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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Brief Notes on Reason, Force, and Rights
Message-ID: <1787@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Feb-86 19:20:29 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.1787
Posted: Wed Feb 12 19:20:29 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 13-Feb-86 10:40:52 EST
References: <1637@hound.UUCP>
Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 65
Summary: 


>                Reason, Force, and Rights--Brief Points
>
>I agree with Tim Sevener that one's view of the nature of reason
>affects "the whole of one's later conclusions."  My view of reason as
>an attribute of the individual is consistent with my ethics of rational
>self-interest and a political system to protect individual rights.  His
>view of reason as a process of a collective is consistent with an ethics
>where the parts must sacrifice for the whole and a political system to
>force such sacrifice.  Tim's view is, of course, distorted:  in principle,
>his view is that he has no view--only society does.
>
>Since Tim is wrong on the nature of reason and since force and
>reason are opposites in social interaction, it is no surprise that
>his thoughts on rights (which can only be violated by force) are
>confused.  A right is not a philosophical primary but a "moral
>principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in
>a social context."  [p. 93, "Man's Rights," by Ayn Rand in *The
>Virtue of Selfishness*.]
>
>Bob Stubblefield ihnp4!hound!rwsh 201-949-2846

"Tim's view is, OF COURSE, distorted" (!?!)  Unless you hold the view
you ascribe to Tim, you can NEVER used that "of course."  If you believe
that reason inheres solely to the individual, you must accept that
reasoning people exposed to different background information can come
to different understandings.  Only if reason is "a process of a collective"
to which you both belong, can you say that someone's view with which
you differ is "of course" distorted.

Having been away from the net for a while, I don't know whether Tim made
the claim that you ascribe to him, but it would be unlike anything else
I have read of his, so I imagine that you have contributed some of your
own presuppositions in interpreting what he said.

Now my own "of course..."

Reason is "of course" an individual enterprise, but equally, its directions
are culturally (read collectively) controlled.  It is very hard to think
thoughts that deviate strongly from those to which you have been exposed,
that are confounded by information given you (which is controlled by your
cultural milieu), and which would seem ridiculous to your peers if you
exposed them.  Well, perhaps its not so hard to think those thoughts, but
it sure is hard to believe them.  There are lots of thoughts exposed on
this net that I find unbelievable, but that is probably because I was
brought up in a different culture than the people presenting the thoughts.
Cultural conditioning is a good deal more powerful in most cases than our
individual reason, if only because it is the product of the reasoning of
a great many more person-years than any individual can afford to allot.

Paradoxiacally, it is this collective reasoning that allows us the luxury
of individual thought on selected topics, and which argues for the greater
efficiency of partially planned over totally planned economies (or over
unplanned economies, for that matter, though there is no paradox in that
inequality). Of course.

As for the dichotomy of reason versus force, I see none, as I discussed
a month or three ago on the topic of "unused" territory rights.  Reason
may dictate the use of force, and force underlies all social systems of
behaviour, even those that renounce its initiation.
-- 

Martin Taylor
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