User talk:JohnSharp

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Morality
??? Morality is the study of whether actions are right or wrong. Obviously you believe in this, or you would not be promoting a political philosophy, any one of which advocates a set of principles to determine which actions are right or wrong. If you believe people should not exploit one another, you believe in morality. If you believe capitalism should not exist, you believe in morality. And so on. Rights (in the moral sense) _are_ delineations of legitimacy of use; of course they're necessary. I'd like to know what definitions you're using. JohnSharp 16:09, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Morality is the study of what is right or wrong, but it is not an exclusive study, imho. While morality deals with such areas as virtue and doctrinal rules of conduct, I believe there are other areas of "right" and "wrong" that are distinct from this, despite some overlay.  For example, I do not believe that the study of utility is identical to that of morality, and thus one can find ways in which an action is "right" given its utility that it would nonetheless be "wrong" due to its morality.  I understand that some people in the liberal tradition follow in believing that morality and utility are one and the same, but this issue has been open to debate for a long time and it certainly doesn't appear to have yet been decided once and for all in my opinion.  Related to this there are levels of perspective, so that I might study utility for an individual (i.e. self-interest), or for a society.  Some theories hold that morality -is- utility for a society, while others believe that this is the realm of ethics and that ethics is distinct from morality.


 * As such there have been several philosophical positions that have held the denial of morality, or more specifically in my case the rejection of moral code, but nonetheless had a lot to say about human action. One such example would be the early nihilists, and some believe, for better or worse, that the nihilists share part of their tradition with the early anarchists.


 * In a similar sense "rights" have become somewhat muddled over time. There is a tendency amongst those advocating rights to conflate them with social standards, with conforming to an objective truth, or in being in accordance with a virtue derived from the supernatural.  As such I reject rights.  If, however, your definition of rights is more stripped down, like say being one and the same as legitimacy, then I would agree with you that there are right ways of doing things given certain goals and circumstances, but I generally would reject codified systems or mistakes that many people make in ascribe a "right" something of a life of its own separate from individual circumstances.  In particular the tendency to generate apriori arguments for "rights" is something I disagree with.


 * All of this is compatible with one or another set of standard dictionary definitions. We could refer to www.m-w.com if you'd like.


 * I appreciate your desire to talk on this subject. On the other hand, I'm not expecting to learn anything new here given my past experience.  As such, I would be greatful if you could drop the belligerent attitude you demonstrated on the anarcho-capitalism page, I don't have anything to prove to you and if you want to believe that I know nothing about this subject or fail to understand it you can go right ahead and believe that.  However, I won't feel like entertaining a discussion with someone who feels the need to insult me for taking the time to discuss something that is of no benefit to me.  Kev 17:54, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * First, I have to ask, why are you continuing this discussion on my page? Why not just leave it on your page?


 * Kev> Morality is the study of what is right or wrong, but it is not an exclusive study, imho. While morality deals with such areas as virtue and doctrinal rules of conduct, I believe there are other areas of "right" and "wrong" that are distinct from this, despite some overlay. For example, I do not believe that the study of utility is identical to that of morality, and thus one can find ways in which an action is "right" given its utility that it would nonetheless be "wrong" due to its morality. I understand that some people in the liberal tradition follow in believing that morality and utility are one and the same, but this issue has been open to debate for a long time and it certainly doesn't appear to have yet been decided once and for all in my opinion. Related to this there are levels of perspective, so that I might study utility for an individual (i.e. self-interest), or for a society. Some theories hold that morality -is- utility for a society, while others believe that this is the realm of ethics and that ethics is distinct from morality.


 * I don't see the relevance of your point about utility. No one claims it's "identical" to morality; rather, people make moral arguments justifying the position that what is utilitarian is moral. Morality is still, itself, the study of right and wrong, regardless of what other theories sometimes overlap with it.


 * Kev> As such there have been several philosophical positions that have held the denial of morality, or more specifically in my case the rejection of moral code, but nonetheless had a lot to say about human action. One such example would be the early nihilists, and some believe, for better or worse, that the nihilists share part of their tradition with the early anarchists.


 * Fine, but such people would not be able to voice a coherent objection to statism. You can't say "Capitalists shouldn't exploit workers" while holding that "'Should' is meaningless."


 * Kev> In a similar sense "rights" have become somewhat muddled over time. There is a tendency amongst those advocating rights to conflate them with social standards, with conforming to an objective truth, or in being in accordance with a virtue derived from the supernatural. As such I reject rights. If, however, your definition of rights is more stripped down, like say being one and the same as legitimacy, then I would agree with you that there are right ways of doing things given certain goals and circumstances, but I generally would reject codified systems or mistakes that many people make in ascribe a "right" something of a life of its own separate from individual circumstances. In particular the tendency to generate apriori arguments for "rights" is something I disagree with.
 * All of this is compatible with one or another set of standard dictionary definitions. We could refer to www.m-w.com if you'd like.


 * Your usage of "rights" might agree with one dictionary definition, but when you state flatly that you don't believe in rights, and you don't give any qualification or definition, one has to assume you're referring to all kinds. (That's why people refer to "legal" and "moral" rights.) As such, that position in nonsensical.


 * Kev> I appreciate your desire to talk on this subject. On the other hand, I'm not expecting to learn anything new here given my past experience. As such, I would be greatful if you could drop the belligerent attitude you demonstrated on the anarcho-capitalism page, I don't have anything to prove to you and if you want to believe that I know nothing about this subject or fail to understand it you can go right ahead and believe that. However, I won't feel like entertaining a discussion with someone who feels the need to insult me for taking the time to discuss something that is of no benefit to me.


 * I don't believe I showed any belligerence toward you that you did not show to others. (For example, you called someone a hypocrite without basis, you claimed that ancaps are liars because they don't really believe in pure entitlement theories, you called people trolls.) I'm willing to treat you as well as you treat others. JohnSharp 23:56, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)