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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Reason gets no respect from Berman
Message-ID: <952@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 27-Dec-85 06:38:59 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.952
Posted: Fri Dec 27 06:38:59 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 30-Dec-85 06:45:19 EST
References: <1538@hound.UUCP> <1671@cbsck.UUCP> <334@l5.uucp> <906@mmintl.UUCP> <351@l5.uucp>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 61


In article <351@l5.uucp> laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes:
>In article <906@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes:
>>Whoa!  None of this follows.
>>
>>First, what is your starting point?  If you are starting with selfishness,
>>then you value your ability to reason, but not necessarily anyone elses.
>>
>>Even if you do value reason, it is a bit of a jump to value anything which
>>reasons.  This certainly doesn't lead to valuing humans equally; some can
>>reason better than others.
>>
>Two points here -- *I'm* the one who just said that valuing reason does not
>lead to valuing human beings equally. okay?  Also, the starting poing was
>whether the initiation of force was compatible with valuing reason.  But I
>can go back to selfishness if you like.

OK, forget the part about "equally"; the first sentence of that paragraph
still stands.

>I am not an ostrich who can bury my head in the sand whenever it is
>convenient.  Therefore, I could not value my ability to reason without
>valuing everyone elses, even if I wanted to.  What kind of twisted logic
>full of self-serving lies would I have to resort to to maintain this?
>Would I have to ignore that other people have the ability to reason?
>Would I ascribe a different source for my ability to reason than theirs?
>If I valued me, because of my ability to reason I would be compelled to
>value others for their ability to reason.  To deny their value, would
>be to deny my value and this is inconsistent with selfishness. [Hmm --
>this would be inconsistent with rational selfishness, which is what I
>am discussing. If you are irrationally selfish then no doubt you could
>behave like an ostrich.]  The ability to generalise is fairly basic to
>exercising reason.  

The ability not to overgeneralize is fairly basic to exercising reason,
too.

First, a question: do you value yourself because of your ability to reason,
or do you value your ability to reason because you value yourself?  If
the answer is the former, then your basic principle is not selfishness;
it is love of reason.  I will assume the latter for the remainder of this.

So you value your reason because it is useful to you.  Generalizing, you
realize that other people's reason is useful to them, and that they
should value their reasons.  But this gives you no reason for you to
value their reason, because your reasons for valuing yours are not applic-
able to theirs.  The source for their ability to reason is quite irrelevant,
because the source of the reason has nothing to do with why you value it.

To reiterate: selfishness means valuing *yourself*; not valuing yourself and
things like yourself.  Rationality means considering the consequences of
your actions and their repurcussions (sp?) (this definition is too narrow;
but it covers the current situation).  Rationality lets you value other
things besides your starting values, but only on a contingent basis: because
they serve your purposes.  It doesn't cause you to value other things in
and of themselves.

You also left off my third point: that even if you do value other people,
that doesn't mean that you can never take action against them.

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