From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Mon Dec 11 2000 - 12:05:16 MST
I believe your point is still severely broken unless you speak of
strictures of certain systems of morality instead of "values". They are
not at all the same thing. Your original definition has other
problems. What is the "will of the individual"? Is it arbitary power
or is it energy focused on a set of individual goals no matter how
poorly or well formulated? If the latter then there is great value in a
better formulation of goals to acheive the goals of the individual
personally and within its social context but this is not "restraining
the will" as such at all.
- samantha
Ben Goertzel wrote:
>
> > Value systems as we know them are about restraining the will of
> > the individual in order to achieve the good
> > of the collective.
>
> Ok, as has been pointed out to me in a private e-mail, this is an
> overstatement...
>
> A true statement is that "Very many human value systems have evolved in
> order to restrain
> the will of the individual and hence encourage the good of the collective."
>
> But of course, that doesn't hold for Ayn-Randish values, which are probably
> somewhat common
> in this particular e-community. sorry ;>
>
> It also doesn't hold for Nietzschean values, which I have a great deal of
> sympathy for...
> Nietzschean values are about the will of the individual restraining itself
> in order to maximize
> its own power!
>
> It does hold for the value systems that shape our societies, and govern the
> bulk of human
> conduct, child-rearing, and so forth, so I still think my point has some
> worth...
>
> > But our very notions of "individual" and
> > "collective" are a consequence of the peculiarities
> > of our physical embodiment. Value systems as we know them aren't
> > going to exist for long, because the
> > preconditions for their meaningfulness will disappear...
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:35 MDT