From: Spike (spike66@comcast.net)
Date: Sun Jul 20 2003 - 12:50:48 MDT
Spike wrote:
>
> I can say exactly what it is. Miller presumes
> everyone's sense of ethics matches his own.
...
> Examples:
>
> "...[newly ethical investors suddenly began] demanding that their
> pension funds and mutual funds divest from any producers of armaments,
> alcohol, tobacco, gambling, pornography, or abortifacient drugs.
> Within a few months, 450 million Catholics controlling about 2
> trillion dollars in equity had followed his advice. Lockheed and
> Penthouse went into receivership..."
Anders Sandberg: Hmm, why do you think this is Miller's position? In
the story it was the demand from the Catholic Church (where the list
certainly seem
plausible). But where is the evidence that this is Miller's view?...
Ja, and this makes my point even stronger, for it
suggests that the catholic church would have a
unified view on these topics. They *might* have
a fairly unified view on pornography, but the rest of
the topics would all have a wide spread of opinions
within any group of devout catholics. Even if this
group were unified by a blind devotion to the
pope, there would still be a wide divergence
of opinion and action.
The actual mechanism I am thinking about is the
projection of one's sense of ethics onto a group
or humanity. If one projects in this way, one
might come to the conclusion that those who invest
in those six areas Miller gives are doing so against
their conscience. I suspect most people already
invest in accordance with their conscience. I
I cannot see why one would do otherwise, for there
are plenty of companies in which to invest, regardless
of one's position on the political or ethical spectrum.
Unfortunately ethical standards are not universal or
objective. If they were, what an easy world this would
be. To that end, I make the following modest proposal:
that all humanity adopt my view of ethics and morality.
Then everyone would agree, wars would cease, societies
would prosper, etc. Will all 6E9 of you agree
to that?
{8-]
spike
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