mambo@mhuxt.UUCP (06/21/83)
> Without human life, there can be no good or evil - because there > would be no one to judge actions or events, and no humans to > be effected by them. Now wait just a minute. How can it be said that good and evil don't exist without people defining them? Isn't that like saying, "If a tree falls in the forest, but nobody is there to hear it fall, it didn't make a noise"? What if humans detonated a weapon that destroyed all human life on this planet? Is that weapon evil before it goes off, and not necessarily evil after it goes off? And what if there exists some hypothetical life form that may be more advanced intellectually or emotionally than human beings? Would something that harms that life form but gives a great deal of satisfaction to ALL humans be good? Something fundamental seems to be missing in that initial premise. Fred Richards ..mhuxt!mambo
rh@mit-eddi.UUCP (Randy Haskins) (06/26/83)
On the presumption of life as a basis for deciding EVIL: In Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land," Mike (the human raised on Mars (yes, he was raised, not reared)) tells his friends on earth of 'the fifth planet' that used to be where the asteroids are. The Martians came to know the people of the planet, and grokked them, and thought they were a thing of beauty. And after a very long period of time (Martians take a very, very long time to make decisions. That's why earth was safe.), the Martians destroyed the planet, and that, too, was a thing of beauty. Mike said that this would never happen on Earth, because the humans would learn to grok and would be able to prevent it long before the Martians would get around to deciding to destroy Earth. Also, grass 'likes to be stepped on.' Also, not all societies are based on our presumption that killing is bad. So, evil is maybe in the eye of the beholder. The Martians didn't think destroying the fifth planet was evil. -Randy