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 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 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 > > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
