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From: flink@umcp-cs.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: Re: What is morality anyways?
Message-ID: <1239@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 14-Aug-85 20:15:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1239
Posted: Wed Aug 14 20:15:45 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Aug-85 23:43:34 EDT
References: <341@aero.UUCP> <27500096@ISM780B.UUCP>
Reply-To: flink@maryland.UUCP (Paul V. Torek)
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 37
Summary: I don't buy the relativist argument...

In article <27500096@ISM780B.UUCP> jim@ISM780B.UUCP writes:
>The very *meaning* of "should" is relative.  For any "should" statement,
>I can respond "Says who?".
>So back to the deeper question, what should I do from the point of view of
>my own benefit?  Well, it depends on how you define benefit.
>See, it is all relative.

Now you've gone too far.  Benefit isn't a matter of definition, it's a matter
of learning from experience.  Now, what benefits one person may harm the next
(in some cases), but the paradigmatic relativist idea -- that the answer 
depends on your attitudes -- is mistaken.  (Not entirely mistaken, since
one's attitudes influence what benefits one; but they are not the sole
determinants.)

As evidence for my position, I offer this experiment:  hold you hand in a
flame until it is consumed...  I don't think it matters what attitude you
have toward this event at the start.  You will be burned -- figuratively as
well as literally.

Now "morality", in the sense of what is right or wrong behavior toward
others, is a different (but not wholly unrelated) story.  It is not as simple
as the purely empirical test for individual benefit or harm.  But I'm not
ready to buy the relativist idea there either. 

>I think all personal moral systems are of the form
>		    if {I desire it}
>		    then OK
>		    else not OK

But, arguably, this gets the cart before the horse.  One desires something
because one thinks it OK, often (though some desires are stubbornly
independent of one's evaluations).  The point is, the reason that one's 
attitudes and evaluations agree is that one's attitudes are always influenced
by one's evaluations.  One's attitudes may also, in turn, influence one's
evaluations, but the connection in that direction is not as inevitable.  

--Paul V Torek, umcp-cs!flink