Says who? And who can say that the downsides you don't see aren't going to be the most catastrophic of them all? The capacity of the human mind is limited, and thus the product of the experiences of the millions of those who have gone before dramatically overwhelms the product of the "rational" individual.
This is probably the core of our disagreement. I agree that the law of unintended consequences is always waiting to pounce, even acts of charity and kindness can have terrible and evil repercussions, but if you can name an act with no downside that is immoral, I will concede the argument.
In the second part you are claiming that accumulated wisdom (morality) supersedes individual thought and understanding. I see just the opposite. The history of the world that I see is one of individuals turning recognized wisdom upside down. Copernicus, Newton, Einstein, Feynman, Bach, Bastiat, and Christ are just a few of millions of people who thought for themselves, rejected conventional wisdom and made our world better. I fully expect to see individuals continuing to turn the world upside down in the future.
But thank you for proving my point. Your definition of "morality" is hedonism, as it is based in the shifting desires of the individual. It is precisely the ability of tradition to present the accumulated wisdom of the ages that the individual mind cannot mimic. And the reverence of the power of tradition is the basis of conservatism/Old Whig liberalism.
No you misunderstand the difference between natural law and hedonism. Hedonism is purely the pursuit of pleasure, consequences be damned. Natural law on the other hand recognizes limits and balance. Someone who loves to eat and spends all their waking moments eating will get fat and die, the consequences are certainly foreseeable. Someone who understands the consequences of their actions may occasionally overindulge but they recognize that if they want to continue to enjoy eating in the long run they need to moderate their behavior. True happiness comes from balance, the extremes like the religious zealots and the hedonists never find what they are so desperately seeking.
As for capitalism being "anti-traditional," you must first warp the definition of tradition into a caricature first. Whence comes the common law that makes freedom and capitalism possible?
There have been many moments in history, but the Magna Charta and democracy in Greece are probably the seminal moments where the foundations were laid for freedom and capitalism. Notice that freedom and capitalism put emphasis on the individual and innovation, rather than the state and tradition
Whence comes the institutions, both social and economic, that provide its foundation? Name the man who invented them! They are all evolved traditions, and they operate based on the individual choices of groups of human beings, transmitted through the politic, social, and financial institutions of our nation.
Well, how about WILLIAM d'ALBINI for the Magna Charta. The most significant ideas though were laws that took power from the kings, religious rulers (God) and tradition and gave them to the people. In short as individuals increased in power and freedom society has benefited, at the expense of religious dictates.
How is it that you belief that you can, like a petulant child, ignore all of the thousands of years of social progress that it took to build these institutions, and simply assume that what exists now has always been, and can be manipulated in whatever way your "reason" tells you.
On the contrary, I greatly respect and appreciate the efforts of my ancestors, especially the struggles that they had to overcome the traditions and "morals" of their generation. It used to be "immoral" to doubt the word of a king who was gods appointed. Thank "God" my ancestors rebelled and cast down those evil institutions put in place by "GOD."
Oh, and to touch on another point proven so deftly by Hayek, be careful in your disdain for tradition. For reason is a product of tradition. It developed as a consequence of human tradition, not as some isolated or sui generis creation. It was the traditions of the Western world than enabled what you revere as "reason" (and what Hayek terms Cartesian rationalism) to develop in the first place.
It is odd that you would use that argument. Certainly we stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. The fact that we can benefit from the experience and knowledge that has been gained by people who came before us makes our task easier to see the results of our actions. We no longer need to pray to "God" , "Allah" or "Elohim' for rain. We can now understand why it rains, and whether or not my wife was immoral has no effect on the rain. We no longer have to make human sacrifices for Spring to come. Thank you for making my point.
Unfortunately, almost all of the men you name were far from "unique" individuals turning the world upside down. While the historical school known as Whig History tended to look at human progress as the accomplishments of "great men," it has long ago been discredited. Almost every figure you name merely took the next step to make discoveries or theories that would have been made without him (Newton is probably the only figure that fits your argument). Einstein expanded on the mathematics of Minkowski, Feynman coalesced the ideas of his time in a new way (he also had a gift for promotion), Christ... ever heard of Mithraism? Humanity advances by slow evolutionary processes, not because some superman miraculously steps in and reinvents everything.
On the contrary, I greatly respect and appreciate the efforts of my ancestors, especially the struggles that they had to overcome the traditions and "morals" of their generation. It used to be "immoral" to doubt the word of a king who was gods appointed. Thank "God" my ancestors rebelled and cast down those evil institutions put in place by "GOD."
You continuously connect tradition with repression (a classic leftist non sequitur), and yet you ignore the repressive qualities of rationalism. Marxism was nothing if not the ultimate rationalistic philosophy, the same for socialism. The idea that the human mind can "order" society better than the traditions passed down through the ages is the basis of their construction. Just because they do not support your position doesn't mean you can ignore their kinship to your ideology. And they are kin, as they are based in the same fallacy that the works of the individual mind can replace the accumulated knowledge of the past. No one here is advocating a theocracy (to defeat your strawman), but many of us would say that the time-honored definition of marriage rests on more than your "intellect" can possibly justify.
Well, how about WILLIAM d'ALBINI for the Magna Charta.
You need a better history book. The Magna Carta simply bound the king to the tenets of common law, that recent rulers had ignored in an attempt to impose their own will. It forced King John to recognize the traditional rights of the nobility, and it was only later evolutionary development that extended these rights to the common man, and later to all men. Far from being the product of rationality, the Magna Carta is the ultimate enshrinement of the desire to preserve tradition against an individual's usurping of power.
Enjoyed your posts here. BUMP!