Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!sdcsvax!sdccsu3!ma187er From: ma187er@sdccsu3.UUCP Newsgroups: net.philosophy Subject: Re: absolute value systems Message-ID: <743@sdccsu3.UUCP> Date: Mon, 13-Jun-83 02:32:18 EDT Article-I.D.: sdccsu3.743 Posted: Mon Jun 13 02:32:18 1983 Date-Received: Tue, 14-Jun-83 04:59:13 EDT References: amd70.2421 Lines: 33 It is not nessecarily true that ALL value systems are subjective. There are certain values that we all have as a human animal in the company of other human animals. It's a very bad idea to have a value system that dictates that you should kill people you don't like as animals with such traits are lousy survival risks and will eventually die out. So some values are ingrained in us at an early age, because they must be universally obeyed by all members of the group for the group as a whole to survive. In fact, if you look at the ten commandments carefully, you will find that many of them are pretty basic rules that all homo sapiens must follow to form a cohesive group that is a good survival risk. (Note that this is not meant to be a plug for religion- I'm personally an agnostic.) Good ole Darwin made a wonderful point when he hypothesized that Man had developed a brain to make him the most versatile animal and thus the best survival risk, because we used our brains to come up with a set of rules by which to live that made us the best survival risk. The rules aren't quite hard-wired in, and so we can change them if we need to. However, some of these are very basic and are followed or obeyed by all rational members of society- like the universal value that murder is wrong. Ah well, I shall stop here and let you all flame me for what I said wrong. Not afraid to take the definition of "value" into my own hands, Jack of Shadows.