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Path: utzoo!decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh
From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.abortion
Subject: Re: a task for those opposed to abortion
Message-ID: <892@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 20-Jan-86 10:48:18 EST
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.892
Posted: Mon Jan 20 10:48:18 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 20-Jan-86 22:44:39 EST
References: <1100@oddjob.UUCP> <1730@druxu.UUCP> <30@valid.UUCP> <412@cisden.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Distribution: na
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 19
Summary: 

In article <412@cisden.UUCP> john@cisden.UUCP (John Woolley) writes:
> But if you were *certain* that nobody would ever find
> out about some proposed murder, or that some legal loophole would get you
> off scot free, your argument wouldn't apply.

Not necessarily: human "certainty" is subjective.  I might be "certain" but
wrong.  Thus, the possibility of error argues strongly that "don't murder
even if you think you can get away with it" is still a good heuristic.

> And yet the murder would still be wrong.

> It's not the possibility of punishment that makes an action wrong.

Is this fallacy "suggestion by repeated affirmation" or "suggestion by use
of a confident manner"?  I certainly see no other argument here.  Why don't
you simply tell us why you think murder is wrong?
-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh