In a message dated 6/2/99 6:36:14 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
joedees@bellsouth.net writes:
<< > Your personal
I don;t think that an "absolutistic" argument is necessarily a straw man. I
actually think that making it out to be one is a straw man, ironically.
> feelings towards guns are irrelevant to the factual question. I think an
> analysis of the facts shows the anti-gun people to have, by far, the
> weaker case.
>
It is not a stark and bipolar choice between an absolute ban and
the absence of all restrictions. This is an illicit and absolutistic
straw-man argument which possesses not even a passing
acquaintance with the rational, reasonable, targeted and limited
proposals under discussion. >>
There are those who have "absolutistic" moral principles, and this does not make them irrational or unreasonable. Mabye the reason that this argument is going nowhere is because you are arguing past each other. Differenet moralities will give different answers to the same situation. If you keep this argument so concrete ( " I'm right, obviously" " No, I'm right, obviously"), you will get nowhere, obviously ; ).
Perhaps, if its not beyond the bounds of this list, we could try a respectful debate on the foundations of transhuman ethics. Without these, any concrete instance will be quite beyond any debate, much like differing epistemological methods would keep the debate useless.
Any takers?
William