X-Message-Number: 10147
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 1998 15:38:37 -0400
From: Paul Wakfer <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #10136
References: <>

> Message #10136
> Date: Wed, 29 Jul 1998 09:36:35 -0400
> From: Thomas Donaldson <>
> Subject: CryoNet #10133 - #10134

> The critical point here is that their
> depression comes provably from a derangement in their brain chemistry,
> not from the considered opinion of a fully healthy person that they
> wish to die.

If it is "provable", then it is will be true that they will accept your
actions "after the fact" and because they are valuable to you, you
should take the action required to save them. Their *rights* are nothing
but are reflection of your own responsibility for the consequences of
your actions.  
 
> Yes, this causes lots of problems for those who believe in unbreakable
> human rights.

True, since what are truly unbreakable in reality are the *results* of
actions and ones responsibilities for them.
 
> To some extent, those who have decided not to make any attempt to live
> longer suffer from this condition. Just what we should or should not
> do with them is much harder to decide, even though they explicitly
> want to die. I myself think that our current philosophies are defective
> in failing to realize that such conditions can affect action and belief,
> and there's lots of need for rethinking. Eventually that rethinking
> may happen.

I agree with this and my solution is to place the onus of being
responsible for all real damages due to the consequences of one actions.
If by using physical force you save someone's life who afterwards is
happy with the result you have made the right decision (and that person
in all fairness should reward you). If, however, that person still
wishes not to be alive, then s/he has every right to seek punishment and
restitution against you for you actions which have damaged him/her.

> For that matter, if someone you know is not a cryonicist, and DOES NOT
> WANT TO KNOW your reasons for wanting suspension, just what does that
> say about them? It's one thing to decide after getting all the information,
> quite another to refuse information.
 
Yes, this clearly illustrates his/her irrationality. However, the only
action which it allows you to take with impunity is to disassociate
yourself from that person.

> While I think Bob is being simplistic when he suggests (as he has doen
> on Cryonet several times) that there is some kind of objective morality,

A consistent "objective morality" theory is only possible in the context
of a fully deterministic reality without any place for volition, free
will or even real consciousness, OR in the context of an elitist "God"
who knows what all humans (his flock) should and should not be thinking. 

> I also think that the issue of whether or not someone we know wants
> suspension or not is much more complex, morally, than a simple matter
> of "it's his/her right to do whatever they want with themselves".

Rights are categorizations of states of being which, generally, will
when violated result in damage to the victim and responsibility for
punishment or restitution to the violator. Such categorizations break
down whenever it become unclear whether a victim will actually be
damaged.

> Perhaps in the end we will work out a morality which assumes automatically
> that we do not have "free will", and rather than that assumption judges
> our actions on the basis of their causes, which may be good or bad.

I sure hope NOT! The *causes* of our actions, and even the actions
themselves have little to do with morality. The *results* have
everything to do with the benefits or damages for which we are
responsible.  

-- Paul --

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