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