From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Nov 21 2002 - 22:48:33 MST
gts asks
> >> To those who would argue that rights exist only in a
> >> legal sense, I ask, "Did blacks in America have an
> >> intrinsic right to be free before their emancipation?
> >
> > No, because there is no such thing.
>
> So then you would keep slaves in a country in which slavery is legal?
No, as I said quite clearly, I disapprove of slavery.
> If you disapprove of slavery (as I think you do, from your
> paragraph that followed)...
Okay. So what part of that didn't you understand!!???
> Is slavery not wrong even countries where it is still
> legal?"
I disapprove of slavery. Anything stronger that I have
been able to think of along those lines leads me into
bad metaphysics.
Was it the first sentence "I disapprove of slavery?"
Exactly why couldn't you have deduced from it that
I disapproved of slavery?
> ... then how can you deny that blacks had, *in your
> opinion*, a right to be free prior to their emancipation?
Because I don't think that there is such a thing as "a right".
That is just language to make "I disapprove" sound much
more forceful, and to be alluding to some God-inspired
or other objective moral system.
Think about it: you see someone stridently say "It is
MORALLY WRONG that x!"
What the hell does that mean? At most it could mean,
"I disapprove, and so do most societies with
which I am familiar, though not all, and most
people you respect would agree with me."
It cannot, via good epistemology, possibly mean anything
more. In fact, since it cannot, I usually find its use
somewhat dishonest.
Lee
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