I was having a little debate on Youtube about Stef's reading of deMause's The Origins of War in Child Abuse (which can be found here as well as here).
That has led me to believe that it's about time I put my thoughts on morality down in writing. I accept Stefan Molyneux's arguments in Universally Preferable Behavior: a Rational Proof of Secular Ethics. On page 53 of the PDF, he starts his proof of the validity of the Non-Aggression Principle.
Hmm. I'm going to have to look closer look. I've just fried my brain doing a scan of the entire book.
Anyway, the thought I had when I wrote the title of this post was that it does fit the UPB format, except that it's unenforceable. Because we can't know the capacities of an individual we would enforce it on. That removes it to the level of an Aesthetically Positive Action. People like it when you do it, but they may not use force to force you to do it.
2 comments:
Sorry Al, I don't have the time to follow right through de Mause's rationale for war being the consequence of child abuse.
My initial, gut, reaction is that it might be one factor with a statistical connection but that connection is not causative.
Whenever basic emotion, reaction, or response is involved I tend to look straight to the human as animal. Is there all that much difference between chimpanzee and man when it comes to territoriality, social responses, leadership and role? Personally (and with little to no scientific knowledge to back it up) I suspect that there is far more connection there than there might be to child abuse.
There was a very interesting piece of a programme on tv here a couple nights back. It was a "how to" get your horse to respect you and behave itself. It involved the same kind of "psychology" as is used by horses in the wild to expel an unwanted (teenage male relative?) family member. Then, you turn your back and walk away. The horse will quietly walk into a "beside and behind" position.
I stuck that in because I think it gives a good parallel to the retention of the animal human's response. It does not matter how hard we try, the animal response is still built into our genes. It has to be, for the simple reason that our species would not have survived its 600,000 years or 2 million if you go right back. Without that inbuilt genetic response we would not be here.
Have you noticed that when I say something personal and specific, you disagree with something collective and general? This is what I intend to develop the strength to do, and I think it would be good if you would join me. On the other hand, have you seen much on bonobos? It seems to me that humans are capable of assuming the traits of either the violent and hierarchical chimpanzees or the peaceful and egalitarian bonobos. We have power and kindness, both of which are best used on the personal level. It is not a loving act to foist your power and kindness onto a machine and then bitch that your neighbors aren't foisting enough of theirs onto the same machine.
Love who you can love, all you can, now. ("Whom" is correct there, but who talks that way?) It's not fashionable to say such a hippy-dippy thing, but the hippies weren't all wrong. I still say that things were getting better there for a while in human relations, at least where I grew up, back in the '70s. Then the Reaction set in.
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