Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site cbsck.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!cbsck!pmd From: pmd@cbsck.UUCP (Paul Dubuc) Newsgroups: net.religion.christian Subject: Re: Evidences for Religion (reposting) Message-ID: <1046@cbsck.UUCP> Date: Tue, 30-Jul-85 12:12:55 EDT Article-I.D.: cbsck.1046 Posted: Tue Jul 30 12:12:55 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 1-Aug-85 21:36:47 EDT References: <852@umcp-cs.UUCP>, <360@utastro.UUCP> <5593@cbscc.UUCP>, <395@utastro.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus Lines: 72 >> >From my perspective, you should care since you would be benefitting >> >directly from any improvements. It does not require an absolute >> >"moral authority" to justify this. [Houlahan] >> >> It's not obvious to me that I would benefit directly from improving >> society. Can you demonsrate the connection? Depending on the person >> involved, one might feel that there is more direct benefit to be gained >> by cheating and committing crimes. He may just have a different opinion >> about the laws that would prevent him than most of us do. [Dubuc] > >In the context of this discussion, improvement has been explicitly >associated with notions like freedom from tyranny and violent acts. In >curtailing acts of violence, a society improves. You benefit by >being the object of fewer violent actions. Can you demonstrate the connection to the tyrant? He is relatively free from being the object of violent acts. Yet he sees no problem with inflicting them on others to bring about his own will. >You may in fact do better, as an individual, by cheating, but there >are only so many hawks that can be supported in a population made >up of hawks and doves. In another article I pointed out that >refugees constitute empirical evidence that to many people freedom >from economic, political, and physical violence is desirable. These >people are demonstrating quite unambiguously that given a choice >they reject the population dominated by hawks. When the hawks run out of doves they prey on each other. Would you expect them to starve rather than do that? I don't think the "hawks and doves" analogy goes very far. Why is the refugee's view of the situation accurate and the tyrant's not? What compels the tyrant to accept the refugee's values? >There are two distinct topics that should not be confused here. >The first concerns the form of society ( should it consist of hawks >or doves? ), while the second concerns the individuals behaviour >(should I be a hawk, or a dove?). For both hawks and doves, the >most desirable guiding principles are that for a dovish society. >(This assumes that survival, and protection of the self, are goals >that are common to both hawks and doves. Criminals are not normally >opposed to laws, only against them being used to curtail the criminal's >activity). So do you have any real objections to the hawks behaviour, or his decision to become a hawk? If so how do you substantiate them? You seem to accept them as normal parts of society. Can you judge a hawk's behaviour to be wrong? If so, how? The last sentence seem's odd. If I am a criminal, then I am not against laws that prohibit what I want to do, I am only against such laws being applied to me. If that's what you mean, then I don't think I see any real difference (only a techical one: either there is no law or I am above the law. In either case none of my actions can be judged as wrong). >>>> I've yet to see an atheistic exposition of morality which deals effectively >>>> with the problem of why you should listen to some agregation of feelings >>>> which we will call shared human nature, instead oneself. >> >>>I don't see where your problem is. It is called democracy. >> >> Charley's point might be to ask you, "Why should I value democracy?" >> >> Paul Dubuc cbscc!pmd > >Go ask a refugee. > >Padraig Houlahan. Go tell a tyrant why he should listen to refugees. Paul Dubuc