What ethical principle should organize society?

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Ok, another cool question with a poll attached to it! Let's look at our fundamental ethical principles people!

Alright, which of these ideas do you like:

Utilitarian: The goal in organizing society is to maximize the utility or pleasure or joy or satisfaction or whatever you would call it of each member. This one should be clear enough to understand.

Egalitarian: The goal in organizing society is to seek utility but also a greater level of equality than necessarily found in a utilitarian system. Think of a Rawlsian system, or possibly some communistic or socialistic system.

Libertarian: The goal in organizing society is to allow each actor within society freedom to peacefully make choices using his/her resources towards his/her goals. Think about libertarianism, and minarchism, perhaps certain philosophies that consider themselves anarchist.

Moralistic: The goal in organizing society is to promote good behavior/moral character from the actors within that society. Think conservatism, many traditional societies, and religious organizations.

Progress-oriented: The goal in organizing society is to seek growth or success in things such as the economy, capital, technology, resource access, military strength, knowledge, land, etc. Think about imperialistic powers, Cold war powers, and basically any nation that really seems to have something to prove.

Consensual/Pacifistic: The goal in organizing society is based upon things such as consent between people or peace within society or outside society. This can mean democratic aims, or pacifistic aims, or ecological aims or some other such. Think about communes and many traditional anarchistic ideas.

Other: In case I missed an idea. Please don't select if you are between ideas, just pick one idea you like more or flip a coin and stick to it. You can justify your choice in a post. In fact, if you select this option, I would prefer you explain.

Hopefully I didn't miss too many different ideas.

I think the basal principle is simple: A person owns his own life.

I think that a balance of individual liberty, social "justice"(by my definition, a society in which no groups are downtrodden economically, socially, or politically), human dignity, security, and driving forward at a sustainable pace, should be the most important guiding principles of a society.
I don't think that society should revolve around greed and unlimited economic growth, but more worthwhile values.

I would sya a logical combination of many different ethical views, although I do like utilitarianism

I voted "Other", so I'll explain.
Since one cannot force society to conform to any of the given choices in the poll,
that levels the playing field of practical options to where religion can be a candidate.
I think that mass Christianity would have the best effect on society.
It would mean that everyone would love God, and also everyone would
love his neighbor as himself (Matt 22:37-40).
And tha doesn't refer to the Western version of "love", which is merely considered to be an emotion.
Rather, the "love" the Bible mentions means to do goodness to all those around you.
And if everyone in a society had this primary belief in helping each other, thus serving God,
that society would be the most productive and the most content.

Actually the entire goal of setting laws and policy is conforming society to a framework similar to those found in the polls, so I don't know what exactly you are getting at as we do have positions on what laws and policies are undertaken. Mass Christianity is not a principle for organizing society, it is a belief found within members of a given society. The actual organizing principles may be moralistic, or egalitarian, or consensual/pacifistic given the interpretation of the bible. Conservative Christians often seek moralistic organizations, liberal Christians often seek egalitarian organizations, and Christarchists and similar thinkers seek consensual/pacifistic organizations, despite their apolitical tendencies.

You asked, "What ethical principle should organize society?"
Christianity is simply a specific version of the "Moralistic" option.
You can tell society to be "moralistic", and they'll have no idea what you actually want them to do.
But suggest that they be Christian toward one another, and they'll have a much sharper model to follow.


False dichotomy. "Beliefs found within members of a given society" determine the behavior of those people, which in turn determines both the structure and functioning of that society.
Love it or hate it, it's true.

Last edited by Ragtime on 24 Apr 2008, 1:43 pm, edited 4 times in total.

I voted for Libertarian because I would like freedom to be the top priority of any society in which I participate. I think that laws should exist to protect freedom. For example, acts of violence obviously infringe on a person's freedom so they should be illegal. This is just a general principle, and hence it is subject to the great variety of dilemmas and "gray areas" that complicate any ideology.

As Ragtime pointed out, this poll is not realistic. I doubt that a society could really be organized around any one of the options. However, a society might be able to prioritize one or more of the options over the others in a very general sense. So it is worth thinking about and discussing even though it is primarily a fantasy.

I chose Progress-Oriented.

m0n3y=pr0gr3ss

I can entirely accept that view.


Well, it is partially true but not entirely true. There are actions by agents and actions by institutions, the agents will impact the institutions, but the institutions can take whatever path they are built to take so long as the agents are willing to comply. Christianity impacts agents, but, even though it can alter institutions, it does not necessarily formally change the functioning nature of society. I think that this is not an issue of a "false dichotomy" but rather different ways of looking at society. Like, let's look at it this way: X society is capitalist, it has profit-maximizing corporations and lots of freedom, so it is organized in a libertarian manner, however, everyone likes giving to the poor in this society. Well, the society is organized in a libertarian manner but the agents show an egalitarian ethical preference. Other similar things can occur.


It is an abstraction. It is not going to be perfectly realistic in some ways as no society is JUST a single idea, but right, societies can prioritize. Basically sophisticated views on reality relate to the abstract, and I know that I tend to conceptualize the abstraction before I bother with the reality.

Yes, I enjoy conceptualizing the abstract too. It can be hard to define how the abstract relates to reality because reality is so extremely complicated, while the abstract can be as simple as you want it to be or as complex as the human mind can grasp. Therefore I cannot take a strong position on how these abstract ideas relate to reality; I can only say that there is some relationship but it is not exactly a realistic representation.

The other thing that is challenging about the question is that the society is undefined. What is the size of the society? And what type of society is it? Is it the local Scrabble club or a nation populated by 1.6 billion people?

All human societies follow certain patterns, so it is possible to generalize, and maybe this type of generalization is appropriate because it fits with the aforementioned generalization and abstraction. But details like size tend to make a significant difference.

I believe that the greater the generalization, the farther from reality it will be. And yet generalizations do serve an important utilitarian purpose.

Well, reality is complicated, but for me to deal with it, I have to have a conceptualization of this complexity. It may be like a model out of play-doh trying to simulate the grass in the fields, and glossing over how every blade flows, but it is still necessary to me.


I did not define that, simply because I assumed people would think of the nation they live in or something like that. It is a good point, as I am oversimplifying, as a colony trying to eke out survival would be progress-oriented by nature, and a church group would be moralistic by nature, but I had hoped that people would look past that.


Right, they can make a significant difference, however, many people work within ideological frameworks that do not really emphasize size or other factors either, so the organizing principles will follow the overriding ethical principles that they work within.

True, but also the more generally applicable they will be. I am concerned with the deeper thoughts of the individuals in question, not their ability to analyze a situation and come up with the right answer. So, the more I generalize while keeping it relevant, the better.

Good points. Yes, ideological frameworks are important . . . and fun to play with!

Very important, and yes, they can be fun to play with, especially given that individuals will inevitably try to justify them but will often have difficulties doing a perfect job.

Progress-oriented Rawlsian Egalitarianism.