From: James Ganong (JGanong@webtv.net)
Date: Mon Jan 11 1999 - 03:30:46 MST
>If you believe that morality is subjective then >you can justify
anything at all - genocide, >murder, anything!
wrote Mr Donaghe.
This is precisely the case throughout history.
Do you think most otherwise normal (I won't say
rational or civilized) people would actually go out & commit these acts
if they were not justified in their own minds (& when does anyone need
more than that, especially if the get to write the history books?).
Most people do not think of themselves as the Bad Guy.
Morality & ethics are as subjective as love, honor & justice; they are
only real insofar as we believe in them & work to make them real. There
is no moral calculus or physics or chemistry, nor can there be any moral
law to be considered in the same class as physical laws,
unless one refers to some Ultimate Creator,
some Jehovallah or Urizen Who has set down
The One True Way (TM).
I believe that rape, murder & genocide are wrong, but I cannot point to
some Book & demand that sinners repent. At best I can point to economic
analyses that show these things to be inefficient, but what are the odds
that a rapist/murderer/genocide will be moved by such? I can only work
to make a world where they are wrong because *we make it so*, just as we
work to make our Transhuman/Extropian
goals real.
We have chosen to make our own worlds, so we are responsible for them.
To call something Evil 'just because' is to fall into the blind faith
mentalities we seek to overcome. It's not EVIL,
it is something we *choose* not to allow, for whatever reason; but
please let's not appeal to some Moral Absolute, because there are none
save what we have made.
"There is no Justice; there's just us."
T. Pratchett
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