Is the accumulation of power a moral imperative?

[Hygro]

If you know better than someone, are you obliged to have more power and responsibility and ownership of things than the person who is worse or lacks knowledge/ability/insight? For the sake of others who would be, all things equal, worse off if you permit the more evil/ignorant to wield more power than you, is there not a moral imperative to wield more power than they do?

 

[Broken_Erika]

Your poll lacks a radioactive monkey option.

 

[Rg339]

Yeah, it sorta has to be at least somewhat virtuous

If a person is in a position of power, through which they effect the lives of millions upon millions, and their incompetence is creating horrible negative consequences for said millions, how could it be anything other than moral to prevent that harm if you could?

Utilitarian ethics, once you’re at a certain scale, have to start to take precedent, because society is just that big

 

[Hygro]

Your poll lacks a radioactive monkey option.

That complaint is truly better suited for my nuclear power thread's poll.

 

[sophie]

Me personally? No. That’s a recipe for disaster. Us? Yes absolutely or we’re all fudged

 

[Narz]

Moral imperative, I don't know about that but obviously it's a good idea for there to be a meritocracy.

 

[Gorbles]

As usual, and through no fault of the OP, this'll get bogged down in the definitions of good / bad / evil / virtuous / knowledgable / not.

For example, "yes", but also "meritocracy bad" is where I sit. I'd need a lot more time and work is pretty busy today so I doubt I'll get to expand on this much until later (in the week).

 

[Narz]

So you support power based on merit but also you don't?

 

[Gorbles]

Like I said, more time than I have here right now. The short version is "meritocracy" is often warped by the common idea that just because someone is smart in a particular way, field or subject that this can be extrapolated outwards, when in actuality this often isn't the case. It's often specialised, not multipurpose.

 

[Narz]

that just because someone is smart in a particular way, field or subject that this can be extrapolated outwards

Theoretical smarts and practical smarts are different yeah but it makes sense to employ people in the areas they have education in (and if they're useless @ it reeducate them)

Iirc in booming Japan in 70s/80s rather than firing unddrperformers they'd try to match them w a better fitting position within the company

Matching people w positions based on merit or potential merit seems to be the only sensible way to run things.

 

[EnglishEdward]

If you know better than someone.......

Who says you know better than someone ?

 

[El_Machinae]

Stopping bad policy is going to be like stopping a harmful virus, if you don't, people will suffer. You have an onus to do so. And if you cannot, you have an onus to build the capacity.

There are many routes to increasing capacity. Many, many. And we should be doing so.

 

[Narz]

Who says you know better than someone ?

People can know better. I suspect lots of people know better about health than me which is why I consume health information

 

[Angst]

Me personally? No. That’s a recipe for disaster. Us? Yes absolutely or we’re all fudged

like, this, yep.

-

i feel there's a disconnect between thread title and OP wording. is the accumulation of power a moral imperative? no. should competent people have power? yes. it may look like splitting hairs, but the difference is an important one to me. the second one means that yes, distributing power justly and efficiently is good, but accumulation of power in itself is not the core of that; it covers a lot of things that are neither just nor efficient.

 

[Angst]

Who says you know better than someone ?

the idea of proper power is that the "who" that says that are know what they're talking about

 

[EnglishEdward]

I believe in democracy.

Power accumulation undermines democracy.

And democracy is more likely to provide the right answer than the person in power who says they know best.

Pursuit of power to do virtuous things is all very well in princple.

But setting aside the question as to determining what is virtuous,
the pursuit of power is inherently corrupting and eventually becomes
an objective in itself while the original virtuous aim may be forgotten.

 

[Hygro]

You're in a democracy with one news company. Is the power the democracy or the news company?

 

[uppi]

I believe the world would be better off with me as global dictator. But I am sure there are many who would disagree. So how do we resolve that conflict?

There are two big questions here:
1) How do you know that you would be better than someone else
2) How much strife are you going to cause with your pursuit of power and will the strife be worth it?

 

[EnglishEdward]

You're in a democracy with one news company. Is the power the democracy or the news company?

Remember the Soviet Union and Pravda.

Pravda was generally despised.

The power was with the communist party because they had the KGB to send you
to Siberia, if you dissented too much; not with the news organisation Pravda.

Democracy existed with the local soviet at your factory etc until central planning curtailed that.

 

[Angst]

I believe in democracy.

Power accumulation undermines democracy.

And democracy is more likely to provide the right answer than the person in power who says they know best.

Pursuit of power to do virtuous things is all very well in princple.

But setting aside the question as to determining what is virtuous,
the pursuit of power is inherently corrupting and eventually becomes
an objective in itself while the original virtuous aim may be forgotten.

i mean sure.

foundations.

are you an anarchist?