On 16 Mar 2010, at 12:59, Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
On 16 March 2010 01:39, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote:
The problem is that "right" has no objective basis. It's like "good"
or "beauty": a concept made up by humans.
The concepts of moon, rock, galaxies, and numbers, are also made by
human,
but they may relate to things no done by humans.
Let me (try to) give you a definition of beauty. X is beautiful
relatively
to universal Y, if universal Y is attracted by X. X is very
beautiful if X
attracts a large class of universal Y. X is universally beautiful
if X
attracts all universal Y.
Good is a notion quite close to consciousness. We cannot define it,
but we
know it most clearly than anything else.
Most people are clear about what they find good, in the instant (as
opposed
to long term effect which makes things having both good and bad
aspects).
Subjective is true and undoubtable, but non definable, and non
communicable,
still less institutionalizable.
Good is related to the partial ability that universal machines to get
partial and local level of satisfaction, sometimes eventually based
on
universal goal (like "survive").
I tend to believe also in universal right. Although I doubt any
temporal
construction other than education, schools, academies, research
institutes,
can help to develop it. I would say that all universal machine
have, at
birth, the right to search happiness. It may be a moral duty to
share the
tools facilitating that search.
But people may disagree in aesthetic and ethical judgements while they
will all agree on some matter of fact. If you say "good" is defined
for a machine in terms of that which helps it attain a goal that is a
good operational definition but then the problem is only deferred
until we consider the goal. A goal of destroying all intelligent
entities other than oneself is a perfectly legitimate one; there is no
logical contradiction and no incompatibility with physical reality in
it..
In case such a destruction is needed to satisfy some universal goal
like surviving, then I can agree.
Particular good and bad can be in the beholder's eyes, yet good and
bad are lived as undoubtable or true, and can have objective roots in
computer science. Killing all the others may be contradictory on
epistemological levels or pragmatic one, etc. Self-destruction is
usually bad and related to relatively bad things, with respect of
universal goal (like surviving).
You obviously think that
public health care is morally wrong while others (probably most
people
in the world) think that the lack of public health care is morally
wrong. You could have a rational discussion about, say, the
efficiency
of public versus private health care, but with the core moral issue
you will reach an impasse, because your premises differ.
I may disagree. There is a quasi-universal reason for which health
should be
a public care, or at least a matter of making heathy people to
provide the
money. Why? Because if you don't force the healthy people to
provide money
to the medical system(s), then, it will be in the survival interest
of the
medical systems that there are as many unhealthy people as
possible. The
results will be like making efficacious and cheap medication
illegal, and
encourage, by making legal, medications which are inefficacious and
unhealthy.
You could argue that would be the case with many privately provided
services; a mechanic should not be motivated to fix your car, for
example. Despite this obvious bias, mechanics still fix cars because
(apart from honesty and professional standards) they will not get
repeat business if the cars they fix keep breaking down: their
competitors who do a better job get the business instead.
I agree with you. The point was not so the private/state opposition,
than the idea of making only the sick people to pay for their care. In
many country state medicine handle better social solidarity. But
private societies could do this too, in principle, but this leads
naturally to different kinds of care for the rich and the poor. The
same for education.
Now, the big pharmaceutical industry has no competitors, still less,
when politics intervenes and makes illegal alternative medications.
Here the private, due to monopole, is even worst than the states.
Politics should not been allow to take decision in many health matter.
It makes the state accomplice of the derailing of global health
decisions.
Universal health care may be a Löbian right. All beings capable of
suffering has the right to suffer the less possible, even when
respectfully eaten.
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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