From: Damien Broderick (damienb@unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Mon Sep 01 2003 - 21:58:55 MDT
At 08:01 PM 9/1/03 -0700, samantha wrote:
>>Let us declare boldly that killing is bad unless you
>> are killing a killer and be done with it.
>Basically you are saying that might makes right.
No, he's saying that right backed by might makes more right.
On the other hand, even if that's sometimes true, it's also well
established that using might to propagate right often has the dismal
consequence that exercise of might *corrodes* or *subverts* the right it's
meant to be protecting and enforcing. Cf. certain parts of the world today.
>There are all manner of supposedly "higher purposes" in the world. Which
>would you like enforced on you and yours? Never mind, you don't have a
>choice. You will be forced to serve whatever "higher purpose" appeals to
>whatever group has the most physical power.
That's more to the point, surely. It's a matter of mutual prudential
stand-off. We can't be utterly *certain* that what we regard as right
really is (although preventing the stoning of death of a pregnant rape
victim comes close--by *our* standards). More forcefully, we can't be
utterly certain that we'll always be mightier than those with different
opinions. We're back to certainty as a negative epistemological thesis (as
I put it in my posted 40-year-old essay on political values, entirely
ignored by the list), and to game strategy.
Damien Broderick
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