>Well, now we have established that you have feelings called "empathy" or
>"sympathy" which you CHOOSE to honor. And that's wonderful. It makes you safe
>to be around.
>
>HOWEVER, that does not prove that anyone else SHOULD act this way. Someone
>might just as easily CHOOSE to INFLICT hurt because he CHOOSES NOT to honor
>sympathy. And as your argument stands now, you are powerless to tell him he is
>wrong. Imagine the criminal with the shotgun about to blow away the 7-11 guy.
>Don't do it! we might yell. It would "hurt" the poor guy. Kill him in fact.
>But the guy with the gun looks at us and says, "So?" And if he went to any
>current, fashionable college he might continue, "Life is material only. I'm
>not accountable to anybody. We all die, and that's it. So I don't care what
>you or anybody else 'feels.' I'm gonna blow away this guy because I can get
>the money, and that will make ME feel good. And that's all I care about."
Society can (and I hope _will_) punish the gunman in the 7-11. But what is
the basis for that punishment? Essentially it's "1) we, collectively,
consider this conduct reprehensible; and 2) we have the _power_ to punish
this individual"
1) is probably about the best a secular government can do to establish
moral authority (and I'm not recommending a theocratic government. I would
be happier with more cordial relations between the government and all
religions, so that a government official would not feel he was violating
the constitution if he asked theologians for their views on proposed
legislation). But the possibility for drift in what society collectively
recognizes as right, plus 2) gives me pause. Government has coercive
power. I personally would feel far safer knowing there were absolute
standards limiting how the coercive power of government could be used.
Then there was this:
>And if he went to any
>current, fashionable college he might continue, "Life is material only. I'm
>not accountable to anybody. We all die, and that's it. So I don't care what
>you or anybody else 'feels.' I'm gonna blow away this guy because I can get
>the money, and that will make ME feel good. And that's all I care about."
I wonder, Jim, if you aren't ascribing an unrealistic level of intellectual
justification activity to the murderer. All that's needed to bring about a
murder is a sufficient degree of selfishness, a sufficient lack of moral
and/or physical restraints, and the physical means. While people debate in
academic settings whether evolution says human life is without worth, I
don't believe most criminals incorporate it into their thinking.
"Justification is for academic wimps," they would probably say.
Bill Hamilton
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William E. Hamilton, Jr, Ph.D. | Staff Research Engineer
Chassis and Vehicle Systems | General Motors R&D Center | Warren, MI
William_E._Hamilton@notes.gmr.com
810 986 1474 (voice) | 810 986 3003 (FAX) | whamilto@mich.com (home email)