(August 8, 2018 at 9:14 am)vulcanlogician Wrote:(August 8, 2018 at 8:45 am)Khemikal Wrote: I think you're mixing up civilization and society. Society is the aggregate of individuals, and harming one of them does harm the aggregate, even if it doesn't harm the aggregate equally. Some civilizations thrive and prosper in spite of institutions which harm their society, sure. IDK if slavery is the best example, since we understand that slavery has an immense cost to society and civilization.
Well, by definition then, Rome was an aggregate of individuals, and therefore a society. We can look at this aggregate on a social level... examining their particular hierarchies... and see slavery as a social phenomenon.
But you raise a new and interesting question there, one that's worth exploring. Let's take morality out of it. Abstractly, can harm to an individual actually benefit his encompassing society? I'm thinking in terms of a tribe tracking a wooly mammoth. The tribe has been without food for days, and the mammoth is about to escape, perhaps for good. One daring hunter leaps onto the beast, clutching its fur and stabbing it with his blade. In the process he is trampled to death, but due to his efforts, the mammoth is greatly weakened and collapses not far from where the hunter leapt onto him.
No one can argue that an individual wasn't harmed in this scenario. But because of his sacrifice, the rest of the tribe was saved from starvation. Does this example demonstrate that harm to an individual can benefit his encompassing society? Or is there more to it than that?
I think, in that example, the long term societal wellbeing comes out impaired by the lack of an able bodied individual, even though, in the short term, society does benefit with the food bonanza.
You get food for the short term.
But one less hunter for when that food runs out.
