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From: larry@grkermit.UUCP (Larry Kolodney)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Societal consensus as a basis for law
Message-ID: <560@grkermit.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Aug-83 14:17:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: grkermit.560
Posted: Thu Aug 11 14:17:04 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Aug-83 21:17:55 EDT
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Once more I will try to clear up the confusion about my 'modified
golden rule' basis for legislation.  

It is my belief that much  if not most of what we believe, either
politically or morally, has been come about through rational resoning
or any systematic process whatsoever.  Rather it is due to the sum of
our life experiences as they interact with certain instinctive needs.
Thus, while you may possibly change the mind of a given person on a
specific moral or political issue, I doubt very much that you can
change this person's mind on something as fundamental as freedom,
property rights, sexual morality, etc.  As a result, if we are going to
be reasonable, we should not try to tell people that 'FREEDOM' should
be the basis for morality, because if they aren't already convinced,
they never will be.

The way I come about with the modified Golden Rule principle is as
follows.  I beleive that for large enough populations, (i.e. not just
masochists), the there will be a pretty low standard deviation in the
responses of people to the question "How would you want to  be treated
in that situation."  That is, I have beleive that human beings are
basicly reasonable, but that when put under certain stresses, they
become unreasonable.  I'm basicly just saying, "be reasonable"

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