Brent,
now that Wei Dai reincarnated me to the list, I hurry to agree with you
(almost).
Good/bad is not only a personal Whahooh (Yahoo??) but it is a culture
related (changeable) set of value-judgments.
*
Re: capital punishment:
1. it is not a punishment because after the fact the punished has no way to
be sorry or to improve.
2. punishing is a vengeance-related hypocritical self-aggrandisement
assigned to gods and god-like feelings in humans.
3. I agree to discontinue the existence of individuals who are incapable to
keep up with the prudent societal living (even by execution) - not as a
punishment, but as the self defense of society. Long term incarceration has
the danger of a jail brake turning the incorrigible also loose. Emotions in
sentencing would degrade the punisher to the level of the murderer.
(4: I do not condone the right of politicians to authorize killing
(exception: self defense against a murderous intruder) so I do not celebrate
war heroes of wars initiated for political purposes. - but this is beyond
the subject).
John M
On 12/16/06, Brent Meeker <meekerdb.domain.name.hidden> wrote:
>
>
> Bruno Marchal wrote:
> >
> > Le 16-déc.-06, à 03:49, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :
> >
> >>
> >> Bruno Marchal writes:
> >>
> >>> Le 15-déc.-06, à 02:04, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :
> ...
> >>>> We could look at a particular incident where capital punishment was
> >>>> proposed, let's say
> >>>> for murder. Everyone might agree on the facts of the crime and the
> >>>> effects of executing
> >>>> the perpetrator, but still strongly disagree about whether it is
> >>>> right
> >>>> or wrong. So of course
> >>>> the capital punishment debate does involve rational discussion and
> >>>> maybe some people will
> >>>> switch sides if appropriate evidence is presented, but in the end you
> >>>> will have a situation
> >>>> where there is just disagreement on an axiom.
> >>> Again this shows that good/bad is not different from true/false, even
> >>> just in arithmetic.
> >> Why is the consensus on arithmetic so much greater than the consensus
> >> on ethics
> >> and aesthetics?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Because ethics and aesthetics modalities are of an higher order than
> > arithmetic which can be considered as deeper and/or simpler.
> > Classical arithmetical truth obeys classical logic which is the most
> > efficient for describing platonia. Good and bad is related with the
> > infinite self mirroring of an infinity of universal machines: it is
> > infinitely more tricky, and in particular neither classical ethics nor
> > aesthetics should be expected to follow classical logic.
>
> That seems unnecessarily complicated. Good and bad at the personal
> "Whahooh!" and "Ouch!" are easily explained as consequences of evolution and
> natural selection.
>
> Brent Meeker
>
>
>
>
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Received on Sat Dec 16 2006 - 17:56:20 PST