20120823 (J, ON)
Journal: August 23, 2012
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Morality                              (ON) written today Email to Mark Wilkerson: Initial Request

(J) Nobility: I have often been put the question, “What nobler thing can a man do but give his life in defense of a community cause, especially his country?” To which I always think but rarely reply, “Nobility is NOT giving his life in defense of anything.” So they usually carry on:
  1. COUNTRY first and foremost
  2. FREEDOM, but equally important
  3. HUMAN RIGHTS including “Democracy”, “Equality”, “Compassion”, “Diversity”, “Health”, “Low Risk”, etc.
  4. RULE OF LAW including “Security”, “Stability”, “Predictability”
The last is even in agreement with the most authoritarian countries; it gives all states the right to reward and punish including the right to kill its own citizens. This is a powerful inducer of loyalty to community. The issue has always been, “Who sets the law? And how does he (they) come by this power?

The Enlightenment building on ancient traditions emphasized that “moral” states and people (e.g. the “Reform” ation) pay special heed to (2) and (3) to the detriment of (4). Modern thinking has extended “rights” (“goods” as opposed to “wrongs”) to include health and “comfortable” wealth.

Proper allocation of “social wealth” for health in currently held to be subservient to economics in that an investment (i.e. current “cost”) in one thing reduces future cost for something else (e.g. providing contraception costs now reduces unwanted pregnancies, thus babies, thus explosive population growth made possible by cheap enlightened “medicine” abortion anyone?)

But how are such costs to be estimated, especially those that haven’t yet occurred? Two possibilities, anecdote and statistics. So we are a long way from that “most noble” of deeds. Is it still noble? Be careful here Scott, because you have now acknowledged statistics as a legitimate method for assessing whether an “inalienable” right is being observed by a state or not.

Our Declaration of Independence just says the king has improperly accounted for such rights. But it also implies the states’ rights to abrogate all such “inalienable” rights by law and punishment. It’s just that the King went too far. Upon reflection the Bill of Rights was added to make some of those rights explicit. Note we have completely abrogated each of those rights by law and court concurrence, in struggles to “balance” the written rights with the unwritten ones like privacy and equality.


Speech: you can’t cry fire in a crowded theater, if you think it to be false.” Why? Your speech may (is likely to) cause harm in the future (statistics based on quantified opinions about what “would” happen). Janet Jackson’s nipple was visible for a flash of a second as a pattern of about 5 to 10 pixels on a TV screen was held to be “harm”. The nipple exposure was punished by confiscating $500,000 from the company that broadcasts such “indecency”. No penalty for Janet for the act itself, only for its “saying” by the broadcast network.

The “harm”? Well, that’s obvious, and doesn’t even need saying, but if you insist, are so depraved that I have to tell you, “Children!!” My children were exposed that pornographic obscenity in what was supposed to be an “family” program. THAT’S WHAT!! You idiot!!

How far we seem now from that noble act.

OR: Is nobility not to be found in defense of one’s county’s ideals, but rather in defense of one’s country, whatever its ideals. Blind, unyielding, complete devotion of mind, heart, and life to a community of like citizens. Patriotism – I heard as a kid, just half jokingly, “My country right or wrong”. So perhaps nobility is devotion; another stupid thing to give your life for it seems to me. So, ideals? devotion? Any other reason I should give “you” (the state or any community) my life?



Animal Souls: I think I might know why, at least in part, bugs scurry about. They are foraging whether vegetarian or predator. Looking for a chance encounter with food. So perhaps there is a chemical that says, “been here, no food, move on”. Of course the same “brain” that can “hear” those signals is probably tuned to chemicals emitted by its co-evolved food source. By “co-evolved” I don’t mean the forager and the food source, I mean the “brain sensitivity” and metabolic adaptation to the same food source, itself probably evolving to fend of the forager, perhaps by changing its “smell” while also balancing changes to attract other similarly equipped bugs for cleaning and pollination, for example.