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From: sts@ssc-vax.UUCP (Stanley T Shebs)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: reason; rights in conflict
Message-ID: <460@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Aug-83 17:03:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: ssc-vax.460
Posted: Tue Aug 23 17:03:10 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 26-Aug-83 00:45:08 EDT
References: <402@houti.UUCP>
Organization: Boeing Aerospace, Seattle
Lines: 40

I am *not* going to discuss whether reality is absolute - not, not, not...
Neither am I going to say anything about how we *perceive* reality.

So Tom does not *believe* that rights of completely rational beings
ever come into conflict, except from outside causes.  What is the
source for this Belief?  Rational thought?  By what chain of reasoning
then, and from what axioms?  Still seems pretty mystical in origin!

In his examples of conflicts, at some point the two parties sit down,
compare their facts, and then arrive at the same conclusion.  Well,
I don't know which universe Tom lives in, but mine tends to have a
lot of vagueness and unknowns in it.  The only really complete and
consistent universe I know of is mathematics, and it's pretty small
and simpleminded compared to reality.  How can one be *truly* rational
in an irrational universe? (Didn't I say I wasn't going to get into
this? oh well).

Moving on, suppose we live in the ideal Objectivist world, and you want 
to buy a car.  Suppose you investigate the car market carefully, examine
all the details, then buy a revolutionary new design because it's more
fuel-efficient.  Later on, the design turns out to have a fatal flaw -
literally fatal.  The manufacturer had decided that some ridiculous
test that used to be required by the govt wasn't really necessary
(let us suppose that it *was* a sensible and rational decision on
the manufacturer's part).  Now, have you made a mistake?  Are you
expected to have complete knowledge of auto engineering, in order
to detect flaws?  Suppose that you are one of the first buyers,
and that none of the consumer groups had thought the tests were
necessary?  Finally(this is the hard one), since you are now dead, 
how are you supposed to correct your mistake?

					stan the lep hack
					ssc-vax!sts (soon utah-cs)

ps Still waiting for an example of a rational human....

pps Sorry, I just can't resist: perhaps a human is rational if and
only if he or she agrees completely with Tom Craver; otherwise,
that person is at least partly irrational (so what have you got
that's better?)