Subject:
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Re: The nature of being (was Aids, Vegetarianism etc.)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Fri, 2 Jun 2000 16:19:44 GMT
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Viewed:
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1435 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Christopher L. Weeks writes:
> It seems that you have assigned the term evil to mean the violation of rights.
> I think of evil as being the enjoyment of others' discomfort (or such a degree
> of unconcern that it's equivalent to enjoyment). I don't think the fact that
> rights are a fiction cause the ideas of good and evil to be meaningless. In
> fact, I don't think the idea of rights is meaningless, but it is important to
> understand that there is no universal force that hands them down. (Except that
> you probably disagree.)
Even if rights were a fiction, I'd agree with you that to avoid causing
suffering is better. But, fundamentally, from a bedrock philosophical basis, we
have no ultimate way to condemn evil if creatures do not objectively have a
right to freedom from evil acts. Why should the enjoyment of a creature's
discomfort be evil if evil is merely the opposite of good - a defensible
position of equal strength and equal utility as good? C.S. Lewis said that
evil, when examined, is merely the pursuit of good in the wrong way. Good and
Evil cannot be equal powers because then their inherent definitions would be
meaningless. There has to be a greater standard by which two opposite actions
are declared, and one is judged to be good and the other bad according to their
conformity to the principle. If such a principle states that all creatures
inherently deserve to enjoy life without being tortured for enjoyment, then we
can indeed call an action evil if it breaks this law, and, we have strong
philosophical merit for making that assertion. One brief subpoint that I would
like to make here, simply in the interest of clarifying my position:
I do believe that a universal force hands them down, but in a manner of
speaking. Is good good because God says so, and is bad bad because he calls it
that as well? By no means! God could no sooner change the inherent nature of
good actions, nor the inherent nature of bad actions, than he could create a
square circle. God may do all things that can be done, but he cannot do the
absurd. Certain principles simply Are; they are inherent truths, as solid as
the most solid and dependable physical laws. I do believe that God speaks to
humanity, no doubt to all creatures that he has made who have the capacity to
understand (alien life, perhaps). But, when God is recorded to have given a
commandment, or to have urged a moral platitude (as in the Old Testament, for
example), he is fundamentally instructing his listeners as to inherent moral
truths. True, sometimes the exact nature of those instructions change, such as
when he refines our understanding, refocuses our lens, but he is always
clarifying our understanding and application of principles which even He cannot
make otherwise. God could never, never make a good action bad, nor a bad action
good; even His command would not make it so, for to change the inherent nature
of good would be fundamentally absurd and impossible.
> > As such, evil does not exist because to call an action evil is
> > by nature to compare it to a set of objective and true standards
>
> I don't think so. For instance, behavior that has been considered evil has
> changed over time. Are you suggesting that these objective and true standards
> have drifted too?
There has been development in humanities' moral understandings. The consensus
of humanity once widely condoned slavery, now the consensus of humanity widely
condemns it. This is a real moral development. To go from "Do unto others as
they do unto you" to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is a
real development in the right-understanding of moral principles and their right-
applications. The fact that development has occured does not mean that the
moral truth ever changed; it only in fact means that our understanding, our
ability to rightly see the moral principle has improved; the lens by which we
view moral behavior has focused.
> > Granted, you are certainly a kinder person, but one
> > could argue that such kindness would also be an arbitrary whim; you are simply
> > doing what you have the right to do, and those who torture baby animals are
> > simply doing what they have the right to do.
>
> Again, I don't see a problem with this. Rights are not the measure of
> goodness. And kindness seems like an integral element of the good/evil
> continuum.
I'd argue that there is no good/evil continuum - no continuum by which one's
actions may vascilate between equally-weighted sides of a balance scale. Evil
is not the opposite of good; it is the failure to obey a monolithic set of
unchangeable moral truths that have no equal opposite. (Please note that I'm
not arguing that humanity has a grasp on these moral truths with crystal clarity
- only that, just as our understanding of the physical nature of the universe is
becoming more accurate, so is our grasp of these moral truths.)
>
> > How can we really convince
> > the unkind that kindness is objectively better when we can depend upon no
> > principles before which even the most powerful stand guilty?
>
> We can't.
Perhaps we cannot...if there are no principles by which the unkind really do
stand guilty, and to which, should we direct their attention to the principles
of justice that bid their obedience, in response they might embrace kindness
instead.
>
> > I'd prefer to say that we should be kind to animals because
> > animals are qualitatively the sort of creatures that deserve
> > kindness; and this principle is every bit as objective as
> > the principles that state that a square must always contain
> > 4 right angles; such things just Are.
>
> I just don't think these two ideas are at all the same kind of ideas.
While I agree that they are different insofar as it is impossible to break the
geometric principle, while one may disobey the moral one (such is the nature of
moral behavior - our free will gives us the ability to disregard [but not
nullify] its principles. Nevertheless, I'd argue that they are similar in kind
because they are both fundamental and unchanging principles of the universe.
James
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