From: EWyatt794@aol.com
Date: Wed Jun 02 1999 - 16:43:30 MDT
In a message dated 6/2/99 6:36:14 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
joedees@bellsouth.net writes:
<< > Your personal
> feelings towards guns are irrelevant to the factual question. I think an
> analysis of the facts shows the anti-gun people to have, by far, the
> weaker case.
>
It is not a stark and bipolar choice between an absolute ban and
the absence of all restrictions. This is an illicit and absolutistic
straw-man argument which possesses not even a passing
acquaintance with the rational, reasonable, targeted and limited
proposals under discussion. >>
I don;t think that an "absolutistic" argument is necessarily a straw man. I
actually think that making it out to be one is a straw man, ironically.
There are those who have "absolutistic" moral principles, and this does not
make them irrational or unreasonable. Mabye the reason that this argument is
going nowhere is because you are arguing past each other. Differenet
moralities will give different answers to the same situation. If you keep
this argument so concrete ( " I'm right, obviously" " No, I'm right,
obviously"), you will get nowhere, obviously ; ).
Perhaps, if its not beyond the bounds of this list, we could try a respectful
debate on the foundations of transhuman ethics. Without these, any concrete
instance will be quite beyond any debate, much like differing epistemological
methods would keep the debate useless.
Any takers?
William
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