Subject:
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Re: 22/7 & infinities (was: Re: The nature of the JC god, good or evil?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Tue, 24 Aug 1999 13:25:24 GMT
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Reply-To:
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lpieniazek@novera/Spamless/.com
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1555 times
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I'll respond to this one first, and Jesse's maybe later.
Simon Robinson wrote:
> Larry> Answer John N's (I think it was John's) charge that what you are saying
> gives you no reason to do anything good. I remember a few postings on
> lugnet where you've reminded us how much you like giving to charity and
> being nice to other people.
Hopefully I didn't come off as TOO self-righteous, because that would be
a flaw, and I don't have any. :-)
I think that's great, but why do you do it? If
> there
> is no God etc. then what is the purpose of doing anything? Why make any effort
> to help others?
Good question. I could duck it by saying that I help others because it
makes me happy. And I will, basically (I am nice to others because being
polite to strangers who have done you no wrong is morally corrrect, I
give to worthy charities because I wish to honor the self worth of the
individuals the charities are aiding... notice how those don't actually
answer the question, merely restate it). But it is closely related to
another, more fundamental set of questions which Jesse alluded to as
well:
Can you have a moral system without a higher power, and if so, how? and
if so, what system is it? Or... how do you justify your stances on the
need to honor the rights of others without an overarching Lawgiver who
said that's the way things have to be?
The answer I am about to give is full of holes and I acknowledge it. I
am trying to reproduce, imperfectly, a line of reasoning that was
articulated much more clearly, and which convinced me. This answer is
intended to illuminate the skeleton of the reasoning, not to stand by
itself and convince others.
Fundamentally, I personally am not trying to convince others, merely
explain what I hold true. Others within the rationality movement and the
LP are doing just fine at the convincing thing. Libertarian ideas are,
lets face it, winning out there in the world right now. Not due to my
personal efforts at prosetylising, but due to others far better at it
that me, and due to the power of the ideas themselves.
Nevertheless I deny the charge that I take potshots at (economic or
belief) systems without offering viable or workable alternatives. I do
offer alternatives and I feel they are viable and workable. That Jesse
or Jasper finds them non viable is not necessarily the same as saying
that they aren't.
OK, here goes. As I said, very sketchy, you'll have to connect a lot of
dots yourself. But it's all the time I can afford. You'll find
congruence with the Natural Rights arguments here, I think.
Most animals don't have moral codes. Their faculties are not up to it. A
wolf about to tear the throat of a rabbit out is not making a moral
judgement, it is merely trying to live. So animals are amoral. That's
not good, not bad, that's just where they are on the evolutionary
ladder.
<maybe some animals do... I will not go down that road, though, it's a
false refutatory>
To have a moral code requires quite a bit more in the way of mental
capacity. You need to be self aware, to have a clear sense of past,
present and future, and to be able to reason about cause and effect.
These are all precursors to developing a sense of right and wrong. If
you cannot correlate that your actions cause suffering in the future
from a memory of anothers actions in the past, you can't reason about
morality.
So, by and large, only homo sapiens, on this planet anyway, has the
*capacity* to have a moral code.
Now then, so what?
Evolution has given all organisms the imperative to survive. To live.
Now, in some organisms case that means sacrificing the self to let other
members of the species survive. But in no case does an entire species
consistently self-immolate itself with no members left to survive, for
to do so would be counter survival.
Species have tools at their disposal that evolution has provided for
them. Tigers have teeth and speed. Snails have shells. We have reason.
That's right... the power to reason, and thus the power to shape our
environment, the power to think about morality, the power to create
things that did not exist in nature... that's our survival tool. Our
speed is slow, we have no shells, and our claws are weak.
For a snail to repudiate its shell would be counter survival, and it
would be denying it's snail-ness. It never could, and it never would.
For a human to repudiate the power of reason would also be counter
survival and would deny human-ness. Humans can, and do repudiate the
tools at our disposal. Nevertheless to do so is to be less human.
Here comes the weakest link. It is proper that a species try to survive.
It is proper that our species try to survive as well. It is proper that
individuals make choices about whether they choose to survive or whether
others around them survive based on their decision to sacrifice
themselves (mother dying to protect children). Not to do so is to deny
life itself. That way lies darkness. I accept without proof that it's OK
to want to live, that is, to be life affirming.
No animal is non life affirming. All animals have, through evolutionary
pressures, evolved to be good at living in their niche. It requires more
brains than an animal has, by and large, to make the decision to go
against evolution and be non life affirming. Only man can do that.
So, to be non life affirming is to be against life itself and to be
counter survival.
So given that only humans (on this planet anyway) can be non life
affirming and only humans can choose to be moral or amoral, it follows
for me that the only good moralities are those that are life affirming.
That is, we can measure goodness of morality by using the life affirming
metric.
To choose to be amoral is to be non human. Morality is one of our tools.
To choose to be non life affirming is to be non human. It is proper and
right to be alive.
End of weak link part.
OK armed with that yardstick, it is relatively easy to judge moralities.
And I put to you as the reader the exercise of justifying why a morality
that says all people have rights which we must respect, and that
initiating force as a way of solving disputes is unacceptable, is more
life affirming than any morality that does not hew to those two
principles, and there is no more life affirming and pro survival set of
axioms out there.
<basically I just ran out of time>
It's a simple derivation, though.
Once you accept that, and you accept that reason is useful, appropriate
and so forth, the rest of Libertarianism follows from that basic
principle about rights. Or so we hope, and if we find a piece that does
not, we change it.
That's why libertarians (when they are being true to their credo) posed
with a problem will first ask what are the parties to the problems, and
what rights do they have.
Note that I did not say anything about god in there... he's not required
in this moral derivation.
--
Larry Pieniazek larryp@novera.com http://my.voyager.net/lar
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NOTE: I have left CTP, effective 18 June 99, and my CTP email
will not work after then. Please switch to my Novera ID.
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