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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion.christian
Subject: Re: The Harumpheror's Old Clothes
Message-ID: <1411@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 3-Aug-85 13:39:38 EDT
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Posted: Sat Aug  3 13:39:38 1985
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> It is interesting to note that Rich Rosen's morality, when reduced to its
> essential statement, is expressed as a negative:  "Thou shalt not interfere."
> Despite statements of long-faced legalistic bluenoses to the contrary, the
> morality of Christianity is expressed by positive statements (Thou shalt love
> the Lord thy God with all you've got, and thy neighbor as thyself), and God
> promises to change us so that we are the sort of people that behave this way
> naturally, rather than in order to avoid violating some restriction.  The
> second way (elimination of need for restrictions) sounds a whole lot freer
> in the long run.  If you want REAL freedom, Rich, you're looking in the
> wrong place. [SARGENT]

Ah, YOU phrase my morality as negative, and yours as a positive, and thus
(in the proven-to-be-correct Jeff Sargent world view), there you are!  It's
nice to see YOU still have a sense of humor.  First, I'm not sure what would
make a morality that states things positively "better" (except subjectively)
than one that states things negatively.  Second, it's just as easy (and much
more accurate) to phrase "my" morality as "Thou shalt respect the rights of
other human beings" and "yours" as "Thou shalt not have sex outside of
marriage, do any of a large set of other things proscribed, etc."

More importantly, in a world where, at root level, you have a RIGHT to do
anything within your ability (what's to stop you?), the way you form a
society of cooperating people is to agree to limit those rights so that
you do not interfere with others, thus giving YOU the benefit that others
will not interfere with you.  Nobody "grants" rights.  In fact, what our
government and Constitution say, effectively, is:  "You have agreed to make
this your form of government, and a government exists to impose such
laws and restrictions as deemed necessary to keep everything in order.
Since this is supposed to be YOUR government, it agrees NOT to create laws
(or allow other people to) that infringe in these areas."

>> 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.

> You are actually being much less than anthropocentric; you're being
> Rich-centric.  You justify your own survival only on the grounds that you
> like it, and you justify your non-interference morality only because it
> would benefit YOU.

Imagine that, this morality is Rich-centric.  It also happens to be
Jeff-centric, and Arndt-centric, and Joe-centric, and Tom-centric.  Do you see
something wrong with this?  It's a basically selfish morality, that limits
that immediate selfishness that would result in harm for others, thus
extending the longterm selfish benefit FOR EACH PERSON.  Are you making a
value judgment that because it is based on such rational selfishness, it
"must" be bad?  Imagine that, pseudo-altruistic cooperation really is
selfishness...
-- 
"Wait a minute.  '*WE*' decided???   *MY* best interests????"
					Rich Rosen    ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr