From: livesey@solntze.esd.sgi.com (Jon Livesey)
Newsgroups: rec.scouting,alt.discrimination,chi.general,alt.atheism,alt.politics.homosexuality
Subject: Re: BofA and UW can now support discrimination against blacks and Jews
Date: 8 Sep 92 03:44:13 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: sgi

In article <1992Sep8.025839.27590@cs.yale.edu>, rescorla@rtnmr.chem.yale.edu (Eric Rescorla) writes:
|> 
|> If ((!I wish that people treat me equally well) &&
|> (I wish that:(If I were gay, people would try to make me straight))
|> 
|> Then:
|> (I would try to make gay people straight)
|> 
|> Now, note the assumptions here, sir:
|> 1) !I wish that people treat me equally well.
|> 2) I wish that:(If I were gay, people would try to make me
|> straight.)
|> 3) The Golden rule.

Let's see if this works in other cases:

 If ((!I wish that people treat me equally well) &&
     (I wish that:(If I had a cerebral hemorrhage, people would 
	try to make me well))

  1) !I wish that people treat me equally well.
  2) I wish that:(If I had a cerebral hemorrhage, people would 
	try to make me well)
  3) The Golden rule.

Now I'm not a brain surgeon, so if I followed your reasoning,
and tried to fix your brain hemorrhage the results would be 
disastrous.

As I explained before, this is your fallacy.   It's not any
arbitrary help whatsoever that you desire, but qualified help
from qualified people.     And the fact that you would want 
help in one situation does not let you assume that others
would want help in that situation, or qualify you to offer 
help.

What the Golden Rule is telling you, if you think about it,
is that you should treat the other person as yourself: by
letting them get the help they think they can use, if they
think they can use any help at all, which of course includes
no help at all.[1]

To put it another way, the Golden Rule is telling you that
if you have the freedom to ask for help in a situation, then
someone else should have the same freedom, which is the freedom
*not* to ask for help in that situation.   What you would ask
for does not limit what they can ask for.

|> 
|> Now, Mr. Livesey, I have professed belief in none of these
|> three. And yet you have somehow arrived at the belief that
|> I believe in the conclusion. 

You are presenting the argument, and so I am explaining what's
wrong with the argument.   When I say "you" I am addressing the
person expressing the argument.     If you want to say "I don't
believe this crap for a minute, but I've heard people say XXXXX"
that's fine, too, and then I'll say "Well, *their* argument is
incorrect, as follows....."    Would that be OK with you?

|> 
|> >Of course, if what you really meant was that trying to 
|> >"make someone straight" is always unacceptable without 
|> >their explicit request, no matter what other people might
|> >think about it, then I agree.
|>
|> No, that would be a moral statement that I would be unwilling
|> to make.

Then are you saying that in some circumstances it may be right
to try to "make someone straight" even when they havn't asked 
you to?

Please explain.

jon.

[1]  We bend this rule a bit if the other person is physically
	unable to express a wish, which is not the case with
	someone Gay.
Newsgroups: rec.scouting,alt.discrimination,chi.general,alt.atheism,alt.politics.homosexuality