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From: dineen@apollo.uucp (Terence H Dineen)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: (re: To Terry Dineen) and (re: Re: To Terry Dineen)
Message-ID: <2530f327.264c@apollo.uucp>
Date: Thu, 7-Mar-85 22:45:46 EST
Article-I.D.: apollo.2530f327.264c
Posted: Thu Mar  7 22:45:46 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 10-Mar-85 06:36:12 EST
Organization: Apollo Computer, Chelmsford, Mass.
Lines: 54

What's with the ad hominem subject line?

Arndt:
> 
> Don't look now but I think you have made a nonsense statement!!!
>
> "Might does not make right because there is no 'right'; . . ."
> 
>        Er, . . . isn't THAT statement a statement of what is RIGHT???
> I mean you would disagree, based upon the sentiments above that 'might
> makes right because there is a 'right', wouldn't you?

Lichtman gives a good answer: 
> I think you are confusing two meanings of "right", one being "factually correct"
> and the other being "morally correct".  I think that the original statement
> meant that there is no objective morality, not that there is no such thing as
> a fact.

Arndt:
> How do you KNOW that there is no 'right'????

Just a feeling I have.  I can't figure out what it means (practically) to say
things like: "X is right" or "Y's have these rights".  Some say that men have
an inalienable right to life; however men are alienated from their lives all the
time: death squads, electric chairs.  Where'd their "rights" go?

Lichtman again:
> My objection to this statement is that "might makes right" isn't a statement
> of fact, but rather a commentary on how power is abused.  The average person is
> forced to follow the moral codes of the powerful (whoever that happens to be).
> So might can make right (the accepted standards of behavior) even if there is
> no objective "right".

I agree in a sense; though I have trouble with the value judgment implied by the 
word "abused", the phrase does capture the some of the tragedy of our situation.
  
more Arndt:
> As for the rest of the sentence "governments are natural phenomena - they
> arise quite independently of moral philosophy.", it is breathtaking to say
> the least.  What was the Declaration of Independence?????  If not an appeal
> to moral philosophy!!  Do you really think that governments spring up as
> natural phenomena like mushrooms??  Surely a new school of historiography!
     
I don't think that the Declaration of Independence brought the government
of the United States into being.  I do think human beings have an innate
disposition to form governments (broadly construed) and that that is why 
governments exist, fundamentally.

What's historiography?

-- terry dineen
--

Terry Dineen   UUCP:  ...{yale,uw-beaver,decvax!wanginst}!apollo!rps