The Legality of Drugs: Albert Cipriani vs. xorbie

[Silent Dave]

Topic: Making illicit drugs illegal is a moral imperative.

This thread has been opened for a formal debate between Albert Cipriani and xorbie on the above topic. Albert will affirm, xorbie will deny. A companion thread will be opened in Moral Foundations and Principles (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=61) for those who wish to comment on the debate.

Per the debate parameters, (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=58546) Albert will be making the first statement. Good luck to both participants.


Dave


Addendum: the maximum duration between statements has been extended to 2 weeks per Albert Cipriani's request.
- Nightshade

[Albert Cipriani]

The Nature of Natural Law & Illegal Drugs

Only good laws foster the common good. Ergo, if drug laws are good laws, drug laws must be shown to foster the common good. Or conversely, drug use must be shown to be not good.

Of course, this begs the question of what constitutes “the good.” For example, if what is good is what is pleasurable, then laws that deprive us of pleasurable drugs would seem to be bad laws. But if what is good is what is rational, then laws that deprive us of reason-impairing drugs would seem to be good laws.

The Good
Like the beautiful, the good is actually a manifold thing, both pleasurable and rational, useful and superfluous, a bittersweet quasi-paradoxical thing. For example, it’s good that a child grows in competency enough to leave home and it’s also good that a retarded child can stay at home under the loving care of his parents.

Tho “the good” is a single concept, it defies being conceived via a single-word definition. So rather than defining good as an end product, as in “good = X,” let’s define good as the process whereby every known good thing derives. For example, rather than defining red as the color of sunsets, blood, apples, etc., we’d do better to define red as any conceivable process whereby wavelengths of radiant energy between X and X angstroms are transmitted.

Likewise, we may define “the good” as any process whereby the means to an end culminates in that end. As it is said that “every dog has its day,” so too ought every means have its end, every cause have its effect, every act have its result. When it does, by definition, the result is good. By definition, the result is an echo of God’s assessment of the first instantiation of cause and effect, that first primeval moment which begot all future moments when He said: “Be light made. And light was made. And God saw the light that it was good.” [Genesis 1:3,4]

This definition of the good is also a definition of reality. What is real is what is happening and what is happening may be redacted to the process of cause and effect. History is but our blind attempt to connect some of the dots, some of the pixels forming and reforming upon the giant TV screen of causes continuously having their effects. Thus, what is happening – insofar as it is the effect of a cause – is by definition good and is the present-perfect progressive grammatical equivalent of St. Augustine’s static passive aphorism: “All that is, is good.” In other words, what’s happening is what’s good, or, all of the effects that are being caused are good.

The Bad
Conversely, when ends/effects/results do not obtain from means/causes/acts, when the natural course of events is frustrated and dammed back from flowing into reality, then an unnatural, unreal, un-good vortex in the universe is opened. Like a bubble whose parameters define the limits of what is not, the un-good is a narrowly circumscribed absence of the good.

The un-good in God’s good creation is like an empty corked bottle tossed into the sea. It’s a freakishly unnatural instance of the ocean not being able to be the ocean. What’s not good, what’s evil, then, is not a metaphysical reality, but the localized absence of reality. Likewise, insanity is not a different way of thinking but the cessation of thinking.

The un-good, the bad, what’s evil is a non-entity. It’s a non-entity where an entity should be, or as St. Thomas Aquinas put it: “the absence of a necessary good.” For example, God’s creation of this universe is good. But if He had not created this universe, it’s absence would not be bad. Why? Because this universe is not a necessary good. Ditto for His creation of the angels and of us. But once created, creation and its creatures are contingent upon many necessary goods for the good of their existence to be maintained. The absence of any one of creation’s necessary goods is what’s bad.

The Ugly
The miasmal ugliness of what is bad which seems to form upon the face of the deep is without form and is non-existent. Like water’s surface tension which is not the water itself but a property of water that enables it to break our bones, what is bad is not any aspect of creation but a property of creatures freely relating to creation in a way that proves these creatures are free, that is, by relating to nature unnaturally.

Inanimate things spinning around Saturn, forming that planet’s rings and spokes have no choice but to behave as inanimate things naturally do. But living things have choices and therein lies the rub. Because of choice, living behavior is ultimately unpredictable. For example, tho we can predict that amoebae will avoid light and saline, we can’t predict whether or not they will spill themselves to the left or to the right.

Tho we cannot predict which way an amoeba will move, we can predict that it won’t try to move there by doing cartwheels. It won’t violate its nature by trying to act unnaturally in a way that is counter to its design. Oh were it so for humankind! I can distinctly remember as a child jumping off the highest part of our porch and flapping my arms wildly in an attempt to fly.

