From: Ben Goertzel (ben@intelligenesis.net)
Date: Mon Dec 11 2000 - 09:50:00 MST
> Value systems as we know them are about restraining the will of
> the individual in order to achieve the good
> of the collective.
Ok, as has been pointed out to me in a private e-mail, this is an
overstatement...
A true statement is that "Very many human value systems have evolved in
order to restrain
the will of the individual and hence encourage the good of the collective."
But of course, that doesn't hold for Ayn-Randish values, which are probably
somewhat common
in this particular e-community. sorry ;>
It also doesn't hold for Nietzschean values, which I have a great deal of
sympathy for...
Nietzschean values are about the will of the individual restraining itself
in order to maximize
its own power!
It does hold for the value systems that shape our societies, and govern the
bulk of human
conduct, child-rearing, and so forth, so I still think my point has some
worth...
> But our very notions of "individual" and
> "collective" are a consequence of the peculiarities
> of our physical embodiment. Value systems as we know them aren't
> going to exist for long, because the
> preconditions for their meaningfulness will disappear...
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:35 MDT