laura@l5.uucp (Laura Creighton) (12/31/85)
>First, a question: do you value yourself because of your ability to reason, >or do you value your ability to reason because you value yourself? If >the answer is the former, then your basic principle is not selfishness; >it is love of reason. I will assume the latter for the remainder of this. Neither. I cannot divide a strong wall between my ability to reason and myself. I do not value my ability to reason in the same way as I value my workstation. If I lost my workstation I would be out an incredible sum of money, but not my self. If I lost my ability to reason then I would have lost my self. So I value reason as a tool, but I value reason as myself as well. I value compassion and creativity the same way -- I am not saying that I am nothing but my ability to reason. I cannot make a strogn distinction between my ability to reason and me, however. > >So you value your reason because it is useful to you. Generalizing, you >realize that other people's reason is useful to them, and that they >should value their reasons. But this gives you no reason for you to >value their reason, because your reasons for valuing yours are not applic- >able to theirs. The source for their ability to reason is quite irrelevant, >because the source of the reason has nothing to do with why you value it. Of course it does! Why do I value myself? Because I am wonderful, creative intelligent, kind and compassionate. But other people are also wonderful, creative, kind and compassionate. They are also full of the same intrinsic worth that I recognise in myself. I can take delight in your existence -- indeed to not take delight in someone else's existence is to miss out on one of the great joys in life. > >To reiterate: selfishness means valuing *yourself*; not valuing yourself and >things like yourself. Rationality means considering the consequences of >your actions and their repurcussions (sp?) (this definition is too narrow; >but it covers the current situation). Rationality lets you value other >things besides your starting values, but only on a contingent basis: because >they serve your purposes. It doesn't cause you to value other things in >and of themselves. I am having another hard time understanding here. I suspect that this is because I have a wider sense of ``my purposes'' than you are ascribing, but I could be wrong here. I value people in and of themselves, and I value myself in and of itself. if I did not do this, I would have a hard time maintaining my very good opinion of myself. To value yourself consistently is hard -- there are too many people telling you that you should loath and be ashamed of yourself. If you do not have very soud reasons for valuing yourself, then you will stop valuing yourself. So in a very real sense the greatness of other people are to my purpose -- by recognising greatness in myself and others I can continue to be selfish. Is this what you mean by ``my purpose''? If not, what do you mean? -- Laura Creighton sun!l5!laura (that is ell-five, not fifteen) l5!laura@lll-crg.arpa
franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) (01/03/86)
In article <383@l5.uucp> laura@l5.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes: >>First, a question: do you value yourself because of your ability to reason, >>or do you value your ability to reason because you value yourself? If >>the answer is the former, then your basic principle is not selfishness; >>it is love of reason. I will assume the latter for the remainder of this. > >Neither. I cannot divide a strong wall between my ability to reason and >myself. I do not value my ability to reason in the same way as I value >my workstation. If I lost my workstation I would be out an incredible >sum of money, but not my self. If I lost my ability to reason then I >would have lost my self. > >So I value reason as a tool, but I value reason as myself as well. I value >compassion and creativity the same way -- I am not saying that I am nothing >but my ability to reason. I cannot make a strogn distinction between my >ability to reason and me, however. But later you say: >Of course it does! Why do I value myself? Because I am wonderful, creative >intelligent, kind and compassionate. But other people are also wonderful, >creative, kind and compassionate. They are also full of the same intrinsic >worth that I recognise in myself. I can take delight in your existence -- >indeed to not take delight in someone else's existence is to miss out on >one of the great joys in life. I take this as saying that in fact you do value yourself because of your ability to reason. This of course makes the rest of what I had to say in my original article irrelevent. At this point I basically agree with you. People are to be valued because they are wonderful, creative, and intelligent (in varying degrees), and many of them are kind and compassionate. I just disagree with calling this selfishness. Selfishness is valuing yourself because you are yourself. Valuing yourself because you meet some criteria, and you value anything which meets those criteria, is not selfishness. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- I also disagree with your political theories, not because I think the Libertaria you describe would not be a good place to live, but because I don't think it is possible. You cannot get people, en masse, to behave the way you want them to behave; and if you could assemble such a group, it wouldn't stay that way in subsequent generations. Who ever does not cooperate in common interests (such as defence) gains at the expense of those who do; if you force cooperation, you don't have Libertaria. Frank Adams ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka Multimate International 52 Oakland Ave North E. Hartford, CT 06108
laura@hoptoad.uucp (Laura Creighton) (01/07/86)
In article <983@mmintl.UUCP> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes: > >At this point I basically agree with you. People are to be valued because >they are wonderful, creative, and intelligent (in varying degrees), and many >of them are kind and compassionate. I just disagree with calling this >selfishness. Selfishness is valuing yourself because you are yourself. >Valuing yourself because you meet some criteria, and you value anything >which meets those criteria, is not selfishness. I haven't heard this definition of selfishness before. If *this* is what selfishness is, then I am not selfish. But I fear that most ethical egoists that I know, all of whom claim to be selfish, are not selfish either. This is going to make communication difficult... As far as I have ever been able to ascertain, ``selfish'' is a word which other people apply to people for a great variety of reasons, envy being cheif among them. Maybe we sould retire the word -- but I need *something* to combat the moral position that you should see to everybody else's needs ahead of my own. *Those* moralists call everybody who does not adopt their position ``selfish''... >--------------------------------------------------------------------------- >I also disagree with your political theories, not because I think the >Libertaria you describe would not be a good place to live, but because >I don't think it is possible. You cannot get people, en masse, to behave >the way you want them to behave; and if you could assemble such a group, >it wouldn't stay that way in subsequent generations. Who ever does not >cooperate in common interests (such as defence) gains at the expense of >those who do; if you force cooperation, you don't have Libertaria. I don't think that I can get it in my lifetime, either. But then I didn't ask for that either. The worrying thing is that if we do not move closer to libertaria we may be saying that libertaria is impossible for any generation. And I do not think that this is the case. When I take a look at who benefits and who loses in this society I am not pleased -- increasingly I find that unless you value reason for its own sake, you may never come to value it -- it is possible to be fantastically irrational and still do well in this society. This frightens me a lot. -- Laura Creighton sun!hoptoad!laura (note new address! l5 will still ihnp4!hoptoad!laura work for a while....) hoptoad!laura@lll-crg.arpa
kort@hounx.UUCP (B.KORT) (01/12/86)
Like Frank Adams and Laura Creighton, I value myself as a whole, I value my individual abilities, I value others in and of themselves, I value others for their unique contributions and for their more ordinary strengths, and I value the remaining (living and non-living) elements of the Universe for their intrinsic value and beauty. But the thing I value most in myself is my ability to value things at all. Without this, I could value nothing. --Barry Kort
kort@hounx.UUCP (B.KORT) (01/12/86)
I agree with Laura Creighton that a Libertarian goal is worth pursuing. However, one must recognize that a desirable prerequisite for Libertaria is that all citizens choose their behavior rationally and are sufficiently informed and knowledgeable that they do not ignorantly engage in an activity that causes grievous harm to innocent parties. Lack of awareness of the harmful effects of our actions is a primary reason why people engage in imprudent behavior. In a Libertarian society, what do you do with people who are operating at a more primitive level of enlightenment? --Barry Kort