From: jgm@ais.org (jim miller)
Subject: Re: Essay Time for Felix  (Was: Re: God Conference on Player's Rights)
Organization: Ann Arbor Information Society -- Toledo Annex
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 11:44:18 GMT


durrell@pinball.arcade.uiowa.edu (Bryant Durrell) writes:

>In article <C1F5vA.DIr@ais.org> jgm@ais.org (jim miller) writes:
>>I was asking Felix a specific question -- what is the significant
>>difference between that kind of moral reasoning Felix uses to arrive
>>at the conclusion apartheid is a bad thing, and the kind other
>>people use to arrive at the despised conclusion that, say, spying
>>on someone on a mud is a bad thing.  He refuses to admit that he
>>uses exactly the same sort of moralistic reasoning I and everyone
>>else does, because it would mean recanting a lot of earlier
>>posturing.
>
>Jim, I can't even begin to tell you how naive your apparent belief
>that rights arise from some kind of universal agreement on what rights
>are is.  Felix, quite rightly, believes that there is no such animal
>as an objective moral code.  He has his own moral code.  I have mine.
>You have yours.  On some things, they're congruent...and on others, 
>they aren't.  Think carefully -- are you *sure* that any rights
>derived from the majority moral opinion of a given society are good
>and universal?
>
>And of *course* Felix uses the same sort of reasoning you do.  And
>everyone does.  The difference is that he recognizes that *his*
>morals ain't universal.  


Bryant, to use the argument that -some- people do not think and mistreat
other people, objectify them, treat them as things or animals, as a
basis for challenging the universal notion that is commonly expressed
by saying "people have rights"; and to further take this credo,
"there are no universal rights", and use *that* as a basis for
a sophistic, literal-to-the-word argument against adopting some
language that basically says, "people using muds do not deserve
to have their privacy compromised, etc." -- that's losing all sense
of perspective.
I *know* the societal definition of "rights" varies over time and
space.  I know that people do not all have the same beliefs.
However, some people in this discussion are going to lead a
discordant life, as they encounter from people, over and over,
this persistent notion that people deserve to be treated in
certain ways because they have a *right* to be, that hated
wording.
And Felix and others can get away with comfortable, academic
arguments in the rarefied atmosphere of a network newsgroup,
especially ones that pertain to a game which isn't that
important in the big scheme of things, as some people are fond
of pointing out, but let's take that reasoning a bit further
and into the real world.  Let's say there are no universal
rights, and let's say we assiduously apply that rule in all
our doings, as Felix does here.  How do things get decided,
Bryant?  How do organizations and governments decree that
such-and-such will be tolerated behavior and other behavior
will not be?  A rather necessary, but impossible thing to
do if we avoid the language of rights, because at the root
of all codes of behavior is a recognition of a consensus
belief.  And Ken had an excellent point -- you can call
it what you want, a "right", or "morally correct", it
comes down to *exactly* the same thing.
So please, let's end this.  I know y'all don't like the
idea of being bossed around by a bunch of your inferiors,
but as Russ has pointed out several times, you won't be,
ok?

-- 
"Consider a lion, sneaking up to rip an innocent gazelle into shreds.  Is
this morally wrong, should the gazelle get a fighting chance, should we
step in and declare that gazelles have rights too?  Of course not."
                      - Felix, on why mud users don't have rights
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud.tiny