Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 Apollo 3/7/85; site apollo.uucp Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!bellcore!decvax!wanginst!apollo!dineen 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