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From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: The Harumpheror's Old Clothes
Message-ID: <1067@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-Aug-85 09:38:15 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1067
Posted: Thu Aug  1 09:38:15 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Aug-85 06:29:25 EDT
References: <1034@umcp-cs.UUCP> <456@utastro.UUCP>
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 92

[this article has been reordered.]

In article <456@utastro.UUCP> padraig@utastro.UUCP (Padraig Houlahan) writes:

>> 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.
>
>The criticism has been made that the "cooperation" and "because I like" basis
>for morality are not valid since there will be people that will abuse such
>principles, and probably gain as a result.

Let's try this again, since I don't think I'm being understood here.  Rich
appears to be saying that morality (his morality, which he claims has some
universal application) derives from a shared realization that cooperation
(as Rich views it) maximizes good overall.  The problem I see is that this
understanding of the world is NOT universal, perhaps not even a majority view.
For those who do not agree to this view, there will necessarily be a different
conclusion about morality's nature.  But since Rich is claiming that personal
desire is the justification for this system, aren't these dissenters perfectly
justified in rejecting his system?  Rich's morality seems to apply only to
those people who agree that it is true!  It is not universal.  This seems
to hamstring it severely.

> This criticism is invalid for the
>following reasons: 

> a)  The validity of a moral system does not rely on one hundred percent
>     acceptance on the part of those for which it is intended.

This depends entirely on the basis for the system.  If you claim that the
system is prexisting and does not depend on assent, than this is
clearly true.  But Rich is saying that his system arises out of assent to
his notion about cooperation; therefore his system is only valid for those
people who agree with Rich's principle.

> b)  It makes no sense to reject a moral system on the basis that total
>     acceptance is neither guaranteed, nor likely. All moral systems will
>     not necessarily be totally accepted, therefore acceptance cannot be a
>     criterion for evaluation.

This is essentially identical to the above argument.  If you base a system on
people's acceptance of a principle, then the system clearly has force only for
those who accept it.  There is no reason you should expect those who don't
accept the principle.

>  c) If cooperation is the basis for the system, then non-cooperation
>     can be condemned, by the system.

Perhaps so, but there can be no moral onus on those who believe that 
cooperation is not advantageous.

>> And Rich, you erroneously assume that I believe in "God-given" rights.  I
>> do not; rights derive out of human nature.

>This is consistent with your previous contributions. I would be interested
>in your:
>           1) definition of human nature

Well, Webster's definition will do:

    "the complex of fundamental dispositions and traits of man"

>           2) model of human nature

Now I'm going to complicate things tremendously.  I don't really have a 
fixed model of human nature.  I'm not sure that I have a variable model.
The most I think I would claim is that people have a tendency to do evil
even though they assent to good.  (This should be recognizable as the doctrine
of sin.)  THere also seems to be a certain need for privacy and freedom.
Beyond that I'm very hazy, since people are so variable.

>           3) explanation as to why "rights" should be based on this model.
>              (If you and a tiger were on an isolated island, your model
>              should explain why one should kill the other to survive,
>              and who does the killing.)

Wrong.  You've moved away from rights into true moral dilemmas.  Assuming that
we assign both the man and the tiger a right to survive (seems reasonable
enough if you take each in isolation), then there is a conflict in rights.
Now we've moved from rights up into true moral dilemmas.  In this case, the
dilemma is whether the man should a) kill the tiger or b) let the tiger
kill him.  We almost invariably assert that human rights take priority
over animal rights, so we let the man kill the tiger.  But this moral
principle does NOT derive directly from human nature, any more than it derives
directly from tiger nature.  There's an intuited principle at work: that human
survival is more important.  Unless you throw morality away completely and
say, "let them fight it out and see who wins," there's no way to resolve
this without appealing to such a principle.

Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe