Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!mcgill-vision!quiche!utility
From: utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Ronald BODKIN)
Newsgroups: alt.individualism
Subject: Re: Moral blindness
Message-ID: <2005@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca>
Date: 18 Jan 90 22:33:52 GMT
References: <7788@unix.SRI.COM> <9440032@hpsemc.HP.COM> <7244@tank.uchicago.edu>
Reply-To: utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Ronald BODKIN)
Organization: SOCS, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
Lines: 50

In article <7244@tank.uchicago.edu> ddfr@tank.uchicago.edu (david director friedman) writes:
>quite different circumstances. The libertarian's capitalist got his
>capital by working hard while the lazy worker sat by; the socialist's
>capitalist inherited his capital from his father, who stole it by
>selling fraudulent goods. The fact that each party feels inclined to
>bias his assumed facts is evidence that their underlying moral
>intuitions are similar, and they therefore need different facts to
>make those situations lead to different conclusions.
	Just because people tend to see different ideals is a far cry
from saying they don't have real ethical differences.  In the most
extreme cases, it is trivial to show you something which can be
totally disagreed upon by two people -- take abortion or the death
penalty (and there are obviously cases where pro-choice/pro-lifers
would agree that, for example, the mother can't afford the infant,
and on all the other questions but would fervently disagree, not
to mention the death penalty for an acknowledged criminal).  The
examples abound -- take banning guns, government regulation or
anything.  I agree people tend to have different attitudes to
the agents but the attitudes are not truly relevant.  A libertarian
would STILL support the property rights of a suspected criminal's
son unless it could be PROVED  that the gentleman had broken the
law.
	Fortunately, consensus is not required for objective
truth -- just because lots of people used to think that the world
was flat didn't make it so -- all objective truth is, is something
which can be discovered by independent agents using logical inquiry.

>
>Second, most arguments on normative subjects, including essentially
>all the ones on this newsgroup, are not about moral facts but about
>moral theories.
	Unlike physical theories, which account for a very well
known structure, alot of people don't SEE what the basic moral facts
are -- given that morality describes intended behaviour, I find it
very hard to dispute that
1) the goal of all behaviour should be the interest of the agent
2) the interest of a person is their own happiness
	And finding theories that fit this basic data is a justified
example of people disagreeing on what fits a fact (Aristotle, Plato and
a host of other philosophers used these assumptions).  However, there
are those today who support "duty-based" ethics -- the notion that one
"should" act in certain ways, even to the harm of self-interest --
although I don't comprehend how one can be fooled into following such
a notion.  But, regardless, there are those who would advocatethe
enslavement of everyone for "the greater good" and there are those who
do not agree.  These differences are a difference in moral attitude, and
although I believe only one is correct, and that there IS a true morality
(an objective one) it is not true that EVERYONE agrees that even the
same acts are moral, let alone the differences on theory.
			Ron