🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov16.122343.17501@husc3.harvard.edu> 
zeleny@husc10.harvard.edu (Michael Zeleny) writes:
>
>If you don't feel that being bound by
>logic is a *moral* obligation, would you still have any basis for a
>reasonable expectation that your tooting your car's horn at a bunch of
>Samoan Hell's Angels does not *mean* your informed consent for them to
>peel off your skin and rip out your heart?  Do you have a glimmer of
>understanding that your human rights are not worth the market value of
>the chemicals that comprise your anatomy, *if* there be no such things
>as matters of fact about meaning?

It seems to me that this statement mixes several immiscible issues.
Let us remember that human rights are based on a *committment* to 
logic.  We shouldn't believe that logic is fundamentally 'right' or
something.  Most evidence I've seen indicates that very few people
use logic or fundamentally rational thinking for most decision-making.
Miriam Solomon's paper on scientific validation suggests that the human
system, though illogical, may produce better results because of the
way knowledge construction occurs as a distributed system of dispersed
cognitive entities with different perspectives.  The system provides
better for both diversity in the common conceptual ecology (if I can steal
that term) and less duplication of effort.

Furthermore, remember that a committment to logic is a *western* ideal
that is not going to be applicable in many areas of the world.  In 
many places, doing something seemingly innocuous *would* result in
having your skin peeled off.  Do you believe that a simple lack of 
commitment to western logic makes these value systems bad or wrong 
somehow?  I don't believe that such a viewpoint is supportable.

-- 
Steven D. Brewer    brewer@cs.wmich.edu     *     99brewer@lab.cc.wmich.edu
                Department of Science Studies,  Western Michigan University
"Kiu regalas per ^stonoj, tiun oni dankas per bastonoj." D-ro L.L. Zamenhof