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From: charlie@cca.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Life as the basis of morality
Message-ID: <5073@cca.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 5-Jul-83 12:51:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: cca.5073
Posted: Tue Jul  5 12:51:45 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Jul-83 02:16:40 EDT
Lines: 28

I disagree with the "human life as the basis of good" argument in a
different way from most contributors.  I believe that there can be no
good in the absense of human-like life (a distinction for another
essay), but neither can there be evil.  Life is the medium in which the
distinction exists but is not shaded either way by itself.

I prefer to define good in terms of human happiness.  That which causes
people to be happy is good.  That which causes them to be unhappy is
bad.  That which has mixed effects is the subject of all interesting
problems.

This system has some interesting side effects.  To murder someone is not
to commit a crime against them.  The crime is against their survivors
(who suffer their loss) and society at large (who live in greater fear
that they may be murdered at any time).  The "victim" will not hold it
against you.  It means that in the abortion debate, I see no evil in the
loss of a fetus, but see plenty in the suffering it inflicts on the
"right to life" people.  If it happened in secret, it would lose
ill-effects.  Finally, if the arms race reached the point where the
entire human race could be destroyed in a single painless instant
(the death star?), I do not think it would be the ultimate disaster.
I would like to think the human race could do better, but I know it
could do worse.

I'm presenting my views here because I believe they truly are different
from those of most people.  As we discuss whether there can be
legitimate differences of opinion on moral issues, I thought a concrete
example of a foreign value basis might help.