Newsgroups: bit.listserv.politics
Date:         Fri, 4 Sep 1992 09:52:00 EDT
From:         rf35 <Richard_A_FYFE@UMAIL.UMD.EDU>
Subject:      Re: To Missy: On Wrongness
Comments: To: Forum for the Discussion of Politics <POLITICS@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu>

Greetings: To Missy

> How do numbers fit into all of this?  If one person in a so-
> ciety does not share the desire of the majority for him to
> be killed (for entertainment, enjoyment, and because they
> have no aversion to his death and in fact believe that he
> would be better off dead), is it "good" to kill him anyway?

        Actually, the relevant question is not whether indiv-
iduals do desire to kill him, but whether they ought to.
There is a danger in understanding 'desires' and 'aversions'
too narrowly, as if people are capable of calling them into
and out of existence at a moment's notice.  In fact, the de-
sires and aversions which motivate one action will carry
through to others.  The desires which would motivate others
to kill this one person (being such that one obtains pleasure
in his death) makes the death of others more likely, and this
in turn warrants a greater negative evaluation of those de-
sires.  It is still plausible to argue that it is bad to have
those desires which would provide the motivation to killing
this person.  Since killing this person is something which
others ought not to desire, it is wrong to kill this person.

        Take the case where others believe that the individual
would be better off dead.  One can argue that they should
still have (it is good for people to have) a strong aversion
to killing others without their consent--a very strong aver-
sion, I would argue.  The anxiety of knowing that one may be
killed, the existence of grounds for a strong presumption that
the person whose life we are discussing knows best the value
of that life for him, and the possibility of rationalization
where others would decieve themselves into a false belief that
the life of another is not worth living when it is convenient
for them to do so, all argue in favor of people having such an
aversion.  And so they ought to have an aversion to killing
this person UNLESS this person agrees (consents to) being
killed.  You stipulate that the person in this case does not
give consent, so he ought not to be killed.

> What is the cutpoint here at which society changes its views
> of "good" and "bad"?

        Here, it is important to recognize a distinction be-
tween views about (beliefs about) good and bad and what ac-
tually is good and bad.  Value is determined strictly by
desires and aversions--beliefs about (views of) what is good
and bad are largely irrelevant to the moral facts.

> And who sits around calculating all the aversions and figur-
> ing out the needs and desires of society, . . .

        Any person may attempt to do so.  Evaluative claims
have right answers (though, admittedly, these right answers
are sometimes difficult to discover).  Any person who wishes
to determine the right answer in some case may sit around and,
to the best of that person's ability, determine the merit or
demerit of whatever program, policy, institution, law, form of
conduct, or whatever.  A person should seek out other relevant
information--perhaps join an e-mail discussion group in which
others can point out relationships between the object of eval-
uation (be it the election of a presidential candidate or a
law) of which the individual was unaware.


> . . . and makes the rules?

        I believe that the question here is who 'ought' to make
the rules (which translates into a question like, "And it is
good that the rules be made by whom?"  The answer to this type
of evaluative claim is the same as any other.

                                                Richard A. Fyfe
                                                rf35@umail.umd.edu

P.S.  Good questions.
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