Fascinating and wonderful... a worthy discussion for sure.

quote:

"It is enough to dismiss Singer outright as a dangerous creep to know that he thinks the United Nations" (Peter Hume)

Pete....I'd happily 'dismiss' him if he was a nobody who cannot effect the tone or content of our education system. UNfortunately..that ain't the case. As I pointed out earlier..he is a high powered, high profile 'world recognized' academic who specializes in "APPLIED" ethics and is on a reference board thingy of Melbourne University..our top uni.

*THAT* is great cause for worry on my side of things.

LEXI.. you ask 'what was the point' of the thread ?

2 points

1/ GET RID OF SINGER.... from Melbourne Uni (and Monash).. (after exposing his tolerant approach to debased immorality.. bestiality and incest) Note..this is a personal opinion and is a 'political statement'.

2/ To attempt to show that an evolutionary foundation for ethics is flawed or inadequate....as it leads to potential racism, slavery and all kinds of stuff.

3/ By contrast.. to show by both Genetics and Theology, that the true equality of man can only be validated if we all come from one ancestor.

Which leads to the need to further discuss Peters point..about obvious 'inequality' as a fact.

Ok.. Peter.. yes.. not all people are intellectually or physically equal.. this is based on individual traits and also race. e.g. Asians are not generally equal to Caucasians in contact sports. Caucasians are probably at a disadvantage in contact sports when playing hulking Islanders. All are at a disadvantage when long distance running is involved compared to say Ethiopians.

But the 'equality' I am speaking of and striving to bring out here....is 'positional or ethical' not physical.

I believe the theological affirmation is more likely to produce this result than the naturalistic.

“How and who is using violence/threats/force?”

Anyone initiating aggression is using violence/threats/force. Government, whether democratic or not, involves a claim of a legal monopoly of the right to initiate aggression. It is in the nature of the state. Policy means police-y. It means what police are to enforce – with tasers, handcuffs, guns and cages. This is the ultimate import of Singer’s “applied ethics”. It means he to pontificate, the legislature to enact, and the police to enforce.

So we need an ethic to distinguish the justified, from the unjustified use of force.

“All are responsible for their own actions…”

However the ethic of the welfare state is the reverse: “You are responsible for everyone but yourself.”

Al
As I have shown, evolutionary theory cannot be blamed for the errors of racists and bigots who illogically believe that such theory supplies their chauvinist values. The fact that the stronger kill the weaker does not mean the stronger should kill the weaker.

“to show by both Genetics and Theology, that the true equality of man can only be validated if we all come from one ancestor.”

I have shown reason why that proposition is not, and in the nature of man, cannot be true. You have not shown any reason to refute my argument or prove yours.

Can’t you prove the ethical equality of man as follows?:

It is self-evident that:
1. Man is a social animal
2. Society requires ethical rules
3. Ethical rules, to be ethical, must be universally and equally applicable, else they are a double standard, a prescription for privilege and exploitation, and not ethical
4. Because of their factual differences, humans cannot be made equal, nor afforded equal opportunity
5. It is not ethical to attempt to force something that is impossible
6. The only universally and equally applicable ethic possible is the ethic if liberty: you have a right to do what you want with your person or property so long as this does not infringe the equal right of others to the same freedom.

4. Because of their factual differences, humans cannot be made equal, nor afforded equal opportunity
5. It is not ethical to attempt to force something that is impossible
6. The only universally and equally applicable ethic possible is the ethic if liberty: you have a right to do what you want with your person or property so long as this does not infringe the equal right of others to the same freedom.

I would argue that Peter Humes' last three points are to a degree self contradictory.

I agree that human beings are not born equal or with equal potential but each society has an obligation to ensure that every child born has the opportunity to have their potential fully developed. Our present education system does not do that mainly as a consequence of John Howard's (and now Julia's) subsidies to well off schools attended by mainly the children of well off parents.

