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From: dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (Paul DuBois)
Newsgroups: net.religion.christian
Subject: The Emperor's New Clothes
Message-ID: <1311@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 20-Jul-85 17:07:44 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.1311
Posted: Sat Jul 20 17:07:44 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Jul-85 03:56:20 EDT
Organization: UW-Madison Primate Center
Lines: 55


Well, there has been a discussion going on in this newsgroup of late
in which Rich Rosen was asked (by Jeff Sargeant, I believe) what
reason he can give to justify, e.g., not putting other bags of
chemicals to violent ends.  Some reasons given by Rich were:

>>>Hardly.  Chances of survival, overall longterm benefits, life in general,
>>>are optimized by cooperation.  Cooperation, and the maximal freedom and
>>>benefit for all, are optimized by non-interference.

To which Charley Wingate (among others) replied:

>> Why should anyone care about survival, or maximal freedom, or optimized
>> benefits?

Now, we may infer that Rich places a good deal of weight on the value
of objective judgment, as evidenced by this except from a sideline of
the discussion:

> To whom have you produced convincing evidence of your argument?  Yourself?
> The reason no one can produce convincing evidence to support YOUR argument
> might very well be that there IS none, in a real objective sense.

A good many of us know that this is in no way an unrepresentative
statement.  So we would expect that in the reply to Charley, we would
see some reason and logic exemplefied.  But instead we find:

> Because we happen to like those things.  Don't you?  Don't survival,
> continuing to live, and acquiring benefits bring pleasure to living?

Thus, all the talk about objectivity, examination of presuppositions
clung to in order to bolster a preconceived desired conclusion,
wishful thinking, etc., etc. (many of you as well can no doubt mimic
the usual phrases), is a complete smokescreen.

Truly, Emperor Rosen has no clothes.  When pushed back to his real
reasons, he says:  "because we like them".

Because we like them.  Because we *like* them?  Yes, BECAUSE WE LIKE
THEM!

Pro......FOUND!!

This is no more than the sanctification of desire.  Instead of "might
makes right", Rich says we should follow "like makes right".

Any three-year-old could tell you that.

I think I will stop reading Rich's articles, if that's what it boils
down to...
-- 
                                                                    |
Paul DuBois     {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois        --+--
                                                                    |
"More agonizing, less organizing."                                  |