From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Sat 26 Oct 2002 - 18:49:56 GMT
----- Original Message -----
From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
> There is still a dialectic going on between similarity and difference, so
> that individuals may be considered tokens of the human type. People
> are not so different from each other as to be nonrelational; they still
> resemble each other more than they do stars, or cabbages, or
> monkeys. People are recognizably people. And our rights and wrongs
> are similar, simply because we all share this common world (each of us
> knowing some but nowhere near all of the others with which we share
> it), and a common self-conscious-yet-spatiotemporally-finite, social and-
> language-bearing existence within that world. Our common humanity
> and our commom situation frames our context and discourse.
> That's why, extenuating circumstances aside, murder is wrong, theft is
> wrong, dishonesty is wrong, rape and molestation are wrong.
Hi Joe,
A little bit late I suppose, but I hope you don 't mind,
To the above I wish to comment as follows,
I see what you try to say here, but IMO all is due to some agreement
upon a social/ cultural level. It has to be that way to form a society,
to have some humanity, to have a context and discourse I agree.
But I don 't agree up to the point that murder etc is ' wrong ' !
Don 't misunderstand me, I have a reason for saying that...
We do understand a lot about how people act, behave and react.
Changing that, thus ' changing ' people by letting them follow
rules, which in most part disminish genetic and memetic charac-
teristics is ' wrong ' in my book.
Someone who murders another, the one who steals, the one
who is dishonest have his or her reasons, whatever they are.
The point I am trying to make is that within those extenuating
circumstances we have to draw some ' understanding- lines '
to comprehend the reasons.
Now, like Fukuyama writes, that we know thanks to the
genetics, ethology and sociobiology what makes a man
tic in some way, biotechnology is running away with the goodies !
They gonna try to ' change ' us !
If we indulge ourselves into techological changing the
characteristics of the human being, and thus limiting his
natural restrictions we' re wrong !
There is currently showing a movie here called the Minority
Report in which a society is portrayed wherein murderers
are filtered out in advance, thus before they commit the crime.
Do think that is ' right ' !?
Regards,
Kenneth
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