Le 24-déc.-06, à 09:17, Stathis Papaioannou a écrit :
Brent Meeker writes:
>> If your species doesn't define as unethical that which is contrary
to >> continuation of the species, your species won't be around to
long. >> Our problem is that cultural evolution has been so rapid
compared to >> biological evolution that some of our hardwired values
are not so good >> for continuation of our (and many other) species.
I don't think >> ethics is a matter of definitions; that's like
trying to fly by >> settling on a definition of "airplane". But
looking at the long run >> survival of the species might produce some
good ethical rules; >> particularly if we could predict the future
consequences clearly.
> > If slavery could be scientifically shown to promote the
well-being of > the species as a whole does that mean we should have
slavery? Does it > mean that slavery is good?
Note that I didn't say "promote the well-being"; I said "contrary to
the continuation". If the species could not continue without
slavery, then there are two possible futures. In one of them there's
a species that thinks slavery is OK - in the other there is no
opinion on the subject.
OK, but it is possible to have an ethical system contrary to the
continuation of the species as well. There are probably peopel in the
world today who think that humans should deliberately stop breeding
and die out because their continued existence is detrimental to the
survival of other species on the planet. If you point out to them that
such a policy is contrary to evolution (if "contrary to evolution" is
possible) or whatever, they might agree with you, but still insist
that quietly dying out is the good and noble thing to do. They have
certain values with a certain end in mind, and their ethical system is
perfectly reasonable in that context. That most of us consider it
foolish and do not want to adopt it does not mean that there is a flaw
in the logic or in the empirical facts.
Words like "irrational" are sometimes used imprecisely. Someone who
decides to jump off a tall building might be called irrational on the
basis of that information alone. If he does it because he believes he
is superman and able to fly then he is irrational: he is not superman
and he will punge to his death. If he does it because he wants to kill
himself then he is not irrational, because jumping off a tall enough
building is a perfectly reasonable means towards this end.
Unless Quantum Mechanics is correct.
Unless the comp hyp. is correct. (OK this does not invalidate per se
your argumentation).
We might try equally hard in each case to dissuade him from jumping,
but the approach would be different because the underlying thought
processes are different.
OK,
Bruno
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/
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