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Wayne et. al.<BR>
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Thanks for your friendly reply.<BR>
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"...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness:" fundamental "unalienable Rights!" I grew up with these words echoing passionately in my mind! How many Americans, and that means nearly every American, with almost all of us speaking these words at one time or another, deeply consider what these words mean?<BR>
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Wayne wrote:<BR>
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Without wishing to sound like a traitor, I think the statement at issue is neither true nor false, like its sometimes cited corollary: "That which governs least, governs best.</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3 PTSIZE=12 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><BR>
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</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=4 PTSIZE=14 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">Both statements are like the following statement:</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3 PTSIZE=12 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><BR>
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"The square root of a minus tush abdicates salt."</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3 PTSIZE=12 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><BR>
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All three statements are syntactically correct and sound like possibly true or false English statements. But because their meaning is so vague and ambiguous, it is not possible to determine their truth except by deducing them from other equally vague, ambiguous statements.<BR>
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Ted replies:<BR>
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But what happened to the fundamental concept of "unalienable Rights?" A statement containing this concept is not the same as "that which governs least governs best" nor "the square root of a minus tush abdicates salt." These statements do not attempt to confer upon all human beings fundamental universal rights. One merely expresses a theory about how much government is best, the other is nonsense, of course. A statement asserting unalienable Rights, like the famous quote from the Declaration of Independence I used to illustrate my point, does! I do not think this is a trivial difference. The statement quoted from the Declaration of Independence may be vague and ambiguous in some respects, but it certainly attempts to introduce "unalienable Rights."<BR>
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And furthermore, you also write:</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=3 PTSIZE=12 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0"><BR>
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I think it is possible to recast "</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" BACK="#99ccff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #99ccff" SIZE=2 PTSIZE=10 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness</FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" BACK="#ffffff" style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" SIZE=4 PTSIZE=14 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">"into a less dogmatic, more flexible series of statements which may be found to be heuristically true (or false) by observations in certain contexts. <BR>
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Ted replies:<BR>
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So if you think the statement from the Declaration of Independence I quoted can be recast into other statements that are true "in certain contexts," are you denying that there are "unalienable Rights" that apply to all human beings all the time?<BR>
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It would seem from your statement that this is indeed your conclusion, though you do not quite come out and say it plainly.<BR>
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I trust you realize the consequences of taking such a position? <BR>
If slavery is not wrong all the time for all people, how are we to argue against those who make relativistic arguments supporting slavery in some contexts, like Doug "Don't you progressives realize relativism means relativism?!" Wilson, who though trashing progressives for introducing moral chaos, himself introduces moral relativism regarding what some view as the "absolute" wrong of slavery, in his views on the Biblical ethical approach to the American South and the Confederacy.<BR>
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I do not believe that observation and testing alone will get us to any principles of Ethics with "unalienable Rights." Some kind of universal logical statements must be inserted somewhere into an Ethical system if it is to have any claim to "unalienable Rights." Introducing "God" into an Ethical system can solve the problem, which no doubt is part of the appeal of religion for many. It offers what appears to be a solid ground for "unalienable Rights." Of course this really does not solve the problems, because as you have pointed out over and over, and every fair observer perceives, there are countless "Gods" asserting a variety of conflicting moral rules, and the concept of "God" itself requires some sort of basis in observation and logical evaluation, unless you take the total "faith" approach to justify belief in God, the later approach introducing chaos into the system, because anything goes if you just rely ONLY on "faith." "I had "faith" the family dog was speaking in "God's" voice and told me to give all my money to the Moonies!"<BR>
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I think though that there are some commonalties among many spiritual traditions that do offer a starting point for attempting to develop a more universal Ethics based on these commonalties: ethical rules against murder, theft, lying, and an emphasis on "peace" as a value, etc., that many spiritual traditions emphasize. The devil is in the details though, so this approach has many pitfalls.<BR>
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I am inclined to disagree, if what I am asserting does disagree with your position, that there is no valid basis using facts and logical principles to develop an ethics that introduces "unalienable Rights" into an ethical system, rights which we apply all the time to all human beings in all contexts, not just "certain contexts," as you so cleverly put it.<BR>
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Consider the "hot" moral topic of torture. This debate is ongoing in public right now, because of the so called "War On Terror." Some side with use of torture to gain information to save the thousands of lives at stake in a terrorist attack, others say we become just as bad as the terrorists if we use their tactics, that the means in this case do not justify the ends, and that torture is an "absolute" moral wrong. Applying the ethical approach I assume you are taking, we could justify torture: no "unalienable Right" to happiness for all, which I think torture destroys, there.<BR>
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Indeed there are serious problems with using fact and reason to establish "unalienable Rights." And also with how we can include in Ethics spiritual issues that are fundamental for billions of human beings, without ending up at each others throats over conflicting "absolute" ethical "God given" rules, that end up justifying war against the nonbelievers, with war being a very undesirable result from many ethical viewpoints! <BR>
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I do think the concept of "unalienable Rights" very important. And I do not think it should be tossed aside without pausing for a long time to consider the consequences of what this means, pausing for a few thousand years, at least.<BR>
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This is wandering a bit off topic, but isn't it a joke that Bush with his grand moral convictions that never waver based on his religious faith, is heading a system of government that is using "morally relativistic" arguments to justify horrific torture of other human beings in prosecuting the "War On Terror," some of whom are certainly innocents caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, to fight "evil?"<BR>
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Ted Moffett<BR>
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