Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 01/25/07 7:24 pm:
Can't read the question.

Clarification/Follow-up by Dark_Crow on 01/25/07 7:33 pm:
I was careless. The last word id desire. What I driving at is the questions put forth by Bertrand Russell. “If one man offers you democracy and another offers you a bag of grain, at what stage of starvation will you prefer the grain to the vote”?

Clarification/Follow-up by ETWolverine on 01/25/07 10:21 pm:
DC,

I'm not sure that the "given" is true. I don't know if it is true that all human activity springs from impulse and desire. How do we explain charitable behavior? How do we explain guys who dive under trains to save their fellow man. That is neither a product impulse nor desire.

I believe that Adam Smith had it right when he explained that man is by nature interested in promoting his own wellbeing, and that there are times when his own wellbeing helps the population as a whole. It is the desire for wealth that drives people to manufature medicines that help the community. Thus, under normal circumstances, man will become a productive member of society when it is in his own best interests to do so.

But if one had to make the choice between the good of society and personal wellbeing, personal welbeing will win out every time. If one had to choose between feeding his family and giving up his food to his next door neighbor, he would and should choose the survival of his family.

However, in democratic societies and the majority of non-democratic societies, personal survival and prosperity is dependent on the survival and prosperity of society. There are very few post-medievil societies where such a choice must be made. Even in marginal and failing agrarian societies, most people realize that they cannot handle the entire job of farming and/or gathering food by themselves and need the assistance of those around them to survive. So in most (almost all) cases, man must be a part of his society to survive. And if that is true, then if the society in question is a democratic one, then one need not give up the vote in order to survive.

But if that choice ever does come up, individual survival becomes more important than society's improvement.

Elliot

Clarification/Follow-up by Dark_Crow on 01/25/07 11:01 pm:
But was it really a blunder, Tom? In fact, isn’t that what much of the egregious on the “Left” argue in favor of; that is, offer a bag of grain for a vote?

Elliot Perhaps you believe that I have allowed only for bad or ethically neutral
motives; I admit they are usually more powerful than altruistic motives but I do not deny that altruistic motives exist, only that they follow from desire or impulse.