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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (60452)	10/1/2002 11:07:55 AM
From: Lane3	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

We should not be aiming at what happens to please us, or cause us to avoid pain, but at what is right. If it were all a matter of "pleasure centers", we might as well hook ourselves up to a self- pleasuring machine and forget about the rest. If you think this is about "pleasure centers," you're entirely missing the point. I think that you are so wrapped up in your own paradigm that you are not seeing that there is another legitimate way of looking at this. It may be more or less apt than your own. That is debatable. But you're not debating the merits of it, you're simply not seeing the alternative. You and I have talked many times about how people optimally operate in a civilized society. We are much in agreement about the bottom line--our values and behaviors are quite similar. But we get there from two different directions. You're very wrapped up in this traditional approach, one with justice and punishment and retribution and apologies, quite alien notions to me. Yours may be the traditional way and it may be your way and that's just fine, but it isn't the only way. You never did answer Chris's question about why an apology is owed. You merely describe to him over and over what apologies are about within your paradigm as though it were a given. It may be the default, but it is not the only approach and most certainly not a given.

To: Neocon who wrote (60452)	10/1/2002 12:31:02 PM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 82486

We should not be aiming at what happens to please us, or cause us to avoid pain, but at what is right. Ah, but whas IS right?? That becomes the key question. With, of course, why. I think you take too narrow a view of "please us" and "avoid pain." I may very well accept pain when I think it is in my best interests, for a variety of reasons. I recall once playing soccer in sneakers, dumb move but it was a pick-up game and I didn't have my soccer shoes, and breaking my toe when I cleared a ball and on my follow-through rammed the opponent's shinguard. It hurt horribly, but I kept on playing, hoping the pain would subside since I didn't then know whether it was broken or only bruised. I have never analyzed the reasons why I kept playing, but I think it was because I was still enjoying myself despite the pain, because I wanted to prove to myself that pain couldn't stop me (I was young and virile at the time, unlike today), and probably for lots of other reasons, all based ultimtely on self-interest. Going to the doctor or dentist is another good example, and was an even better example before anisthetics -- undergoing significant pain for the hope of long-term benefit. So it's not just a matter of pleasure centers. And as we both know from raising children, we often do things to benefit our children which we otherwise wouldn't consider doing, and which make us defer or eliminate the possibility of doing other things we would like to do. But in the end, I do agree with Rand, that what pleases us in the comprehensive sense of that term as she uses the word selfish IS what's right. There is no rightness that isn't justifiable by self-interest.