pvp@ihuxl.UUCP (02/07/84)
Mr. Renner writes: >"Imagine two men drowning in the ocean. They have one life preserver; only > one man can use it. One man must drown. Must both men drown? Is it murder > for either man to use the life preserver? Why? " I'm glad to see that he is starting to get to the real moral problem here. This particular one is more difficult than the one we are actually discussing, so I'll let him think about it by himself for a while. The problem we are actually arguing about goes more like this: "Imagine two men adrift in the ocean. One man has a life boat, a life raft, and a life jacket. The other man has nothing and is drowning. The first man is afraid that his life boat will hit a rock and sink, his life raft will then not inflate, and so decides that he needs to keep his life jacket to save himself. Is it murder for him to keep the life jacket and let the other man drown?" He also writes: > I still don't buy the references to Stalin and the planned starvation in > Ukraine, either. Stalin took food by force from those who produced it. > He didn't "refuse to provide it." He stole it. This is murder on a > grand scale, but it is not relevant to our topic. It's nice to know he hasn't bothered to check out the source I referenced. > Oh yes. When Polli posts his "tutorial on morality and ethics", I hope > he will explain why it is acceptable to use "innumerable cheap shots > and degrading insults" in order to attract attention to a topic that > interests him. Without, of course, reference to any of this "the ends > justify the means" stuff. Oh, I am indeed a sinner, Lord! I have insulted and offended these poor people, whose only sin was to boast about how proud they were of their country, and all the wonderful things we do for poor, hungry people, by teaching them "methods of birth control and improved agriculture". Forgive me, Lord, I must not have known of what I did. Well, at least Mr. Renner doesn't seem to argue that we shouldn't share our surplus with starving nations any more. That's certainly an improvement on his earlier position, which was that it was "no kindness" to "send food to the hungry". If he can refrain from spreading that particular nonsense, I suppose I can refrain from insulting him for a while. Phil Polli ihuxl!pvp