From newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!pindor Mon May 25 14:06:14 EDT 1992
Article 5743 of comp.ai.philosophy:
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Path: newshub.ccs.yorku.ca!ists!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!news-server.ecf!utgpu!pindor
>From: pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor)
Subject: Re: AI failures
Message-ID: <1992May19.182146.12247@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca>
Organization: UTCS Public Access
References: <uetinINNco5@early-bird.think.com> <1992May9.165946.7983@waikato.ac.nz> <1992May12.170823.23059@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> <857@kepler1.rentec.com>
Date: Tue, 19 May 1992 18:21:46 GMT

In article <857@kepler1.rentec.com> fcaggian@rentec.com (Frank Caggiano) writes:
>In article <1992May12.170823.23059@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca> pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (Andrzej Pindor) writes:
>
>>To make thinks clear, would perhaps specify where does this 'absolute set of
>>tenets' come from? If your answer reduces to 'from God', then that's fine. 
>>I am not going to ague with this. However, if it does not, then from where? 
>
>Actually morality or a sense or what is good must precede God. In order to
>be able to say "God is good" or "God's laws are moral" we must already 
>know what is good or moral. 
>
Are you suggesting that humans could pass a judgment on God? I am not sure
many believers would accept this!

>>As far as I can see looking through various moral codes of different societies,
>> now and in the past, it is hard to find a single rule which everyone would
>>agree on.
>
>Well there is the prohibition of murder, stealing and lying to name three. 

It has already been discussed here that this 'prohibition of murder' is (was)
very relative in many (I'd say most) religions. Many cultures do not have
a notion of private property, so 'stealing' has no meaning there. 

>In most cases where there appears to be a conflict on closer examination
>you usally find its a different interpertation of the terms rather than
>a different moral code.
>
>For example lets look at murder. A more exact wording might be 'the 
>taking of inocent human life.' So the murder of slaves for example might 
>not appear as murder to one society because they don't beleive that 
>slaves are human. 

A very good excuse (to say that 'slaves are not human') but only barely 
credible if slaves look distinctly different from owners (say black slaves in
a society of white owners). However in many cases this had not been the case
and also slaves often coud be freed. Did they then suddenly become human?

>..................Or capital punishment gets by because its believed that
>the condemmed isn't inocent. 

Why not being innocent should cancel a value of 'life'? So the 'prohibition
of murder' was conditional, right? And in different societies, this conditions
were different? That is exactly what I meant.

>..............................Or take lying, it would be difficult to
>think of a society being able to survive if everyone lied to eveyone
>else constantly. There would be little point in communicating if I could
>not be fairly confident that you were telling me the truth.
>
I think you are too much centered on western cultural traditions. Many other
cultures attach much less moral value to 'keeping one's word'.
 
>Now this isn't an attempt to justify these actions, only an attempt to 
>show  that there is more of a universial moral code than might at first 
>appear.
>
There sure is some overlap between different cultures, because we are all
basically the same - have the same needs to thrive and prolong our species. But
that is different from ascerting that there is some independent 'absolute set 
of moral tenets'. You still haven't suggested where might it come from and how
could we learn about it (I have been suggesting that looking at present 
and past moral codes of different human groups does not give indication of
absoluts).
>
>
>
>-- 
>------------------------------------------------------------------
>	`The sensibility of man to trifles, and his insensibility
>to great things, indicates a strange inversion.'
>					Blaise Pascal
>
>Frank Caggiano                      INTERNET: fcaggian@rentec.com  
>Renaissance Technologies Corp.      UUCP: ..!uupsi!kepler1!fcaggian
>100 North Country Rd.                    fax: (516) 245-5761
>Sekauket, NY 11733                     voice: (516) 246-5550


-- 
Andrzej Pindor
University of Toronto
Computing Services
pindor@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca


