but it seems like a valid claim to me.

Constant self-improvement, it may reach a limit, it may not, but we are no where near that point. I just don't give a fuck about the word "perfection" in these discussions.

E

Perfect with respect to what purpose?

General perfection? We've been trying to sort that one out for a while now and decided it's subjective.

If by "perfectable" you mean "replaceable by machines" I'm going with yes.

Well, to me, the concept of a perfect [X] is only well-defined if [X] has a clear purpose for existing. (For instance, a "perfect" computer might be one that has infinite speed, memory, etc.) Since it's not clear why humanity is here, you can't really say what "perfect" means. You could have the perfect athlete, in which case it's quite obvious what would be involved, but you can't have the generally "perfect" human.

I still think that once a clear concept of "good" is established, "perfect" can be reasonably defined in a way that makes it objective. It's still not particularly useful, since it doesn't have any philosophical implications that I can think of. It's just a definition.

edited 25th Feb '11 7:04:55 AM by Enthryn

Speaking of option C, personally this one can agree with it but hadn't listed it among her answers because she considers mere existence of such being to be irrelevant to everyday behaviour. While this one tentatively favours an idea that such being exists, identifying it is next to impossible.

I think I am sufficiently idealistic to go for E.