Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2002 13:00:39 -0700 (PDT) From: "Neal E. Westfall" <nwestfal@directvinternet.com> To: Dave Hayes <dave@jetcafe.org> Cc: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com>, <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Why did evolution fail? Message-ID: <20020903125126.V35147-100000@Tolstoy.home.lan> In-Reply-To: <200208310617.g7V6Hu128152@hokkshideh2.jetcafe.org>
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On Fri, 30 Aug 2002, Dave Hayes wrote: > Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> writes: > > You may say some activity (e.g. killing another human being) is > > "not right". What you really mean is "it's unethical"; to borrow > > from Dave Hayes, you are actually saying that it would violate > > your internal code of conduct. What this actually means, however, > > is that you will not tolerate it in yourself, and so you will also > > not tolerate it in others. > > This is where we disagree. > > I claim you should not worry about what others do, your focus should > be on what YOU do, and that will maximize gain for you and (somewhat) > society. You appear to claim that we have to focus on what OTHERS do > and controlling them achieves more gain for you and society. But aren't you contradicting yourself? Your admonition that people *should not* worry about what others do is itself a violation of your principle. It is impossible to live in a community without imposing your views on other people, even if it is as innocuous as "don't worry about what others do". Why cannot one's internal views include trying to convince others to adopt the same views, which is, after all, what you are trying to do. > > My own objection to this is, first and foremost, that the rights > > of the state take precedence of the rights of the individual, as > > the state is composed of individuals, and the yardstick we must > > therefore use is that of the greatest good for the greatest number. > > I claim you can't know that yardstick. You are right. Given his worldview, he cannot. On the other hand, given your worldview, you cannot know the yardstick "do not worry about what others do" is correct either. Neal To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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