poli-sci@ucbvax.ARPA (02/11/85)
From: JoSH <JoSH@RUTGERS.ARPA>
Poli-Sci Digest Mon 11 Feb 85 Volume 5 Number 6
Contents: Rights, binary, genetic, etc
UFO coverup?
Minor Party Results
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 29 Jan 85 10:38:05 EST
From: John Lowry <jlowry@BBNZ.ARPA>
Subject: Rights
The problem of rights is not metaphysical and while closely tied
to individual and societal concepts of morality, is not equivalent
to moral behavior. Rights serve primarily as a definition of 'right
relationship', and it is the desired and current relationship we
must look to. Do we, as any particular group, have a relationship
to a fetus? Do I have a relationship with my wife's fetus, or
perhaps a Central American fetus? If so, what does this
relationship consist of and perhaps more interesting, what should it
consist of ?
The same problem applies to bio and genetic engineering. If
some 'product' is to have or be considered to have rights, what
relationship to we want?
Ancillary to this question is the problem of responsibility.
Just what responsibility do I bear for anyone's particular fetus?
What about the one I participated in making? The more we look at
responsibility in conjunction with authority, (authority being the
most commonly discussed aspect of rights, ie. One reserves the
authority or the 'right' to appeal to authority in order to balance
the relationship), the less willingness we find to assert 'rights'
in a particular area. There are very few anti-abortionists who are
willing to accept responsibility. Instead they insist that the
person desiring an abortion bear the responsibility of their (the
anti-abortionists) claim to rights. In short, the anti-abortionists
are claiming rights over the pregnant woman without bearing any
responsiblilty. The question of how much responsibility they would
have to bear before they could claim a right is a moot point. They
cannot 'volunteer' to accept responsibility as that is an invasion
of privacy. Only if the responsibility were thrust upon them could
they claim any right.
As to the rights of the fetus, there are none. If a claim is
made that the fetus is a potential human being, then I argue that
since there is no such thing as "potential rights", then there are
no rights. The argument that the fetus is a human being is an
article of faith and as such would violate Freedom of Religeon if we
were to agree to assign rights on this basis.
I'll quit maundering now, and I must say that I feel much
better.... :-)
John Lowry
jlowry@bbnz.arpa
------------------------------
Date: 29 Jan 85 13:58:35 EST
From: DIETZ@RUTGERS.ARPA
Subject: Abortion and Murder
The answer to "is abortion muder?" hinges on your assumptions, so arguments
pro and con are likely to reduce to arguments about the merits of these
assumptions (such as "a fetus is human" or "a fetus has rights").
Instead, let's talk about a different question: why do people consider
murder to be wrong? To discuss that, I'll take a "value free" approach.
(This does not mean I think "values" or "moral" judgements are
improper; rather, I'd like the following arguments to be acceptable
regardless of your beliefs.)
Laws are a special case of what I'll call a "public ethical system".
"Private ethical systems" are constraints a person places on his own
behavior; these I will not discuss further. A "public ethical system"
is a set of rules someone announces, each rule being a constraint on
behavior, the rules being intended to modify another person's behavior.
If person P has a public ethical system E, and person P' violates some
rule in E, person P reacts by punishing P', either by expressing disapproval
or by some other action. A feature of many ethical systems is the rule
causing disagreement with that ethical system to be wrong (in that system).
This rule, along with the fact the most people dislike the disapproval
of others, tends to make ethical systems spread.
Our finite cognitive abilities limit the size of an ethical system. Therefore,
to be applicable in many situations some of the rules in the system
must be general. These general rules are applied in a *continuous* way;
that is, situations that are very close together in "situation space"
are treated similarly.
Many ethical systems have prohibitions against murder because people fear
their own murder and wish to constrain the behavior of those around them to
prevent its occurence. Continuity considerations then make murder "in
the abstract" wrong.
That's an explanation of why murder is considered wrong. How does this apply
to abortion? I suspect the "distance" most people place between themselves
and fetuses is sufficiently large that they don't consider the abortion of
a fetus to be wrong (the killing of a fetus against a mother's will
probably makes the "destruction of another person's valuable property
is wrong" rule fire). It also suggests a strategy anti-abortion forces
might use: try to reduce this perceived "distance" by getting people to
identify with fetuses. Advertisements with adult actors playing fetuses
would be effective, if nightmare producing. Pro-choice forces could try
to increase the distance by, for example, saying that a fetus at N weeks
has a brain smaller than an X's, where X is some small animal that people
will not identify with, and by trying to get people to identify more
closely with the pregnant woman.
