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From: ronc@fai.UUCP (Ronald O. Christian)
Newsgroups: net.misc,misc.misc
Subject: Re: Poor People/Lazy People
Message-ID: <435@fai.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 15-Oct-86 22:55:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: fai.435
Posted: Wed Oct 15 22:55:45 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Oct-86 21:56:46 EDT
References: <1010@cad.cs.cmu.edu> <1050001@hpspkla.HP.COM>
Reply-To: ronc@fai.UUCP (Ronald O. Christian)
Distribution: na
Organization: Fujitsu America, Inc.
Lines: 48
Xref: ucbvax net.misc:347 misc.misc:21

>As to the latter, I'll restate my case a bit less flippantly:  We all
>have obligations to other people and society in general.  This is simply
>axiomatic.  If you don't believe it, I certainly can't force you to,
>and I wouldn't want to try.  There are, as I have noted previously, a
>number of tantalizingly different ethical philosophies--you have quite
>a banquet to choose from.  I do not proselytize for any particular one.
>But if you reject them all, then you're adopting the yuppie credo:
>"The one who dies with the most toys wins."  And then I really pity you.
>Tell me, O ethical egoists, just what do you think life is about anyway?

Well, to collect toys, of course.  :-)  I'd like to know, though,
what makes it axiomatic that we have obligations to other
people and society in general?  I mean, in an absolute sense,
one can not avoid some obligations to society.  After all,
it's society that allows us to procure all of those toys.  But
who decides what obligations I have to others?  You?  In other
words, just who are you quoting as an absolute authority on
what I owe my fellow man?

So, you give 50% of your paycheck to the poor, and I toss my change
into the jar marked Jerry's Kids.  The difference is one of degree,
not kind.  Who decides how much of my money I owe to others?

Are we playing another game?  "I give a higher percentage of my
earnings to the unwashed poor than you" and "whomever dies leaving
the largest sum to charity wins".

Let's say we're all (starting tomorrow) going to donate everything
above subsistance level to charity.  Now,,,, how do you define
subsistance level?  Sure, that means shelter and enough food to keep
alive, but you can do that by living in a lean-to and robbing anthills.

What Joe Public donates to the unfortunate must be up to the individual
parting with the cash.  You can appeal to his morals, but you may find
that he resents you forcing him to cough up the loot.  I suspect that
as the amount of cash taken from you increased, you would reach a point
where you'd resent it too.



				Ron
-- 
--
		Ronald O. Christian (Fujitsu America Inc., San Jose, Calif.)
		seismo!amdahl!fai!ronc  -or-   ihnp4!pesnta!fai!ronc

Oliver's law of assumed responsibility:
	"If you are seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it."