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From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy,net.religion,net.sci
Subject: Re: Hitler: Why we need a Science of Morality
Message-ID: <249@spar.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 8-May-86 09:14:23 EDT
Article-I.D.: spar.249
Posted: Thu May  8 09:14:23 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 11-May-86 00:07:05 EDT
References: <534@bu-cs.UUCP> <13627@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis)
Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA
Lines: 54
Xref: linus net.philosophy:4879 net.religion:9792 net.sci:509

> Tom Tedrick  >> Barry Shein 

>Barry. For shame. You of all people? One of the most insightful
>posters I have read? I can't believe you wrote this.
>
>Anyway, you guys have made me so mad that I hereby am declaring
>a holy net.reference war. I am going to drown you in references
>to Hitler's irrationality until you say "UNCLE! I've had enough!
>Hitler was not logical!"

    Lacking any rigorous methodology powerful enough to model and describe 
    our world, especially the human world of love/hate, belief/desire, etc..
    I'd say that's a tautology: NOBODY's behavior is logical, whether
    they be Hitler or Gandhi. 

>>Re: Would logic have prevented the rise of Nazism?
>
>>Although I must admit I am not acting at a terribly high intellectual
>>level, somehow I find this claim astounding and completely denying
>>how, in many ways, I heretofore have considered Nazism.
>>
>>I thought a common thesis was that Hitler utilized modern science (or
>>an appearance of the same) to a technologically entranced German
>>people to justify his social ENGINEERING.

    Political systems evolve like anything else; there is nothing to prevent
    evolution from following a path that is "evil" according to our
    subjective notions of "good".
    
    We can try to build safeguards into our system, as the framers of the
    American constitution attempted to do, although I see no reason to trust
    these safeguards considering how slavery and discrimination have plagued
    this nation's history.

>Hitler perverted science to his own ends. You can hardly call
>Nazism scientific. It was anti-scientific. It was mindless
>application of technology, perhaps, but not scientific. The
>very essence of science is freedom of thought, freedom of
>inquiry, freedom for communication and interaction within
>the scientific community, independent critical analysis by
>scientists. Hitler's program was complete subordination of
>the German people to the will of a single individual, the
>Fuhrer. Have you studied Nazism?

    Scientific inquiry proceeds just as well restricted to the limited
    discourses of engineering and theoretical physics. There is absolutely
    nothing unscientific about dictatorships. There are no builtin
    safeguards implicit in science to prevent its subordination by the will
    of an individual. Scientific "objectivity" DEMANDS that it rise above
    all "subjective" considerations.
    
    Science impartially serves whoever or whatever is in charge.

-michael