From: erikred@ocf.berkeley.edu (Erik Nielsen)
Newsgroups: alt.callahans
Subject: Re: Rhetoric: The End of Morality in Society (?)
Date: 7 Apr 92 04:48:14 GMT
Article-I.D.: agate.rr9ieINN8bh
Organization: U.C. Berkeley Open Computing Facility
NNTP-Posting-Host: ocf.berkeley.edu

In article <9204032229.AA10988@yrloc.ipsa.reuter.COM> dgil@ipsaint.ipsa.reuter.com (Gillett, David) writes:
>       Instead, small colonies of different cultures co-exist geographically,
>     each linked to other colonies of the same sort scattered around the globe.
>     We don't have a single global village, but a host of spacially-interwoven
>     global neighborhoods.

Nielsen Hypothesis #105:  Humankind is gregarious to a point (generally the
village level) after which it becomes a collection of communities rather
than one large community itself.

>       It's wrong to murder, because any right of practice that you might have
>     to swing a fist, knife, or club, throw a rock or discharge a projectile
>     launcher is subordinate to another's inalienable rights to life and
>     security of person.  

Based on the assumption of the right to life.  Hate to break this to you,
but the right to life is merely an agreement by the populace that death is
fairly undesirable; the society which agrees to grant such rights maintains
the right to revoke them as well.  To assume that there are inalienable
rights outside the jurisdiction of humanity is to assume a higher authority,
which breaks another guideline of separating church and state.  Murder is not
wrong; it's just damn inconvenient to its victims.  


>	It's wrong to lie, because it's deliberately fouling
>     the exchange of communication, exacerbating the problems of language and
>     vocabulary between people.

I'm sorry, but I have yet to see anywhere the guarantee of open and clear
communication between people.  Yes, it would be a nice idea if people did
not lie to each other, but it is not wrong.

>       Is it wrong to steal?  Property -- without which there can be no such
>     act as theft -- seems to be more of a cultural right of practice than an
>     inalienable right.  Proudhon concluded, in fact, that to own own private
>     property was itself theft, and Paine distinguished between property that
>     could be owned, and property that could at best be leased from the common
>     pool.  Gypsies have their own perspective on the question.

A wonderful bit of rhetoric on Proudhon's part.  However, a "cultural right
of practice" is a right guaranteed by the (assumed) overwhelming size of the
cultural group exercising the right; another example of Might makes Right.

If you really want an ethical system based on self-interest (which in my
view would appeal to most), try Kant.  According to Kant, each action should
be run through three questions to determine its right or wrong-ness:  (I
paraphrase)

	1)  Would it be beneficial to me if I did it?
	2)  Would it be beneficial to me if everyone did it?
	3)  Would it be beneficial to me if someone did it to me?

If you answer yes to all three, then, according to Kant, go for it.  Sounds
a bit simplistic to me.  To my mind, there is nothing good nor evil, but
thinking makes it so.  (Paraphrased from Hamlet.)

>--
>"I will say or do anything, whatever it takes,   | Mentor the Sage
> to win re-election."                            | dgil@ipsaint.ipsa.reuter.com
>                    George Bush                  | OR dgil@pa.reuter.com 


Erik, the BFG
-- 
     "All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain."
			Roy, _Blade Runner_
Erik Nielsen					erikred@ocf.berkeley.edu