Helping children develop their own ethics by discussion of open ended questions for one hour per week of school time will improve each student's cognitive abilities by 6-7%, improve their behaviour significantly and benefit them, their future partners and their offspring forever.

That is intervention and causing change! And it is for the better of society.

I quoted Ardrey in an earlier comment. I would add another statement by the same author mainly to show that Darwinian evolution is as proven as the theory of gravity. I suggest that the god supporters also read the 24 separate lines of evidence that australopithicus africanus, a forefather of the homo line hunted for a living using tools (arms).
(continued)

"Toward the close of African Genesis I wrote:
Had man been born of a fallen angel, then the contemporary predicament would lie as far beyond solution as it would lie beyond explanation. Our wars and our atrocities, our crimes and our quarrels, our tyrannies and our injustices could be ascribed to nothing other than singular human achievement. And we should be left with a clear-cut portrait of man as a degenerate being endowed at birth with virtue's treasury whose only notable talent had been to squander it. But we were born of risen apes, not fallen angels, and the apes were armed killers besides. And so what shall we wonder at? Our murders and massacres and missiles, and our irreconcilable regiments? Or our treaties whatever they may be worth; our symphonies however seldom they may be played; our peaceful acres however frequently they may be converted into battlefields; our dreams however rarely they may be accomplished? The miracle of man is not how far he has sunk but how magnificently he has risen. We are known among the stars by our poems, not our corpses.
Much has happened in the sciences since I published those lines, for it has been a time of discovery and controversy. Just as in the time of Darwin himself, the evolutionist has been drawn, quartered, boiled in oil, burned at blithe stakes. We are pessimists; we endanger the human future. Yet I can today no more discover pessimism in those lines than I could when I wrote them in 1961.
Man is a marvel—yet not so marvelous as to demand miraculous explanation. Man is a mystery transcending all our arithmetic, and will remain so, I have little doubt, whatever the revelations of our future sciences".
Robert Ardrey, The Hunting Hypoptheseis, 1976, Chpt1, p6, Atheneum edn

FOYLE... interesting point:

//I agree that human beings are not born equal or with equal potential but each society has an obligation to ensure that every child born has the opportunity to have their POTENTIAL fully developed.//

For Peters sake also.. foyle is arguing 2 things there.. I feel.

1/ 'physical/intellectual' equality...(capability)
2/ Equality in 'standing'. (potential)

Peter.. the argument I'm making is that we have equal 'standing' before God. Notice how Foyle points out some apparently self contradictory aspects to your last few points?

In any case.. the viability of such a system of ethics as you've outlined depends primarily on good will.

But well know.. that the real world depends more on brute force/raw power to enforce even the framework in which a given system of ethics operates. Hence your observation "Police-y".

All these systems of ethics, are nice in themselves, but due to the fundamental human drives of: (again :)

1-Self preservation
2-Self propogation
3-Self gratification

We find them impossible to exist in the whole world.

As soon as one family or clan becomes large enough to be a threat to another.. conflict (even pre-emptive) breaks out.

It does come back to resources and the 'pleasure' principle or 3 above. Thinking males who are agressive.. tend to like the idea of a bit of a harem.. (ask Solomon :) and the barrier to that is 'other males' So...'ethics' simply does not enter into it. It's more primal and instinctual.

SOLOMON (Ecclesiasties 1: 12

I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the heavens.

Step 1 2:1 I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.”

... see next post please/

...continued/

This is how Solomon put that pleasure principle into practice:

4 I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. 5 I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. 8 I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem[a] as well—the delights of a man’s heart. 9 I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.

BUT WAIT....there's more!

10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired;
I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor,
and this was the reward for all my toil.
11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done
and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind;
nothing was gained under the sun

Oops... what a change! (last few verses) *meaningless*

You would need to read the whole of Ecclesiastes to know his conclusions.. but the point I'm making is that 'these' principles are also at work among us... so our 'ethics' is often subject to more carnal intent.

Peter's idea of complete freedom is nice in theory, but who will 'enforce' the 'no harm'idea ?