-----Original Message-----
From: Dick.Gray@bull.com <Dick.Gray@bull.com>
To: extropians@extropy.com <extropians@extropy.com>
Date: 12 January 1999 16:45
Subject: Re: Property and life
>
>
>Samael writes:
>>I don't have a right to live. I have a very strong 'wish' to live.
>
>What if I have a very strong wish to terminate your life? Is my wish not as
>valid as yours? Can I rightfully implement my wish? If not, why not?
>>I've dimissed morality as a creation with no validity
>
>So have I, it may surprise you to know. I don't speak of morality, but of
>ethics.
Okay. Please define ethics in some sort of objective way. Show me the logical, non-emotional basis for ethics.
>
>>and based my actions around aesthetics - ie what I liek and dislike.
>
>Rather short-sighted, if you ask me. There are lots of things I don't like
>that I nevertheless realize are good for me. Flu shots, for instance.
So, I like Flu shots. Becasuwe I recognise their long term value. Liking something is not necessarily an instaneous thing. You can like the outcome of something.
>
>I think prudence makes a much firmer grounding for ethical principles than
>does mere pleasure seeking/pain avoidance.
>
>>And I like living. And I like having access to things.
>
>Why should anyone else care what you like? Why are you entitled to
>something just because you like it?
>
i'm not _entitled_ to anything. I have no rights, except as a social construct agreed between two or more people. Rights are an _invention_. You can't point to one, or hold one up or stick a needle into it. It's a theoretical creation of the human minds.
I keep pointing out that I don't believe these things exist and then you ask me where they are.
I feel like I'm stuck with a bad copy of Eliza:
Me: I don't believe in morals
You: That's a rather immoral thing to say.
Ack!
Sorry, if I'm causing offence, but I'm still waiting for one example for a purely logical basis for morals or ethics that does not depend on what you, I or anyone else thinks or feels.
Samael