From: viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson)
Subject: Re: Ethical Relativism. Was: Hunters: Legitimate concern?
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 07:12:37 GMT

In <Bs1IoE.1ox@wpg.com> russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence) writes:

>rl> How would a man searching for a particular set of facts be able 
>rl> to discover that the facts do not exist?  By searching every nook and 
>rl> cranny of the universe, perhaps, and then reporting that the 
>rl> objects in question were nowhere to be found?   Do you have a degree
>rl> in ethics, by any chance?  

>From article <viking.712212922@vincent1.iastate.edu>, by viking@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson):
>ds> Nope, I don't.  Not that it makes any difference, of course.  
>ds> Facts and ethics are hardly good things to compare.  How can you 
>ds> test an ethical belief?  I'll give you a hint -- it's a belief, 
>ds> not a fact.  

>We can test ethical ideas in the same manner that we can test
>any idea: by analyzing their factual and rational basis.

	Prove that God exists, using only facts and rational basis.  Please
contrast this with agnostic and atheistic beliefs.  The lesson is left
as an exercise for the reader of this post (if we're annoying you, let
us know and we'll take it to e-mail).

>ds> It's quite similar to saying, "God is good." and then demanding 
>ds> proof one way or the other.  It doesn't work, and never will, 
>ds> because there is no underlying "fact" to base arguments on.  
>ds> Thus, our disagreements.  

>No, it's not like saying, "God is good".  Such a statement is,
>to the best of my knowledge, not supported by any empirical
>data.  

	Neither are ethics, and I eagerly await your reply.  BTW: I
am an insomniac, so I'll grant >300 lines tonight, but you might wish
to break this thread into component subjects of shorter length.  It
might help the readership, and it will certainly help me.  If you don't
have the time, I might do it later on tonight.

>rl> It seems to me that the justice or injustice of a courtroom trial 
>rl> would depend on the effectiveness of the court in digging away at 
>rl> the truth.  You, on the other hand, seem to be saying that the 
>rl> goodness of a particular judicial action can be measured solely 
>rl> by public opinion.  

>ds> It can, and it does.  Helmet laws, semi-auto military look-alike 
>ds> weapon bans, exclusionary rule violations, extentions of the RICO 
>ds> statutes, and a host of other frauds have been upheld by the 
>ds> courts on no factual basis.  I'll leave it to you to find the 
>ds> facts on these issues, but if you want pointers e-mail shall be 
>ds> fine.  

>As I said, public opinion polls are a poor way of evaluating
>the truth or falsity of ideas, apart from those ideas describing
>public opinion-in-itself. 

	But they still do, Russ.  Nirvanna may be your goal, but you
must first deal with reality as it now exists.  Sorry, but your example
was flawed in this reality, and though it may exist in Nirvanna, it
doesn't here.

>rl> So you say, but I consider your opinions to be highly suspect.  
>rl> Perhaps you can redeem your credibility by explaining why you 
>rl> consider slavery to be ethical simply because some men consider it
>rl> such.

>ds> I note you skipped a bit: I do consider slavery ethical for a
>ds> society that believes it to be ethical, but I do not personally hold
>ds> it to be an ethical thing in my own society.  

>Is your position a purely arbitrary one...  like flipping a coin?  
>Or, have you analyzed the factual and rational arguments for and 
>against slavery and determined that slavery is not a good thing?  

	I have, and I find that they change with societal structure.
You may not like this, but as an example Islamic Law requires a thief
to have his hand removed as punishment.  I find this barbaric, Muslims
find it justice.  In addition, I might find removal of the testes a good
punishment for rape, whereas another might disagree.  Society, which is
the cumulative sum of our beliefs, has the final say.

>ds> You can ignore the qualifiers if you want, Russ, but they are 
>ds> very important in this case.  I'm certain that some Romans 
>ds> thought slavery was wrong (besides the slaves, I mean).  Now that 
>ds> their view is the one that society has adopted in no way means 
>ds> the previously-held view was unethical...

>An ethical idea, like any idea, may be true or false.  Yet, for
>some strange reason, you seem to be unwilling to consider that
>many ethical ideas can, indeed, be false.   How strange!

	Can they be?  I submit they are false to you, and you have yet
to prove that you are the final judge of ethical ideas.  Indeed, the Pope
himself does not have this audacity given the counsel of the Church elders.
Perhaps I just arrogantly assume you're mo more ethical than I, and have no
more hold on the "truth" than I might.

>If the same scholar were to tell you that witch burning is good, 
>because it drives out demons weighing roughly half an ounce apiece, 
>would you accept his statement at face value...  or, would you 
>point out that there's little evidence to support his belief and 
>quite a bit of evidence to show that witchburning is both painful 
>for the victim and socially disruptive?  

	This would depend quite a bit on whether I believed the scholar,
now wouldn't it?  If I didn't, I'd have to come up with proof, and in
the society you mention proof meant "guilty until proven innocent,"
which isn't my idea of a fair fight.  They also had trial by combat to
determine who was right.  If I challenged you to a duel with sword and
shield, would you accept just on the basis of knowing your opionion was
right?  If you do, I've a gladius and shield that might change your
views if I'm a better swordsman than you.  It wouldn't mean a thing
these days, but it does show how a society changes over time.

>ds> Ethics change, just as societies change, over time, and I cannot 
>ds> hold a person responsible for criminal acts that weren't criminal 
>ds> when they were done.  

>And rightly so.  We can't blame individuals for acting on the
>basis of the best information that they might have available.
>On the other hand, this doesn't mean that witch-burning is a
>good thing, simply because some people subscribed to the notion.

	But if 99% of the society subscribed to it, then it was
obviously a "good thing" for that 99% at that time.  This is my
caveat I refuse to release, since releasing it means any beliefs we
might hold that are refuted make us "wrong," despite the best we can
do with present information. In other words, until it's proven it is
an opinion, and an opinion is always correct to the believer.

>ds> If your view wins out in another hundred years, then animal 
>ds> hunting will be immoral.  Such is life on this planet.  Until 
>ds> that time, my actions are not immoral to me, or to the society I 
>ds> live in, and I have no ethical qualms about hunting.  As for 
>ds> redeeming my credibility, don't assume I give a whit what people 
>ds> on here think of my credibility.  Killfiles can take care of any 
>ds> annoyance they might have of me, and my posting record should 
>ds> show myself to be remarkably consistent in claiming nothing 
>ds> absolute exists when it comes to morality.  

>Is the world flat or round?  

	I can't tell you from personal view, by based on other evidence
I believe it to be roughly round, though somewhat assymetrical.  You
had a point to make here?

>rl> I can point to any number of dead authors who believed that 
>rl> slavery is ethical, just as I can point to several past
>rl> authorities who believed rape to be ethical.  Is a mere belief 
>rl> the same as truth?

>ds> Yes.  For proof, see organized religion.  Belief is much
>ds> more persuasive than "truth," because "truth" doesn't require fact,
>ds> only belief.  If you mean, "Is a mere belief the same as fact?" then
>ds> I have to answer "No," with the caveat that facts are often over-ridden
>ds> by beliefs.  See "propaganda" in your dictionary for details.

>You're contradicting yourself.  First you say that belief is the
>same as truth, and then you say that belief is more persuasive
>than truth.   You've obviously recognized that there's a difference
>between the two terms, and yet you seem to be clinging to the notion
>that believing some particular notion necessarily makes the notion
>true.  

	It does.  You forget that a fact is a "truth," but a belief
that disagrees with that fact is also a "truth" to the believer.  I
used the two interchangably, and didn't note the fact.  I thought it
obvious that what one believes is truth is a truth, no matter how
much others disagre, unless you opinions on what is "truth" are
changed.  History shows that what is obvious is actually wrong when
subjected to later scrutiny (geo-centric and spherical theories of
the universe, as an example).  Which of us has the "wrong" opinion?
History will decide, but for today we conjecture.

>[It occurs to me that one source of the confusion here may be the
>mistaken notion that a belief that isn't true must necessarily 
>be a lie.  If I say that witch burning isn't really good, I'm not
>saying that the medieval advocates of witch burners were all liars.
>Rather, I'm pointing out that factual and rational analysis
>negates their claims.]

	Apply this to the people pointing out the rational and factual
analysis of these people being witches and you'll have the idea I'm
trying to show above.

>ds> It certainly would for Himmler, since his suffering at the
>ds> hands of the Evil Jewish Masses would be turned into pleasure at
>ds> watching Them get hauled off.  For the Jews, I doubt it.  For the
>ds> record, Russ, who cares, and why doesn't it matter if the person
>ds> who cares isn't Himmler or his fellows?

>It matters quite a bit to individuals who might be persecuted by
>an ignorant fool who believes what he wants to believe.

	In other words, you're a Jew in this case.  Fine.  What of
the opinion of Himmler?  Do you just discount it because it's wrong
by your opinion, or do you consider it valid until "disproven."  What
do you accept as proof?  What if Himmer is found to be "right" three
centuries from now?  Does it make a difference?

>rl> This makes no sense whatsoever.  Why would the suffering of any
>rl> given person be dependent on the mind-set of someone else?

>ds> You missed it, Russ.  The "victims" are slaves, right?  There is 
>ds> evidence to suggest that slaves in Egypt led a better life than 
>ds> those who were "free" of their own nations, and some societies 
>ds> came up with rather severe rules of slave ownership.  Not every 
>ds> society beats their slaves, nor are all slaves the same type of 
>ds> property.  In scandanavia, slaves could inherit property when 
>ds> their master died.  I don't think slavery in and of itself 
>ds> involves suffering, simply because the slave-owner could, at his 
>ds> whim, cease any of the abhorrent practices of slavery we commonly 
>ds> think of.  As an example, let's assume I am a slave of my father.  
>ds> That he treats me like a son and not a slave is the relevant 
>ds> thing, not that somewhere there is a title of ownership saying I 
>ds> am a slave.  Slavery is more than just ownership, it's treatment, 
>ds> when one starts talking of "suffering." Name one thing a slave 
>ds> cannot be, and my response will be, "The slave owner can allow it 
>ds> at his whim, and hence it does not have to be." If you answer 
>ds> "Freedom," I must partially agree, but I do note that as a debtor 
>ds> I'm at least an indentured servant, and that my debtors allow me 
>ds> some freedom is all I can expect.  

>You seem to be saying here that slavery would be ok in a particular
>instance if the slave were treated as a king.  Perhaps you're right,
>but in such an instance, your appraisal of the slave's treatment involves
>a set of alleged facts that could be tested in various ways. 
>To the extent that you cite factual matters, you're contradicting your
>prior notion that goodness or badness is simply a matter of opinion.

	Oh?  If the slave, say myself, thinks my lot in life is great
and I have no desires that are not fulfilled, am I suffering?  I'd say
I am not, but you seem to say I don't know I'm suffering.  Explain how
this can be tested without involving my opinion into the matter.  I'd
say the salves opinion, the owner's opinion, and the opinion of society
in general will show different evaluations.  Who is right, or is there
an automatically right opinion?  I think it's society in general, since
they are in the position to weigh all sides and reach a fair decision
while the slave and owner might just bicker.

>rl> Did Scott suffer?  Or would you say that the badness of his 
>rl> bondage simply disappeared in the sea of prevailing opinion that 
>rl> property rights are a good thing?  

>ds> I don't know, did he suffer?  You had better ask Scott.

>If he did suffer, would you still consider his enslavement to be 
>a "good" thing, simply because of prevailing opinion about the
>rightness of slave ownership?

	Yes, I would, but "good" for the society of that time.  You
seem to forget, Russ, that I don't second-guess dead societies.

>ds> It certainly didn't matter to the supreme court, nor I suspect
>ds> to the rest of the country with the exception of the slaves.  Hence,
>ds> his suffering was not relevant to the case.

>On the other hand, do you not agree that his suffering would make
>a difference in our factual investigation of the goodness or badness
>of his bondage?  

	Define "suffering" and put a quantative measure on it and you
might have a case, Russ.  Until then, his suffering is notable only if
it exceeds what most people will go through, and than may not make an
influence on "good" or "bad."  If I shoot a rapist in the guts and he
takes six hours to die of septic shock, is this good or bad?  It usually
depends entirely on which side of the bullet you are on, and I caution
you to avoid thinking the dying felon's feelings outweigh those of the
rape victim, or her husband (me, for this instance).

>rl> Are you an advocate for ignorance, or, are you an advocate for 
>rl> truth?  I realize that the suffering of slaves may not have 
>rl> mattered in the least to some slaveowners, but you seem to be 
>rl> going a step further in claiming that there existed no additional 
>rl> data worthy of consideration.  (yikes)

>ds> Was there?  The Supreme Court didn't think so, and I can
>ds> think of no other body more inclined to uphold the law.

>1) Are you assuming that supreme court justices are omniscient?
>2) Are you assuming that laws, by definition, are good indicators
>   of truth?  

	No, they're indicators of the laws, which uphold morality as
much as civil code.  Think about it, Russ, and then reflect why murder is
a crime despite no victim to provide testimony.  Now think of oral sex
as a crime, and ponder community values.  Get it yet?  Truth and
perceptions are often different, and until the perception that the
truth is something other than what we beleive in comes to mind, what
we believe in is the truth.


>rl> You're free to control your body in any manner of your choosing, as
>rl> long as it doesn't infringe on the rights of other thinking/feeling
>rl> individuals.

>ds> So which of us is "right," Russ?  Am I infringing on your rights 
>ds> because I refuse to do what you enjoy and I abhorr, or visa 
>ds> versa?  I'd really like to see your answer to this one, since I 
>ds> see it as a Catch-22 that illustrates how each side may consider 
>ds> itself to be "right." ...

>In using the term "rights of other individuals", I was referring
>to personal rights... not property rights.  
>Justice Taney ruled against Dred Scott because he considered
>Scott's suit to be an assault on the property rights of Scott's 
>legal owner.  This sort of notion, as I point out from time to 
>time, is fundamentally medieval in its immediate origins, and 
>depends on the assumption that minds are less important than 
>property, feudal bonds, etc.  It's precisely this kind of 
>thinking that introduces the Catch-22 trap that you've 
>identified.  Was Dred Scott violating the rights of his owner?  Or 
>was the owner violating the rights of Dred Scott?  

>This sort of topsy-turvy confusion goes away when we stop and 
>consider that property is clearly subservient to personal agency.  

	While I agree, I note that it's subservient to us, and
perhaps not to all.  I have to respect their views though I disagree.

>In a world of mindless entities where intentions are 
>non-existent, property would be non-existent.  On the other hand, 
>it's entirely possible for intelligent entities to exist without 
>making property claims on persons and things in their environment.  

	You're on thin ice here, if prey is considered property.  If
not, I wonder what you think the hamburger in my freezer?

>rl> You're not a lonely god in a lonely universe.   You're entitled to
>rl> treat your own body as you see fit, but you're not entitled to
>rl> claim the minds and bodies of other individuals.

>ds> No man is an island, right?  I read that many, many years ago.  
>ds> I'll claim the minds and bodies of other individuals when I see 
>ds> fit to do so, Russ -- I do it to eat right now, and we all do it 
>ds> to exist.  

>Is this true?

	I think so.  I claim cattle to eat, and also cabbage, carrots,
and corn (though I loathe corn -- you harvest 2000 acres in two months
and see how well you like caughing up corn dust!).  I also claim
rabbits, squirrel, deer, and pigs.  That they are domesticated shows
I have claimed their minds, that I eat them shows I have claimed their
bodies.  Did you have another idea in mind?

>ds> I may not be an island, but I'm a damned big island compared to a 
>ds> rabbit, and I see no reason to sacrifice myself for a smaller 
>ds> island.  If we can get along in good harmony, so be it.  If we 
>ds> can't, Darwin seems to have an answer to the problem.  

>What is that answer?

	When you intend to compete with me, fella, you compete with
whatever my brain can cook up.  The human brain is the one advantege
this species has against others.  I can kill a rhino thanks to the
brain that allows tools like the 105mm Howitzer.  In short, I am
(as a human) the most deady animal around.  If others cannot deal
with it, they are at my mercy to survive.  If they can, I welcome
the challenge (aliens, in this instance).  I might not like it, but
it does serve to illustrate survival of the fittest.

<Dan Sorenson, DoD #1066 |"There'll be angels on Ariels in leather>
<z1dan@exnet.iastate.edu | and chrome, Ridin' down from heaven    >
<viking@iastate.edu      | just to carry me home." -- R. Thompson >
< ISU thinks I need more education, which they provide for a fee. >