Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site umcp-cs.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!umcp-cs!mangoe From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate) Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: The Harumpheror's Old Clothes Message-ID: <1034@umcp-cs.UUCP> Date: Mon, 29-Jul-85 22:56:50 EDT Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1034 Posted: Mon Jul 29 22:56:50 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 31-Jul-85 22:51:52 EDT References: <1334@pyuxd.UUCP> Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD Lines: 123 In article <1334@pyuxd.UUCP> rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen) writes: >>> Thus, we value survival because we like >>>living, because we gain pleasure (whether you believe a soul gains this >>>pleasure or that the chemicals of your body predispose you to it) from it. >>>Now that Paul has allowed me to zip up the philosophical pants I was >>>already wearing, what exactly does he find UNobjective about that? >> And I suppose that we should therefore do what we please? Rich, I'm sorry >> but you seem to be missing something very basic here. Morality is >> proscriptive and prescriptive; it tells you to do things you don't want >> to do, and forbids some things you want to do. "Because you like it" >> simply doesn't cut it, especially when you are talking about social >> interactions. You have in fact given me a very powerful weapon with >> which to DENY the validity of your moral system; I don't like it. >> No amount of rational argument can convince. >That's funny, I wasn't talking about "morality", I was talking about what >basis we can use to value our survival. If we REALLY value our survival >in the long term, KNOWING that there are other people who have the same >interests in surviving that we do, rational people might just come to >an agreement about limits of "rights" to interfere inother people's lives. Now, let us carry this all back to the original purpose of making this argument about the shared value of survival: to establish Rich's "morality of non-interference" as a moral imperative. Ignoring for the minute whether or not this is really a shared value, Rich is essentially saying that the reason we should accept his moral principle is because "we" like survival. The problem is that, for any individual, it is quite reasonable for him to say, "Well, I value my survival and well-being to the point where I care not about anyone else's." Or, to take a more extreme position: "Since everyone else values cooperation, I can improve my position the best by abusing their trust." It's quite evident that Rich's position does in fact justify the majority trying to suppress this kind of behavior. But the problem is that, for the lawbreaker, Rich's position SUPPORTS his behavior equally well. He is trying to maximize good (as he weights it!), and he is basing his evaluation on his own interests. > Note that I didn't say "granting" of rights. That would imply some >authority to bequeath people >with these elusive rights. I said limiting rights. Willingly creating a >system that bind people in agreement not to "do as they please" when it comes >to interfering with other people, for their own good and the good of the >community. I simply do not understand this last fragment. And Rich, you erroneously assume that I believe in "God-given" rights. I do not; rights derive out of human nature. >> As a matter of fact, I do NOT absolutely value the human race. Some >> things are more important than survival. Humans appear to be the only >> animals on earth which can evaluate and change their own nature. This >> is in fact where any moral obligation at all must come from. To say >> that we should perpetuate survival as a value simply because we like it >> is about as unobjective as one can get. The whole moral question is >> indeed whether liking to do something is sufficient grounds for doing it. >> It's rather unobjective to say that "we" like survival with some >> quantification; there is certainly a sizable minority who quite openly >> state that survival is a curse. Rich's statement is an >> intuition, and not objective at all. >On the contrary, it's quite objective precisely because I'm not doing >what you >might like to think I'm doing: I'm NOT attempting to "justify" survival of >human being as an absolute. The question was "Why do we value survival?" >and the answer is "Because we like surviving". The question was NOT "Why >in an absolute objective sense SHOULD we survive?" Without an assumption >of some special status for humanity, there's no such valid reason. Moral >"obligation"? Phtooey! Therefore, I need pay no attention to your feeble protestations about rights. The fact that you like surviving places no moral onus on me. Sure, I value MY survival, but no one said I valued YOURS. There is in fact NO shared value of abstract human life. In almost every case, there are many situations where any individual does NOT value another's life. And there is of course that minority which does not value their own survival. >> WRONG. You quoted me above and disproved this yourself. Let's talk about >> "maximizing freedom" for a minute. Examination of almost any stretch of >> history shows that for an important minority, minimizing other people's >> freedom has been a primary goal. You can hardly claim, after all the >> ranting >> you've done against the likes of Don Black, that everyone wants to maximize >> freedom. And it is a primary question: why should the oppressor care about >> what he does to his victims? Why should he care that they don't like being >> oppressed? "Because we like it?" Hell, we like to burn villages to the >> ground. You're arguing against yourself. >I didn't say everyone wants to maximize everyone's freedom. I said everyone >wants to maximize THEIR freedom as you said above. I DID say that in order >to [do] this for everyone, in order to preserve the benefits of the >society for all >people, the logical way to go about it that will please the most people in >the most beneficial way is a maximization of freedom. Sure, but you rather baldly assume that pleasing the most people is either a) a universally-desired goal or b) a moral principle. One could equally establish the principle that each individual should try to maximize his own good, and to hell with the rest. So where does this principle come from? >> You can't justify wanting survival. You either do or you don't. (At least >> you can't unless Ubizmo comes down and tells you "Survival is good".) >> Certainly one can construct non-theistic moral systems, even absolute ones. >> But eventually it all comes down to some sort of intuition about the nature >> of humanity, AND an intuition of what man ought to be like. These things >> are highly subjective. > >As I said before, 1) I wasn't out to "justify" human survival as an absolute >because that can't be done without anthropocentric special status claims. >2) The moral system I have been discussing is a logical outgrowth of the >facts that people want to maximize their own benefits and freedom, and it can >be shown that through cooperation more people get more benefits, thus such >an agreement is advantageous. First, I am not claiming that Rich wants his Survival Principle to be absolute. Secondly, there are always people for whom non-cooperation (and abuse of other's cooperation) results in better gains than cooperation would. Rich therefore has no reason to criticise these people. Charley Wingate umcp-cs!mangoe "Is there a problem with the earth's gravitational pull?"