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From: baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: What is "self-interset"?  Is coercion a sin?
Message-ID: <302@spar.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 9-Jun-85 05:00:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.302
Posted: Sun Jun  9 05:00:14 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 11-Jun-85 07:44:46 EDT
References: <2876@sdcc3.UUCP> <2380024@acf4.UUCP>, <286@spar.UUCP> <185@maxvax.UUCP>
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 32

>
> >>                            Moreover, how can anyone know what's best
> >> for anyone else?
> >>						Mike Sykora 
> >
> >By the same logic, how can everyone know what's best for *themselves*?
> >
> >						Baba
> 
> That doesn't look like the same logic to me.  Since it does to you,
> it's evident that the real disagreement is metaphysical/ethical; namely,
> what is the "good"?   Clearly, if you don't think people can know what's
> good for themselves, your basic values have nothing to do with an
> individual's Pursuit of Happiness (not to mention Life and Liberty.)

You mistake me.  I was asking Mike to elaborate on his criteria for
knowledge of self-interest.  Most people resent having decisions made
for them, and that is reason enough for a democratic society to try to
minimize coercion of its members.  But a claim that coercion is of itself 
*inherently* detrimental to either society or the individual is something 
I would dispute.  The inference that my "basic values" are not in line with 
the Declaration of Independence is puzzling and, I believe, irrelevant.

> Do you place the highest value on your individual life (and thus, by
> rational extension, on the lives of others) or do you value something
> other than life, to which individual lives may be sacrificed?
> 
> 						W. F. Linke

Neither.

						Baba ROM DOS