From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Tue Jun 12 2001 - 00:57:09 MDT
J. Gourd wrote in the identity discussion
> The ethicist James Rachels has argued, from the premise that
> ethics must be grounded in reason, that any degree of egoism
> in a person's value system is inherently a deviation from
> ethics.
This may take us back to Bradbury's "Extropians Dilemma", which I
want to address. Sometimes, you gotta just do what's best for you.
> So if I want to justify the value of J. Goard eating today,
> I'd have to find a bunch of objective attributes about J.
> Goard that make him the guy to feed. The realization I've
> come to is that egoism is essentially a religious belief;
I guess so!
> I assert, not argue, against Rachels, that I care about
> things that are subjectively connected to I, not about
> objective attributes.
Yes indeed. I want to live even though the resources
could be better used by my betters. It's not a dilemma
for me, just an uncomfortable realization that I have
two separate value systems---which, thankfully, on most
issues overlap nicely.
Lee Corbin
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