In a message dated 12/3/02 2:51:15 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: << --- david friedman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: "My point is that moral worthiness isn't being predicated of the newborn infant or fertilized ovum but of the adult that it turned into. Whatever the reasons are that I am cruel and dishonest, cruel and dishonest people deserve to have bad things happen to them. That, at least, is a moral intuition that many people find convincing."
Well put. I'm not an existentialist, but I do agree to at least some extent that we make our own moral choices. My point is merely that, since some of who we become is the product of things outside of our control, even hard-hearted* policies should have a soft edge. -jsh >> Well let's say that it turns out that my poverty isn't due to my laziness and weakness, as my family always thought, and instead because I have obsessive compulsive disorder, manic depression (called "biploar disorder" by the politically correct these days), attention deficit disorder and a panic disorder (apparently there's more than one so I'm not sure which one I might have). We might all agree that I deserve better than what I've been able to manage for myself and that I didn't ask to be a bundle of mental illnesses. Now how does any of that give me the right to point a gun at you and force you to give me your money? Since I don't have that right myself, how could I possibly delegate it to the government to extort money from you on my behalf? It's certainly not your fault I'm a basket case. DBL
