baba@spar.UUCP (Baba ROM DOS) (12/23/85)
> >I can accept the idea that those who can reason have some implicit > >positive value. I do not see how it follows from this that the > >use of violence against such beings is *necessarily* inconsistent > >with my valuing of reason, since there may be things to be gained > >by the use of violence that I value *more* than the reasoning ability > >of my victim. Of course, depending on who I am, that might be anything > >from the safety of my children to my next fix. > > > > > > Baba > > I think that we are not using ``value'' in the same way. You cannot value > reason and then abandon it when it becomes convenient to do so -- or rather > there is a sense of the word ``value'' that is consistent with this meaning, > but that was not the sense in which I was using the word. I do not initiate > violence on people because I value them -- and anyone who would initiate > violence upon another and still claim that they valued them would have a lot > of explaining to do, beginning with this inconsistency. > > Laura Creighton It is not a matter of abandoning values. It is a matter of recognizing that life betimes pits our values against one another. I do not initiate violence on people because I value them, whether they can reason or not, and because I live in a sufficiently comfortable niche of a sufficiently comfortable society that I do not have to weigh some portion of that value against the nonzero value I would assign to, say, my survival. Reason exists to further life, not the reverse. Baba