laura@utcsstat.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (11/07/83)
My response to this is real long. It comes in Three parts. This is part A. Part B will also go into net.politics. Part C may as well, but I may stick it into net.philosophy, or net.religion. We'll see. Someone took the bait! I just knew it -- old rhetoric dies hard ... Ah, Paul, you couldn't expect me to pass this one up, could you! Actually it is nice to hear from you again. I was afraid you had decided to pick up your marbles and go play elsewhere. This is fun. I must say that we are both misunderstanding each other though. I am going to try this again. I thought that you were setting up the pacifist argument but you were setting up the "it is impossible not to use force" argument. You got me. No matter, i can deal with this one too! (How'd that grab you!) <Paul> And I am saying that ... if other people believe that it is OK to impose beliefs, that is their belief. if you use force to prevent them from acting on that belief, you are imposing you contrary belief on them. You are forcing them to abide by *your* belief that imposing beliefs is wrong. We are getting closer here. Many moons ago I wanted to make the distinction between beliefs and actions. Perhaps this will help. Nobody has an automatic right to actions on the basis of their beliefs. I am not saying that everyone is going to have their beliefs fulfilled. What I *am* saying is that you can let people have thier beliefs even if you disagree with them. I only see one crime in all the world -- where someone goes out and *enforces* their will on other people. The problem is not with the belief, the problem is with the enforcement. Unless you make a distinction between beliefs and actions which arise out of beliefs you go half-way to justifying atrocities, which after all are *only* *beliefs*... the distinction is not one that is done for the sake of whim, or even aesthetics. it is a rather fundamental moral and ethical question. if there is no distinction between thought and action, then I am responsible for my thoughts as well as my actions (given that responsibility is still a meaningful concept) to the same degree. This is a serious dilemma. By the way, we are going tohave to get some working definition of force here. Supppose I just ignored you, but did not comply with the belief that you wanted me to live by. Is that force? Clearly it may have required the force of my intellect (or something) to decide to ignore you, and if thoughts are equivalent to beliefs is that enough? <Paul> This cuts both ways. Suppose my belief X is "premarital sex is great." If Jerry Falwell prevevnts my action Y (premarital sex), isn't that a case of imposing beliefs? Would you excuse Falwell's action if he argued that he was not imposing beliefs, if Falwell pointed to the distinction between beliefs and "actions arriving out of beliefs"? Suppose Falwell says to us, I don't care if you have the belief ... , its just when you get around to putting that belief into an action that I get upset. I never excuse actions. I do not see how that is possible. There is no such things as an 'excusable' action. It may be that I can understand Falwell's belief, and indeed why he decided to embark on certain actions, but in no way does that 'excuse' him. i get the impression that you may be confusing "impose" and "oppose" here. My gripe with Falwell would not be that he did not agree with me, but that he was going to impose his belief upon me. Preventing someone from doing what they want is an imposition. Would that convince you that he wasn't imposing beliefs, since it's only the action (premarital sex) that he doesn't like? I think not. Yet the above quotation is taken verbatim from you, except that I omitted words that would ruin the contextual fit. But you misunderstand. I draw a distinction between having a belief and acting upon it, and acting upon it in such a way that I force other people to comply with my wishes. You are still refusing to do this. Look, I never said that people don't get around to trying to impose their beliefs on others. It happens all the time. But having a belief that you feel otehr people should share is not a crime. Suppose Jerry Falwell was to talk to you at great length and at the end of it you were to decide that pre-marital sex was a bad thing. It would be the opinion of many people that now both you and Jerry Falwell were wrong. It would be the opinion of others that he had foreced his beliefs on you. But that is not what I mean by force. Suppose, instead, he was able to convince all of your prospective sexual partners that pre-marital sex was a bad idea. Thus you would be prevented from engaging in such activity. This may be bad news as far as you are concerned, but again I do not think that you can claim that Jerry Falwell imposed his beliefs on you. now, if he kidnapped you and brainwashed you in the tradition of spy thrillers I would say that you have a legitimate complaint. Or if he organised some dreaded thought police to raid bedrooms and forcably separate consenting people -- yes that is another case where what I would term force has been used. What I am objecting to is the notion that "an action that arises out of a belief is only a way of expressing that belief". Then your objection is unsound. Prove it. it may not be the way you are used to thinking, but that is not the issue. laura creighton utzoo!utcsstat!laura