Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucsd!ucsdhub!hp-sdd!apollo!nelson_p
From: nelson_p@apollo.HP.COM (Peter Nelson)
Newsgroups: alt.individualism
Subject: Re: Phil Ronzone's stereo
Message-ID: <481c5419.20b6d@apollo.HP.COM>
Date: 18 Jan 90 16:08:00 GMT
Sender: root@apollo.HP.COM
Distribution: usa
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Apollo Division - Chelmsford, MA
Lines: 51



 Miceal Ellis posts...
>>>So in Germany in the 30's and 40's it was MORAL to kill Jews, the insane,
>>>and anyone declared by the state to be "unfit"?
>
>> That's right.  By their standards it was OK.
>
>>>It was MORAL to treat blacks, Chinese, etc. as subhuman in American
>>>50 years ago?
>
>> Again, by the standards of the people doing these things, Yes.  
>
>    Slavery, infanticide, Stalinism, Nazism, all these real world horrors
>    are beyond reason's power to condemn, or so Peter would have us believe.

  I didn't say it was beyond "reason's power".   I said that I am
  aware of no moral philosophy that has the ability to do so with
  any intellectual rigor.   The original subject, readers will recall, 
  was Objectivism.   My point was that Objectivism does not *derive*
  its ethical values so much as inject them.

  *AS INDIVIDUALS* we all have the power to condemn the actions of
  others but we have to remember that other people have different moral
  values which may cause them to condemn us.  

  If Mr. Ellis thinks that he can use reason to derive a set of moral
  values that would universally condemn the abovementioned horrors, he
  is welcome to try and do so.  
>
>    Now I ask, is this a reasonable person speaking?
>
>> That's how the Real World actually works....
>
>    Your concept of "reason" is not reasonable: it is of negative
>    utility to real human beings in the real world. 

  The question is whether I am accurately describing the World As It Is.  

  Does Mr. Ellis deny that the NAZIs and others had different moral values 
  than us?    Not if I understand him correctly.   Instead, he seems to
  be acknowledging the differences but saying that it is possible to
  demonstrate in a rigorous manner that one value system is "right" 
  and another is "wrong".   Subsumed under this we must assume is some
  definition of "right" and "wrong" that is not unique to just one of
  those value systems, since the result of that would be circular reasoning.

  Mr. Ellis is beginning to sink to Mr. Ronzone's level of attacking 
  *me* rather than putting together his own set of alternative ideas.                                                                 

                                                         ---Peter