Re: Ethics in a void (Re: meaning of life (RE: (repost) ))

From: Barbara Lamar (altamiratexas@earthlink.net)
Date: Wed Jan 24 2001 - 21:04:54 MST


On re-reading my earlier post in response to Charlie Stross's human rights
nature, I see that it comes across as more negative than I actually felt.

I enjoyed your earlier post on human rights, Charlie and agree with your
statement that there is no such thing as a natural right derived from human
nature. I agree that it's more useful (and accurate, I'd add) to view
rights as emerging from social interaction.

The point about which I disagree with you (and I'm not sure we disagree all
that much--it's difficult to express such elusive concepts) is the one you
made about there being no workable definition of human nature. At least I
interpreted what you wrote to mean this. I generally prefer to avoid the
word "nature" because it's been used in ways that render it nearly
meaningless.

I do think there are certain traits that all normal humans share and that
these traits can shed light on which social systems are likely to work
better than others.

Barbara



This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon May 28 2001 - 09:56:24 MDT