The answer to these questions is important if you're going to start comparing scales, otherwise you have no basis of comparison. Pardon me for broad generalizations, but I tend to find that these kinds of questions are too rarely asked in Singapore, and more generally among supporters of meritocracy (two populations with a noticeable overlap). Distinguishing by merit might be worthwhile, and probably often is, but before you do so it's important to ask what the purpose of the distinction is, otherwise you fall into the trap of believing that the scale itself is what matters. And maybe it might, in some systems, but in my opinion that's pretty rare: I am currently unaware of any political or moral philosopher who has made explicit the assertion that smarter (richer, stronger, more attractive) people should run society because they inherently deserve more than other people. The more justifiable argument is the efficiency argument, that those more talented (wise, strong, wealthy, etc) people have advantages which will permit rule by them to more easily achieve a broader social goal (usually the wellbeing of the populace, broadly defined). If this is the accepted justification, then, privilege to these groups ought to be celebrated, but only to the extent that it promotes a broader ethical conception of what is desirable, and not in and of itself, a distinction which is lost on some of the less thoughtful proponents of meritocratic systems, who tend to try to focus on which system produces the "best" rulers without defining what "best" means, or worse, defining it essentially arbitrarily in terms of things like "talent" or "intelligence".
Wow, I’m sorry for going off on another long rant, and this time on a topic on which I sense I share a fair amount of common ground with you already anyway. I think from your past posts that we both agree that there’s a need to move past rigid ideas of what’s important for a person that say that a First Upper Honors or a multi-million dollar salary are the ultimate goals in life. Still, I think it’s worthwhile to clarify my thought process on this, in order to be able to discuss this sort of topic from a common framework. Anyway, yeah, I congratulate Lim Wah Guan on his achievements, but I think when dealing with these issues there ought to be a clearer understanding of the reasons we talk about “success”.
P.S. Hi Claire, I haven't talked to you in a while (I think we've both been busy this past year). I hope you're doing okay now in the "working world."
Dave, hey! So what are you doing now? :D Interning or what?
I was about to craft a response to this when my mom yanked me away to get me to get ready for lunch - interesting thoughts I'll get back to you when I get back home!
Well, almost. It seems the places I applied to just didn't recognize my "outstanding talent," so I spent the summer doing "research" (i.e. loafing and surfing the internet). XP But yeah, it is senior year now and I'm in the full swing of studying and planning for grad school and all that and occasionally managing to squeeze in some personal time for fun things as well (like reply to blogs with long philosophical rants, haha).
I am currently unaware of any political or moral philosopher who has made explicit the assertion that smarter (richer, stronger, more attractive) people should run society because they inherently deserve more than other people
Hahahaha. I guess you haven't been to Singapore yet. But then again there's nobody here that I'd call a "political or moral philosopher" ;)
I fully agree with you. Speaking purely from the angle of economic production (which I suppose to a certain extent covers the public sector), undeniably, wise, strong, intelligent, people would add more value to society's overall wellbeing than most others. And therefore becaue they add more value with more intelligent strategies, creative ideas that boost overall wellbeing, they -should- be rewarded, think there is no doubt about that.
The question is, how would you really measure wellbeing from a more holistic angle, going beyond economic production? Someone who gets mediocre grades at school but is really great with people and counsels delinquents (who could otherwise be out there committing crimes) vs a CEO of a huge company that brings in alot of tax revenue for the government but creates massive pollution problems - who contributes more?
And even if we could have some measure to prioritize what's important (hypothetically speaing let's assume the CEO is mroe valuable than the social worker because economics is more important than morality here), to what extent can these 'important people' attribute to the success of the education system in shaping them to be the 'important people' they are?
Wow, I’m sorry for going off on another long rant, and this time on a topic on which I sense I share a fair amount of common ground with you already anyway. I think from your past posts that we both agree that there’s a need to move past rigid ideas of what’s important for a person that say that a First Upper Honors or a multi-million dollar salary are the ultimate goals in life. Still, I think it’s worthwhile to clarify my thought process on this, in order to be able to discuss this sort of topic from a common framework. Anyway, yeah, I congratulate Lim Wah Guan on his achievements, but I think when dealing with these issues there ought to be a clearer understanding of the reasons we talk about “success”.
P.S. Hi Claire, I haven't talked to you in a while (I think we've both been busy this past year). I hope you're doing okay now in the "working world."
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I was about to craft a response to this when my mom yanked me away to get me to get ready for lunch - interesting thoughts I'll get back to you when I get back home!
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Hahahaha. I guess you haven't been to Singapore yet. But then again there's nobody here that I'd call a "political or moral philosopher" ;)
I fully agree with you. Speaking purely from the angle of economic production (which I suppose to a certain extent covers the public sector), undeniably, wise, strong, intelligent, people would add more value to society's overall wellbeing than most others. And therefore becaue they add more value with more intelligent strategies, creative ideas that boost overall wellbeing, they -should- be rewarded, think there is no doubt about that.
The question is, how would you really measure wellbeing from a more holistic angle, going beyond economic production? Someone who gets mediocre grades at school but is really great with people and counsels delinquents (who could otherwise be out there committing crimes) vs a CEO of a huge company that brings in alot of tax revenue for the government but creates massive pollution problems - who contributes more?
And even if we could have some measure to prioritize what's important (hypothetically speaing let's assume the CEO is mroe valuable than the social worker because economics is more important than morality here), to what extent can these 'important people' attribute to the success of the education system in shaping them to be the 'important people' they are?
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