[94] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: Objectivist morals (was RE: LIVING WAGE SIT-IN AT HARVARD (fwd) )
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ray Jones)
Fri Apr 20 10:39:59 2001
To: "Josiah D. Seale" <jdseale@MIT.EDU>
Cc: "Prez H. Cannady" <revprez@MIT.EDU>, <mit-talk@MIT.EDU>,
"Ray Jones" <rjones@pobox.com>
From: Ray Jones <rjones@pobox.com>
In-Reply-To: "Josiah D. Seale"'s message of "Fri, 20 Apr 2001 10:09:11 -0400"
Date: 20 Apr 2001 10:39:35 -0400
Message-ID: <ppw3db3prdk.fsf@PIXIE.MIT.EDU>
"Josiah D. Seale" <jdseale@MIT.EDU> writes:
> a) The moral contracts exist because without them society breaks down
>
> b) Without a higher being, there is no "purely objective" reason to follow
> morals beyond your own convenience.
>
> b')Without a higher being, the alleged "instilled morals" come from the
> self-same evolutionary patterns that came up with social contracts (and I
> should only follow them if doing so helps me in the Darwinian race.)
This statement can be adjusted and applied to theism almost as
effectively. A theist should only follow moral precepts set down by
their flavor-of-the-millenium as far as it helps them achieve
happiness in life and/or afterlife, assuming they believe in one.
The problem is that people are so fucking bad at discerning the actual
metaphysical rules that apply to the world. This is obvious if you
consider the largest group that holds a single set of beliefs, subject
to a reasonable window of variance. Let's assume that this largest
group (which is some small fraction of the entire human population) is
also the one whose beliefs are most correct. That means that everyone
else is basically fucked. They've got it wrong, some by a little,
some by a lot. You'd expect a little humility in believers, since in
the giant crapshoot of life, they're most likely losing. [*]
This is why I'm an agnostic. It's not like I could possibly be that
much more wrong than your average theist.
Ray Jones
[*] This paragraph is a paraphrase of a famous quote which I can't
find right now.
