On Sat, 11 Apr 2015 07:19:30 AM Rohan McLeod wrote:
Russell Coker wrote:
On Sat, 11 Apr 2015, Rohan McLeod <rhn@jeack.com.au> wrote:
Lev Lafayette wrote:
On Sat, April 11, 2015 12:47 pm, Andrew McGlashan wrote: Are yes ; political philosophy on luv-talk,
none of this namby pamby comparison of theories , standpoints and values;
good and evil are alive and well and
truth will prevail !
Truth does actually exist.
Well I would allow scientific theories are objectively falsifiable; perhaps phenomenological theories are phenomenologically falsifiable eg. someone suggests a certain meditational system will have a subjectively observable effect; perhaps even mathematical theorems as hypothetical conclusions in a certain axiom system.; are hypthetically falsifiable. eg one can actually check the sum of the angles of a Euclidean triangle sum to 180 deg ; providing the triangle is not too large. But I can't imagine what would be intended by "falsifying' a value statement
http://thelibertarianrepublic.com/baby-found-starved-nearly-death-lazy- parents-video/ Value statements can be logically deduced from other value statements. It's generally agreed that murder is wrong, even Rothbard agrees with that. Therefore it logically follows that starving people to death is also wrong, and the majority of people who identify as libertarian seem to agree given the comments on the above article.
Many political ideas really are evil.
Philosophers agree to disagree about a great many things; the nature and existence of good and evil are high on the list. Some (ethical realists) would agree an act is evil in the same way an apple is red; others that good and evil are of the nature of existential (aka non-contingent) choices eg Hamlet "....nothing's ether good or bad but thinking makes it so .."
Given that we agree that killing people is wrong then defining "evil" as killing lots of people seems reasonable. Government policies can result in the death of many people. Consider the invasion of Iraq or the US medical insurance system that the Republican party supports.
I reject
the idea of "standpoints",
Personally by 'standpoint' I intend: " A situation where a number of approaches or points of view are possible ; but only one is chosen" eg from the "standpoint" of an elephant, a lion is a small animal; from the standpoint of a mouse, a lion is a large animal eg, from the stand point of a front view the elephant will look quite different from a side view;
We went through that on this very list some time ago. Someone claimed that the government debt is "large" as an excuse to cut services. When it was pointed out that our government debt is small when compared to other countries they just ignored that and basically claimed that all government debt is large - which means that large government debt is not a reason for any particular policy. To have a conversation, discussion, or debate you need to have words that have a meaning. It's impossible to have a discussion with someone who like Humpty Dumpty makes up their own meanings for words and changes the meanings retrospectively.
anyone who's argument is "I'm entitled to my opinion" has just conceded the fact that their argument is not sustainable.
I'm not a huge fan of arguement and debate; mostly it just seems to establish who is the best debater. Enquiry seems to me to be poorly served by attempts to justify or disqualify a conclusion; particularly when there is some emotional attachment or aversion to it.
I read an article claiming that a trend in the 80's and 90's of teaching fundamentalist Christian kids debating skills with the aim of making them effective evangelists resulted in many of them becoming atheists. They were taught the skills to recognise the flaws in their own arguments. But in the debates here the main issue is whether people are actually prepared to do any research. We discuss libertarianism (which in the most common modern use of the word refers to the work of Murray Rothbard) so I spent some time reading his actual articles and articles written by his fans and summarised them. Anyone who believes that I have misrepresented libertarianism is free to read Rothbard's articles and do google searches for related articles to try and prove me wrong. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/