From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed Aug 27 2003 - 02:19:45 MDT
On Tuesday 26 August 2003 18:20, Robbie Lindauer wrote:
> Parfit isn't a True Believer but he still gives good reasons, for
> instance, not to always do whatever you believe to be rationally best
> for yourself. Even though those things might sound "prima facie" good,
> it's not clear that they are. Parfit isn't a sophist. This would
> include things like preventing potential genocides and your own death.
>
There are particular causes that are more important to me than avoiding death.
But I do not believe there is any valid excuse for genocide.
> But you may have a moral imperative to die. It may be the best
> possible thing you could do - to actually be brave. There certainly
> are prima facie obvious cases where bravery would demand self-sacrifice
> and if one took bravery to be among the highest of human moral
> abilities, then one would think that making a world in which people
> could be brave would be a high moral priority for people who are trying
> to decide whether to make a world in which people live forever or in
> which they die.
>
Putting off or not pursuing the ability of people to live forever because one
is afraid of losing a certain type of physical bravery in the face of death
is ridiculous. One can still be brave in a world where the default is to
live indefinitely long. There are many, many forms of bravery, most of which
are much preferable to charging into certain death for the
physical/emotional/adrenalized/solemn glory of it all. Just because one has
the means to live forever doesn't mean that nothing can come up where one's
more or less infinite life is forfeit to an important enough value.
I submit it takes a bravery of high order to step beyond the deathist thinking
and all that proceeds from it and actually seek and end to mandatory aging
and death and actually seek out and live all the internal and external
changes necessary to make it real. It takes a high order of bravery to face
life and continued responsibility, creativity, and living of it indefinitely.
> If you think it's sophistry, try to rewrite human morality without
> bravery and say genuinely to yourself that you want to want THAT.
>
Your argument is spurious for the above reasons, because bravery is orthogonal
to immortality and because bravery is not even a primary human virtue. I
would be quite happy to rewrite human morality to remove many of the inane
things we call brave which are actually adrenalized mass stupidity.
- samantha
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