RE: Radical Suggestions

From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Jul 26 2003 - 20:35:40 MDT

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    Robert replies to Barbara's fine raising of the issue of
    "moral codes", which forces us to examine the utility
    of having principles at all.

    > Note that I'm attempting to force one into a position of doing
    > triage (what lives do I allow to be lost now?) as well as performing
    > a discount value analysis of the net worth of current vs. future
    > human lives.

    It's interestingly to me what the purposes of having principles
    and codes of conduct are. One of the purposes is, in fact,
    to prevent one from simply doing triage (or what is another
    name for the same thing, thinking analytically), because
    principles or moral codes represent (an often wise) surrender
    to tradition.

    Let's take an example: one should never lie about serious
    matters, "Honest is the best policy". Why is this a good idea?
    Why not simply rationally evaluate all the factors of the
    current situation and abide by the logical outcome?

    The reason is that the current version of you is being asked,
    in effect, by previous versions of you and other wise persons
    of the past to act a certain way because it has been shown time
    and time again to be---often amazingly---the best way to act.

    But when you stop to think of it, that is the reason that we
    almost always follow our own rules (say when coding a program
    or writing a sonnet). Experience has taught us that situations
    are often so complicated that you cannot simply "calculate"
    the answer.

    I say that whether or not to bomb North Korea---as well as
    any other proposition people on a forum such as this wish
    to discuss---can indeed be rationally discussed, and even
    tentative conclusions decided upon. But extremely important
    factors to always keep in mind ARE our principles, experience,
    and moral rules. But none of these automatically provide
    definitive solutions, as some of the people here seem to
    think that they do.

    They should simply be introduced calmly themselves as weighing
    factors.

    Lee



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