rationalskepticism.org

TMB wrote:igor

Where I suspect I don't understand you, is that your starting post SEEMED to be entirely based around discussing the validity of the "absolute power corrupts absolutely," without providing any context for it's application. That is what I responded to.

Here is the context from the original post, I have broken it down into the points that illustrate my post not to be about ‘absolute power corrupts absolutely’

"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" is a familiar saying to many, however do we look deeper to see how rational or logical it is?

I get the idea that many people accept this at face value as being largely true, yet I see a conflict between and objective measure of power and the moral assumptions that outcomes from power scenarios are morally bad

we need to be clear about the meaning of power

power is that which allows us to achieve selfish outcomes and influence outcomes for other people. This mechanism has no intrinsic moral content, however the definition implies that it is morally wrong for us to do things that serve selfish needs at the possible expense of others, or do things that affect outcomes for other people.

humans tend to already have a moral standpoint on things (inherited from our peers) which colors the way we look at reality and prevents truly rational discussion.

If you have a specific context, then we can debate whether the wise saying does or doesn't apply, and what it's constituent words would refer to.

See above

Without context, there is no way to assign mutually acceptable definitions to any of the saying's words.

See above

"Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely" is a familiar saying to many, however do we look deeper to see how rational or logical it is?