Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!CS.UCLA.EDU!colin
From: colin@CS.UCLA.EDU (Colin F. Allen)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Re: Free Will vs. Society
Message-ID: <19880617035353.3.NICK@INTERLAKEN.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Date: 17 Jun 88 03:53:00 GMT
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To: comp-ai-digest@seismo.CSS.GOV
Path: ucla-cs!lanai!colin
From: Colin F. Allen  <colin@CS.UCLA.EDU>
Newsgroups: comp.ai.digest
Subject: Re: Free Will vs. Society
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 88 18:10 EDT
References: <19880613194742.7.NICK@INTERLAKEN.LCS.MIT.EDU>
Sender: news@CS.UCLA.EDU
Reply-To: Colin F. Allen  <lanai!colin@seismo.CSS.GOV>
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
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In article <19880613194742.7.NICK@INTERLAKEN.LCS.MIT.EDU> 
  INS_ATGE@JHUVMS.BITNET writes:
>ill-defined.  I subscribe to the notion that there are not universal
>'good' and 'evil' properties...I know that others definately disagree on
>this point.  My defense rests in the possibility of other extremely
>different life systems, where perhaps things like murder and incest, and
>some of the other common things we humans refer to as 'evil' are necessary
>for that life form's survival.

But look, this is all rather naive.....you yourself are giving a criterion
(survival value) for the acceptability of certain practices.  So even if
murder etc. are not universal evils, you do nonetheless believe that harming
others without good cause is bad.  So, after all, you do accept some 
general characterization of good and bad.