wex@ittvax.UUCP (Alan Wexelblat) (08/15/83)
Paul Torek, among others, has questioned my assertion that all morality is based on intuitive principles. Well, first I should clarify that by saying that what I meant was "All normative moral systems are ultimately based on intuitive principles." I would like to open the case for the defense by saying this: what will you base your moral system on, if not intuition? The most common answer to that question is "rationality." My reply is then "Why do you consider rationality to be an appropriate basis. So far, all the answers I have heard are of the form (ie boil down to) "It seems/It is obviously the right basis." In other words, the beleif in the usefulness of rationality is itself intuitive! Of course, I am not foolish enough to assert that there can be no other basis, but I have yet to hear one. Secondly, I would like to assert that no normative moral system (yet) captures the whole spectrum of things we intuitively think are moral, and excludes all those things we think are non-moral. I believe that this is a tautology, but I cannot prove it. --Alan Wexelblat decvax!ittvax!wex
sts@ssc-vax.UUCP (Stanley T Shebs) (08/16/83)
Heh-heh. Alan is perfectly right. We talk about rationality a lot, and ignore the fact that most intelligent human behavior is not really rational in nature. What *is* the reason for selecting rational behavior as the norm? For that matter, is there a criterion for rational behavior, and if so, how is it arrived at? Surely not by rational thought, since you can't use it before you've defined it! (Aside: when Prolog programmers are asked why they use Prolog, after giving the usual arguments and having them struck down, they wind up by saying "I just *like* logic". Seems irrational to me) After thinking about Tom Craver's, Laura Creighton's, and Tim Maroney's submissions, I discovered that they all had something interesting in common: expression of the belief that a proper definition of rights and freedoms somehow automagically excludes conflicts. Thelema says the same thing by talking about Will and how the Wills of different persons can never conflict, by definition. Perhaps I'm missing something, but it all seems pretty mystical to me... stan the leprechaun hacker ssc-vax!sts (soon utah-cs)