Thursday, March 13, 2008
What's In Your Moral Tool-Kit?
I am constantly amazed at the number of people who apparently have an empty "moral tool-kit". To them, only government and its laws dictate right and wrong. If they disagree with the state at all, it is only to insist upon what they want or they need. If it benefits them it must be OK, even if the government says it is bad, but they go no further than that. What about things that harm the other guy even if "legal", or things that help you out "legally", but are not right? Selfishness in liking government edicts is a real problem. My moral tool-kit contains "right and wrong" that are completely independent of "laws". Not that I always live up to them, but I do try.
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My moral toolkit contains many useful tools such as the Universality Razor (which I use to shave off implicit utilitarian premises), the State of Nature Arguments, and my good ol' Rand Screwdriver 1905, which is very handy to effect values in a causally rational way.
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