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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Reason gets misunderstood everywhere
Message-ID: <983@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-Jan-86 12:38:54 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.983
Posted: Fri Jan  3 12:38:54 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 6-Jan-86 06:46:37 EST
References: <1538@hound.UUCP> <1671@cbsck.UUCP> <334@l5.uucp> <906@mmintl.UUCP> <351@l5.uucp> <952@mmintl.UUCP> <383@l5.uucp>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 48

In article <383@l5.uucp> laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes:
>>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.
>
>Neither.  I cannot divide a strong wall between my ability to reason and 
>myself.  I do not value my ability to reason in the same way as I value
>my workstation.  If I lost my workstation I would be out an incredible
>sum of money, but not my self.  If I lost my ability to reason then I
>would have lost my self.
>
>So I value reason as a tool, but I value reason as myself as well.  I value
>compassion and creativity the same way -- I am not saying that I am nothing
>but my ability to reason.  I cannot make a strogn distinction between my
>ability to reason and me, however.

But later you say:

>Of course it does!  Why do I value myself?  Because I am wonderful, creative
>intelligent, kind and compassionate.  But other people are also wonderful,
>creative, kind and compassionate.  They are also full of the same intrinsic
>worth that I recognise in myself.   I can take delight in your existence --
>indeed to not take delight in someone else's existence is to miss out on
>one of the great joys in life.

I take this as saying that in fact you do value yourself because of your
ability to reason.  This of course makes the rest of what I had to say
in my original article irrelevent.

At this point I basically agree with you.  People are to be valued because
they are wonderful, creative, and intelligent (in varying degrees), and many
of them are kind and compassionate.  I just disagree with calling this
selfishness.  Selfishness is valuing yourself because you are yourself.
Valuing yourself because you meet some criteria, and you value anything
which meets those criteria, is not selfishness.

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I also disagree with your political theories, not because I think the
Libertaria you describe would not be a good place to live, but because
I don't think it is possible.  You cannot get people, en masse, to behave
the way you want them to behave; and if you could assemble such a group,
it wouldn't stay that way in subsequent generations.  Who ever does not
cooperate in common interests (such as defence) gains at the expense of
those who do; if you force cooperation, you don't have Libertaria.

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