-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wed, Oct 25, 2000 at 03:24:35PM -0500, Kevin Elliott V wrote:
Hash: SHA1
Here is my last post in this thread, because I feel that it is going nowhere:
My views are irreconcilable with those of the libertarians on this list. Here's the way I view the world:
1) Life has no inherent value. Our being here is random, and there is no purpose to our lives.
2) "Human progress" is bullshit. We are no further along as a species now than we were in Plato's time. Basically, we're going nowhere fast.
3) People have no essential "rights." Rights don't exist. This is a theme often found in the work of many modern philosophers, such as Foucault.
5) Taking all three premises above, the only way I can find to evaluate what is right and what is wrong is "do what causes the least pain." I guess this is basically pragmatism. For example, if raising taxes to 95% would feed everyone in the world (I'm just speaking hypothetically), then I would advocate this, because this would lead to less pain in the world. (And I don't consider some people having to sell their Ferraris "pain." ;-) Someone here said that each time taxes are raised, we lose freedom. So what? First of all, what is "freedom"? Second of all, what is so great about it that it should be evaluated before everything else?
The best answer I can give to this is to suggest you read "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill. The theory you espouse in five, by the way, is utilitarianism though it is normally phrased in the positive "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" rather than the negative as you have expressed it.
I am fairly familar with utilitarian thought. My specific form of utilitarianism is act utilitarianism, which means that each individual action is evaulated, instead of using utilitarian ideas to form a complete system of moral thought. The reason why I use "the least pain for the greatest number" instead of "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" is because the latter justifies many not-so-great acts under act utilitarianism. Consider this example: There is going to be a Sado-Masachism (sp?) convention, which will be attended by 10,000 S&M-ers. They kidnap a poor person, bring him to their convention, and electrically shock him. This delights the crowd, but devastates the poor person. Under the common definition of utilitarianism, this act is justified because it pleasures 10,000, while hurting only 1. However, under my definition, this act is not justified because it creates a lot of pain, whereas not doing it does not create any pain.
It was originally formulated by a gentleman by the name of Jeremy Bentham, but is most associated with Mill who studied under Bentham and is responsible for a number of works on the subject. Mill is also most responsible for clarifying and revising it counter the easy arguments against it. Most interesting however for your interest, however, is "On Liberty" which clearly and concisely explains why the greatest happiness for the greatest number results from a society where government intervention (and thievery) is minimized and people are left to there own devices.
And I disagree with him. - -- Nathan Saper (natedog@well.com) | http://www.well.com/user/natedog/ GnuPG (ElGamal/DSA): 0x9AD0F382 | PGP 2.x (RSA): 0x386C4B91 Standard PGP & PGP/MIME OK | AOL Instant Messenger: linuxfu -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.4 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.5 and Gnu Privacy Guard <http://www.gnupg.org/> iD8DBQE593Mq2FWyBZrQ84IRAvwkAKCaEAI8fHh+q3ZyWPqUe8UTFdd0YQCfR5nc MXVzyvMqF/YoUWtx+QyDbig= =4ChW -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----