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Pastimes : Don't Ask Rambi -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JF Quinnelly who wrote (26177)	5/28/1999 8:10:00 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71178

I would say that the best argument in favor of ethical behavior is that it works. Society functions best, most efficiently, most orderly, when we all behave ethically. I think the recent demise of the Soviet system is a good example of the unworkability of an unethical society. People act best when they are acting in their own self-interest, balanced against the self-interest of others. In the short run, government by force in favor of the few may maximize those few individuals' interests, but everyone else is going to do their best to kill them, and otherwise subvert the status quo. At the minimum, their efforts will be grudging, and inefficient. It's inherently unstable. I think our own country is a good example of a society that doesn't need God or morality to function. Our system of law and government does not require either God or morality, you know. What behavior isn't addressed or controlled by law is addressed or controlled by social norms.

To: JF Quinnelly who wrote (26177)	5/28/1999 2:13:00 PM
From: Jacques Chitte	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71178

I took a moment to read Cobalt's reply and I'd like to extend it. Instead of trying to float "morality just is" as a sufficient ontology, perhaps it can be used as a recognizedly temporary fallback. The source or nature of morality is much less important to me than its shape, its operational parameters. "Why is it right?" is a tougher, more theism-affine question than simply "Is it right?" In between falls the Engineer's Question "How or within what boundaries is it right?" It is perhaps most pleasing to work ethical questions out from a guiding set of first principles. For this reason people will be forever (?) drawn to religion or myth to receive a blueprint of the underlying principles of morality. A set of axioms from which the finer points can be rationally or near-rationally derived. I'm suggesting "maybe it isn't that simple". I'm not in a position to prove such a supposition - of course. My inmost prejudice is that our morality, our spirit, our God-awareness are all consequences of, and completely contained within, our material(and energetic) composition. I can't prove this either, but so far it rings true to me. By energy I mean the mundane physical quantity. Something measurable on a dial. Not the appropriation of the term by modern spiritists and "new agers" to grant a tinge of scientific cachet to their concept of spirit-force.