------------------------------
Date: Tue 29 Jan 85 11:04:55-PST
From: Terry C. Savage <TCS@USC-ECL.ARPA>
RE:Willingness to conform vs sentience criteria
I don't dispute that some societies may choose "rights" criteria
that I think are dumb (eg conformity, beyond some minimum level). I
contend that those societies will die off, and that the societies
with more "reasonable" criteria (eg intelligence) will survive
and
grow.
To restate an old point, I am simply outlining characteristics
of a society that I would like to live in (and intend to build, in
space), and not attempting to come up with some "ideal" way to .
live. I don't believe in "right" or "wrong" ways to live.
Viability of the system is the first test, and the happiness level of
the citizens should be the second.
TCS
------------------------------
Date: Thursday, 31 Jan 1985 16:44-EST
From: sde@Mitre-Bedford
Subject: Defn of human, etc.
|......................................................... Once you accept
|the principle that it is possible to deny full human status to any member
|of our species for any reason whatsoever, you have accepted the position of
|the
racist
and are simply arguing the details of application.
|
Find a different term than "racist"; race has nothing to do with as assertion
that conformity, intelligence, etc. may define "humanness" in the hypothetical
example, unless, of course, you are actually asserting that such traits form
a polymodal distribution based on race, in which case I would like to hear you
so aver explicitly.
|I believe that
|one of the lessons of history is that every society that has attempted to
|deny human status to a portion of its population has paid a heavy penalty.
Unfortunately, this is incorrect. One can come up which enough examples to
refute such a statement that I will leave that task as an exercise for the
reader, unless specifically asked, since it is not my intent to rake up the
horrors.
David sde@mitre-bedford
------------------------------
Date: Tue 29 Jan 85 15:59:24-PST
From: LUBAR%hplabs.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
Subject: UFO coverup
I was watching CNN (cable network news) last Saturday night and caught
a report on a governmental coverup of UFO information. One of the
officials was quoted as saying, "The government stopped investigating
UFOs in 1969." Sure sounds like (implicit) admission of a coverup to
me! Just wanted to throw in more fuel for those people who don't
trust government to develop space.
annette
------------------------------
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 85 15:16:36 EST
From: Will Martin <wmartin@BRL-TGR.ARPA>
Subject: Minor Parties -- '84 election results
I've been holding a clipping of this data for some time, not having
a chance to post it to USENET's net.politics. Since I finally got
it transcribed, I thought it might be of interest to Poli-Sci.
Anyway, here's the info, extracted from a St. Louis Post-Dispatch
article of unknown (December) date:
MINOR PARTIES BIG LOSERS IN ELECTION
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Walter F. Mondale was not the only loser in
President Ronald Reagan's landslide last month. Third-party candidates
fared worse than in any recent US election.
... the vote for third-party and independent candidates was down sharply
from the last four White House races.
According to the certified tallies ... a dozen minor party or independent
candidates got only about 600,000 votes this year, led by the Libertarian
Party's David Bergland, who was on the ballot in 39 states and got 227,949
votes.
Independent Lyndon LaRouche, the maverick conservative who also ran in the
Democratic primaries, was next with 78,773 votes, followed by feminist
Sonia Johnson, who got 72,153 votes under the Citizens Party banner.
These figures include write-in votes reported by some, but not all, states.
The turnout exceeded 92.6 million votes -- 6 million more than in 1980.
Bob Richards, the Populist Party candidate and former Olympic pole
vaulter, got 62,371 votes; Dennis Serrette of the Independent Alliance,
47,209; Communist Party chief Gus Hall, 35,561; Mel Mason of the Social
Workers Party, 24,687 [sic -- I thought it was the SOCIALIST Workers
Party(?)]; Larry Holmes of Workers World, 15,220; Delmar Dennis of the
American Party, 13,150; and Ed Winn of the Workers League, 10,801.
[I would think there would be some apostrophes on some of those party
names, but this is how they were printed...]
Earl F. Dodge of the Prohibition Party got 4,242 votes, and Gavrielle Holmes,
a second Workers World candidate in some states, 2,718.
John B. Anderson, the former Illinois Republican congressman who got
5.7 million votes as an independent in 1980, endorsed Mondale, but his name
was still on the ballot in Kentucky under the banner of the National Unity
Party of Kentucky. He got 1,479 votes.
In Nevada, voters had a chance to cast a ballot for "none of the above",
and 3,950 did.
***End of article***
I'm not sure what all this means, except maybe bad news for the diversity of
opinion that formerly strengthened American politics. I think all candidates
should be on the ballots in all states, and their votes publicized, not
buried where it is usually impossible to discover. How many people DID vote
for "Bill the Cat", anyway?
Will Martin
USENET: seismo!brl-bmd!wmartin or ARPA/MILNET: wmartin@almsa-1.ARPA
------------------------------
End of POLI-SCI Digest
- 30 -
-------