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From: rlr@pyuxd.UUCP (Rich Rosen)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian,net.philosophy
Subject: Re: Is General Goodness just a moral principle?
Message-ID: <1290@pyuxd.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 23-Jul-85 11:23:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: pyuxd.1290
Posted: Tue Jul 23 11:23:17 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 28-Jul-85 08:32:06 EDT
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>>Are you claiming that such a principle is not an obvious goal of a group?
>>Would you rather the group had self-annihilation as a principle/goal?

> That doesn't give any moral weight to it, without the assumption that one
> should cooperate with the wishes of the group.

Moral what?  You mean like "God says so."  or "Do it or I'll blow your head
off?"  If one is a member of the group, one gains from cooperating with the
group.  The group's goals are the goals of its individuals (survival, etc.).
Obviously the optimal arrangement is for the "group" to be the human race
at large.

>>>But that's just the point.  If I can see a way to improve my own position
>>>EVEN MORE, at the expense of others, why should I not take it?  Mutual gain
>>>must be a goal that everyone should have, for that criticism to have
>>>merit-- unless there is some absolute principle backing it up.

>>How about the principle that you gain more for a longer period of time by
>>cooperation with others than by "improving you position at the expense of
>>others", incurring their wrath and prompting any person or group of persons
>>to act against you (through violence, revenge, blockade, etc.)  It is in
>>your interest to cooperate with those around you.  Something people are very
>>slow to learn, individually, as nationalities, and as a planet.

> How long? an eternity? a lifetime? a week? 5 minutes?  Unless you've
> suddenly acquired a belief in an afterlife, I think it is readily shown
> that, for some people, their desires in life demand noncooperation and
> exploitation of others.  From their point of view, your statement is
> patently false.

No, they simply fit into the category of the last statement I made in the
paragraph before yours above.  (Readily shown?)

>>>I didn't say that there had a complicated model.  But you can't just state
>>>that the mutual good of society as a universal priniciple without some
>>>backing, and if you are going to abandon that, and take up pure relativism,
>>>then there's no reason why anyone should listen to you.

>>I thought I just gave such a reason.  Some people (apparently) won't accept
>>what's logically clearly in their own best interests (like mutual 
>>cooperation) unless a parent/authority figure tells them they have to.
>>That's why they invent gods.

> But Rich, everyone doesn't agree with you that it is in their best
> interests.  If they did, there would be no problem.

Hmmm...  Why is it that they don't?

> Even this completely
> ignores the all-important problem of what exactly constitutes mutual
> cooperation.  And the gratuitous comment about Gods is precisely equivalent
> to me postulating that atheists disbelieve in Gods because they don't like
> the moral system that the Gods have set forth.  A groundless speculation
> either way.

Certainly a morality with an unprovable religion behind cannot hold a
candle to a morality with reason behind it.  Look at your world today.
People suddenly realizing "Hey, there ain't no reason to believe in this
god stuff, so this whole morality stuff is garbage!"  Tying morality to a
bogus religion inevitably leads to people shirking the morality (the good parts
of it, too) along with the religious belief.  Morality based on reason
stand up to such tinkering.  And I think the "morality" shown above, least
impositional, most free, most beneficial, is logically the best, despite
its lack of "moral weight"  (God says so!)

 [on democracy]
>>As a "system" (we're not talking about the individual laws under it), it
>>performs exactly the function I describe above.  "I am a person, I could
>>take everything from my neighbor, but by the same token he/she could take
>>everything from me.  Perhaps to work out a mutually agreeable arrangement
>>of our rights and the minimal limits to those rights that allow non-
>>interference, we can not only live peacefully, but garnish some benefits
>>out of the cooperation as well!!  What a great idea!"  To which some people
>>seem to feel the need to respond: "NAAH!  This will only work if we get a god
>>to enforce the arrangement, therefore...

> Democracy can get you enforcing any set of moral principles at all.  So is
> any other government (at least in theory).  Democracy also quite explicitly
> punts on the question of whether an individual can have a moral system
> superior to the group he is in.  By way of illustration, suppose that the
> freely elected Government of Texas enacts all kinds of restrictive laws
> (take your pick).  Democracy doesn't care that, by Rich Rosen's criterion, a
> person who advocates repeal of these laws is in fact more moral than the
> group.  If he cannot muster a majority, his view cannot be adopted.

One of the reasons for having a Constitution that provides maximal freedom
from such things.  Again, talk about morality, and talk about political
systems, but they're not the same thing and it's silly to treat them like
they are in this context.

>>On the contrary, this system may be "pure relativism", but it is clearly
>>a system that offers maximal rights, maximal benefits, and minimal 
>>constraints on people, which to me sounds quote optimal for all involved.  
>>So-called "human nature" indeed has nothing to do with this argument.

> Oh, nonsense.  If you have no guarantee that maximal rights are best for
> everyone WHEN TAKEN AS INDIVIDUALS, than it ain't a moral imperative.  You
> can make a very strong argument that trying to assasinate Hitler would have
> been quite morally justified, but it sure as hell isn't giving him maximal
> rights.

Pardon me, but wasn't he interfering with people's maximal rights?  In a not
so benign way?  By the way, give an example of a case where maximal rights
within the proscribed limits is NOT beneficial for an individual.

> If you accept that it was moral, then you've thrown away the
> universality; if you deny it, then I suggest that you are worshiping the
> wrong principles.

I wasn't talking about an absolute tolerance, but rather a MAXIMAL tolerance.
-- 
"iY AHORA, INFORMACION INTERESANTE ACERCA DE... LA LLAMA!"
	Rich Rosen    ihnp4!pyuxd!rlr