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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Reason gets no respect from Berman
Message-ID: <876@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 10-Dec-85 23:04:48 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.876
Posted: Tue Dec 10 23:04:48 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 16-Dec-85 19:17:37 EST
References: <1538@hound.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 64

In article <1538@hound.UUCP> rwsh@hound.UUCP (R.STUBBLEFIELD) writes:
>Piotr Berman and others hold a vastly different concept of reason from mine.
>They claim that being a mugger is reasonable.  Apparently, as long as someone
>uses his mental faculty to arrive at a decision, they call it rational--no
>matter what knowledge the actor evaded and no matter what the
>long range consequences.  I think that reason requires a lot more effort
>and a much better result.

Don't be quite so quick to throw in the long range result.  It is, at best,
uncertain.  Certainly, there are many people who have committed crimes,
whether in a single instance or throughout their lives, who lived their
whole lives without being the worse for it.  In many of these cases, this
was forseeable as the probable outcome.

>There is even a simpler path.  The potential mugger could note that
>consistency demands that he not treat others as he does not want to be
>treated; but this would require that he value consistency--the specialty
>of reason.

Ah, now this is an important principle.  But I wouldn't call it consistency.
It implies the consideration of the needs and desires of others, for their
own sake, and not just one's own.  This principle I would call altruism.

>To see the extent to which criminals are irrational--deny the pain to their
>victims, have a fragile inflated opinion of their self-worth, choose to ignore
>long range consequences, and treat themselves as an exception to every rule
>they believe holds for others--read Stanton Samenow's *Inside the Criminal
>Mind*.  Samenow also describes the way to help a criminal habilitate himself
>(and tells why criminals can not be *re*habilitated):  he has to change his
>thinking--especially to think and act on principle.

Has Mr. Samenow been especially successful at rehabilitating criminals (or
habilitating, if you prefer)?

>An ethical principle is a guide to action.  Man needs principles to guide his
>actions because he does not have time to perform a detailed analysis in every
>instance nor does he know automatically what to do.  But to recognize that
>fact and to choose to live by it is reasonable; to do otherwise is irrational.

Yes; but for any principle so derived there are exceptions.  Because there
are times when one can and should perform a detailed analysis.

>I assume (as each of you implicitly does when you post) that there is
>one ethical principle I share with each of you:  the value of reason; but I am
>amazed at the number among you who are potential muggers.  As long as you
>treat reason as a floating abstraction, you are in danger of sacrificing it
>to some momentary desire.
>
>When someone confesses "to me it is clear that the final judgments cannot
>be justified by reason alone," how will he deal with me when his final
>judgment conflicts with mine?

With compassion and tolerance, ideally.

>FORCE IS THE OPPOSITE OF REASON.

As I commented in another posting (which may have gotten lost) it isn't.
There is at least one other mode of influencing people -- through cond-
itioning.  This can be done without any application of either force or
reason (although either can be part of the process).

Frank Adams                           ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108