Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 8/23/84; site ucbcad.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ucbvax!ucbcad!faustus
From: faustus@ucbcad.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Re: Politics, morals and nukes
Message-ID: <2730@ucbcad.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 8-Oct-84 21:15:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbcad.2730
Posted: Mon Oct  8 21:15:11 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 10-Oct-84 06:00:38 EDT
References: <394@wucs.UUCP> <90@whuxk.UUCP>
Organization: UC Berkeley CAD Group, Berkeley, CA
Lines: 33

> The key distinction there is between moral issues
> which involve each individual's own choice of lifestyle and proper
> behavior versus moral issues which involve society in general.

> But issues such as nuclear war are eminently public--we are talking not
> just about the American public but the future of the whole human race.
> If that is not a moral issue, I don't know what is.

You are missing a few important points -- morals are SUBJECTIVE. That
means that there can be no such thing as "public" moral issues that
the government should be dictating to us. I am thinking of things like
abortion and religon when I use the term. Nuclear war, however, is not
a moral issue, because whether somebody wants to destroy the human
race is not a relativistic thing. It is something that no sane person
would want to do, and thus is beyond the moral level, it is a basic fact
of human psychology. Calling it a moral issue just confuses it with
the Moral Majority and what they call "moral" issues.

> I think on that basis I would consider the Reagan administrations plans
> to fight a protracted nuclear war immoral. There is no justification that I
> can see for implementing a system to allow nuclear war to be fought for
> weeks, months or years after an initial allout nuclear exchange--
> if there is ANY chance for human survival we should not jeopardize it
> by continuing to lob nukes at the other side for sheer vengeance sake!
> Tim Sevener

You don't think very clearly, do you?  Nuclear weapons aren't made so
that we can USE them, they're made because we DON'T WANT to use them.
(Now, think about that a bit...) If you believe that Reagan really
wants to fight a nuclear war, you must not be making much of an effort
to understand the factors really at work in international politics.

	Wayne