RE: Nature's Laws
May 18, 2015 at 10:23 pm
(This post was last modified: May 18, 2015 at 10:44 pm by Simon Moon.)
(May 18, 2015 at 9:57 pm)Freedom4me Wrote: I see what you're saying. Empathy is just one of many factors by which people form a consensus. But there is still something that is unclear to me in all of this. If the consensus here in the U.S. never changed, and it was still the consensus that Blacks are only 3/5 human, and that race-based slavery is OK, then what? Would that mean that Black Americans have no human rights?
It is not just the consensus. The consensus is very often wrong.
If the consensus was that blacks are 3/5 of a human, and that slavery was okay, it would still be wrong. You know how you can tell? Ask the slaves how they feel about the arrangement.
Morality is all about the well being. I'm not sure why you are having a problem with this? How is the well being of those in slavery?
Do you agree with the following?
Life is preferable to death.
Health is preferable to disease.
Freedom is preferable slavery.
Comfort is preferable to pain.
If you do, it doesn't even require empathy to be able to tell that slavery is wrong. All it takes is a bit of rational thinking.
(May 18, 2015 at 9:57 pm)Freedom4me Wrote: I see what you're saying. Empathy is just one of many factors by which people form a consensus. But there is still something that is unclear to me in all of this. If the consensus here in the U.S. never changed, and it was still the consensus that Blacks are only 3/5 human, and that race-based slavery is OK, then what? Would that mean that Black Americans have no human rights?
Here is another way of looking at it.
Philosopher John Rawls came up with a great thought experiment called "the Veil of Ignorance". Here is good summary from Wiki:
The "veil of ignorance", along with the original position, is a method of determining the morality of a certain issue (e.g., slavery) based upon the following thought experiment: parties to the original position know nothing about their particular abilities, tastes, and position within the social order of society. When such parties are selecting the principles for distribution of rights, positions, and resources in the society they will live in, the veil of ignorance prevents them from knowing about who they will be in that society. For example, for a proposed society in which 50% of the population is kept in slavery, it follows that on entering the new society there is a 50% likelihood that the participant would be a slave. The idea is that parties subject to the veil of ignorance will make choices based upon moral considerations, since they will not be able to make choices based on self- or class-interest.
As John Rawls put it, "no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like." The idea of the thought experiment is to render obsolete those personal considerations that are morally irrelevant to the justice or injustice of principles meant to allocate the benefits of social cooperation.
You'd believe if you just opened your heart" is a terrible argument for religion. It's basically saying, "If you bias yourself enough, you can convince yourself that this is true." If religion were true, people wouldn't need faith to believe it -- it would be supported by good evidence.