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From: larry@grkermit.UUCP (Larry Kolodney)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Societal consensus as a basis for law
Message-ID: <553@grkermit.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 10-Aug-83 10:31:42 EDT
Article-I.D.: grkermit.553
Posted: Wed Aug 10 10:31:42 1983
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Aug-83 18:55:33 EDT
References: <835@utcsstat.UUCP>
Organization: GenRad Inc., Concord, MA
Lines: 26

I don't think I made myself too clear on my "objective basis for
legislation" flame.

Maybe this will clarify it:


I think you missed my point.  Let's suppose my friend comes up to me
and asks me, "How should I decide how to treat other people."  As his
friend, I want to give him advice which is best for him.  If I were to
say, do that which promotes freedom, that really wouldn't help him very
much, since his idea of freedom and mine may differ and he really won't
be getting any useful information from me.  If I say instead, do what
promotes your idea of freedom, (assuming my friend enjoys freedom, this
is functionally equivalent to the Golden Rule), he knows exactly what
to do.

I think the confusion is due to semantics.  When we answer the question
of how people should act toward others, there is a question as to whether we
mean "how would I like other people to act toward others" or "If I were
you, how would I act."

-larry
-- 
Larry Kolodney 
{linus decvax}!genrad!grkermit!larry
(ARPA)  rms.g.lkk@mit-ai