[Fwd: Re: [CrackMonkey] FUQ, slavery is back]

[Seth David Schoen]

Random Feature writes:

> On Fri, 2002-02-01 at 16:05, Praedor Tempus wrote:
> > On 01 Feb 2002 15:33:08 -0600
> > Random Feature <random at nandgate.com> wrote:
> > 
> [...]
> 
> > > Since it's just a thought experiment, I *can* extend it. "They" don't
> > > exist, therefore the entire discussion on whether killing "them" is
> > > ethical or violates a social contact is hypothetical. 
> > 
> > Ah, so you suggest it is NEVER ethical to kill?  Never?  EVER?  Under NO
> > circumstances may you kill?  Self defense?  National defense?  For food?
> >  Does this ethic ONLY apply to humans?  Why?  What is the magic
> > demarcation line?  Show it to me in a hard, clear, self-consistent,
> > touchy-feely way.  Biologically, genetically, sociobiologically,
> > logically humans are merely another animal with a little extra neural
> > wiring that makes them believe the have something like free will and
> > "souls" and a privaliged position in the universe.  
>  
> Hence the differentiation made between "murdering" and "killing". 
> 
> Murder is always wrong. Killing is not. 
> 
> Murder is the termination of the life of another human being with which
> you have a social contract. Killing is the termination of the life of
> those who are not included in that social contract. 

How can I find out whether I have a social contract with someone or
not?

That's a serious question!  I have no idea what country you're in, and
lots of other people on this list are from all over the world.  If you
haven't looked at my web site, you don't know where I am, either.  I've
never met you, and, before this week, I'd never heard about you.  So I
still have this huge nagging uncertainty about whether or not it is
murder if we kill one another.

Clearly we should also try to get as many people as possible into a
social contract, because then the set of people who may legitimately
kill each other would shrink, so that -- assuming people are concerned
with what's right and wrong -- the number of actual killings and the
amount of actual fighting would just _plummet_.  After all, even if
"killing" isn't wrong, it's painful and inefficient, rational to fear, 
and reasonable to try to avoid.  If being in a social contract with
everyone is necessary in order to make killing me murder, and therefore
wrong, no matter who does it, I want in: _sign me up_!

-- 
Seth David Schoen <schoen at loyalty.org> | Reading is a right, not a feature!
     http://www.loyalty.org/~schoen/   |                 -- Kathryn Myronuk
     http://vitanuova.loyalty.org/     |