My ignorance of aerodynamics excuses my childish behavior and renders such behavior merely cute. But were I still attempting arm-flapping flight in spite of my present-day knowledge that arms are not the means to the end of getting airborne, judgment of my behavior would come down not on the side of cuteness but of madness. It’d be an ugly thing to behold a grown man attempting to do what we excuse and dote on a child for doing.

The Natural Law
Ergo, the nature of what is not good, of what is ugly, is always reflective of us acting in ways that belie what we know about cause and effect. Unlike with simpler life forms that are necessarily amoral, humans always have within their power the insane freedom to try to be what they are not or try to do what they are not designed to do. Our immorality consists in this. We attempt to enjoy ends for which we do not have the means, or vice versa, we attempt to avoid the ends for which we enjoy the means.

For example, running up credit card debt allows us to enjoy ends for which we do not have the means. Conversely, purging allows us to enjoy the means of eating while avoiding food’s caloric ends. Tho there is no secular law against running up credit card debt or purging, they are both a violation of the natural law.

Offenders of the natural law are punished by becoming less real. This is poetic justice in that their crime is one of being or acting unreal, that is, the crime of rational creatures acting irrationally. It’s fitting that they therefore become less realistic and more unfettered by the rational chains of cause and effect. The Michael Jacksons, Andy Warhols, and O J Simpsons of this world provide anecdotal evidence of this contention. The rich and powerful have more means of violating means and ends than do common folk. That is why the rich and the powerful tend to be more immoral and as a consequence, more eccentric and less sane.

The Nature of Drugs
All living creatures must ingest stuff. Some stuff we call food. Other stuff we call drugs. What distinguishes one from the other is their effect. The former maintains our physiology. The latter alters our physiology.

Not the thing itself but the effect it has on us is what determines whether or not the stuff we ingest is a drug. For example, ingesting relatively small amounts of sugar will slowly kill a diabetic, but when suffering from insulin shock, the diabetic must immediately ingest sugar or die immediately. So sugar, which is typically a food, is also atypically a drug. Conversely, food per se, is actually being administered as a drug when gluttonously consumed.

Ergo, in considering the morality of drugs and food, neither drugs nor food is at issue. Rather, the effect of what we ingest is at issue. When food or medication serves to maintain physiology, the ends correspond to the ingested means, the natural law is upheld, and morality reigns.

But the physiology that needs to be maintained for a drug to pass the morality test is a target set in motion by the temporal and situational circumstances. Senator Bob Dole and muscleman Arnold Schwarzenegger illustrate both considerations.

When 70-something-year-old Senator Bob Dole became the poster child for the libido-enhancing drug, Viagra, he made a display of his immorality. Were he at a time in his life when the drug could help him sire a family, his Viagra use could be countenanced as a means to an end. But the only end Dole sought and pitched to the nation was pleasure. And neither pleasure nor pain are ends, they are but means to ends.

When Arnold trained for the Mr. Olympia contest, he took steroids, a growth hormone. If his circumstances were different, if he were a midget instead of giant, he could have legitimately medicated his physiology with growth hormones. Thus, we can see that the use/abuse of a drug is not contingent upon the nature of the drug per se, but upon temporal and situational circumstances under which it is administered.

Summation
1) We are good and real when we embrace all the cause-and-effect links in the chain of being.
2) We are bad and unreal when we attempt to sever any of the causal connections in the chain of being.
3) Drugs are a subset of food and the causal end of both is our physiological maintenance.
4) Drug use is drug abuse when used – not for maintenance – but for physiological enhancement or pleasure.
5) The illegal drugs I know of are abused for physiological enhancement and pleasure.
6) Ergo, the illegal drugs I know of ought to remain that way.

-- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic 8/4/03

[xorbie]

First off I would like to thank Albert for debating this heated issue with me and Dave for setting this up and moderating. To all you onlookers, I hope you enjoy yourselves and learn something while at it.

My official position in this debate is merely that "it is not a moral imperative to make illicit drugs illegal." However, I will be arguing a stronger point, which is that "it is a moral imperative NOT to make illicit drugs illegal."

Now when talking about laws, good laws bring about the most good as Albert said. However, Albert's definition of good as stated in his opening does not quite agree with mine.

Likewise, we may define “the good” as any process whereby the means to an end culminates in that end.

According to this, it would be good if I used a gun as a means to kill someone and the successfully killed them. I think (or hope) that it was not Albert's intention of phrasing it this way and allowing for any action, no matter how ill-intented to be considered good so long as it is completed as the doer wished.


In other words, what’s happening is what’s good, or, all of the effects that are being caused are good.

Perhaps I am just totally misunderstanding, but it seems that you are again implying that if a tornado was to kill 146 people, that would be good. Conversely, the "unnatural" chemotherapy would be bad, because it is not caused in nature and doesn't let good ole' cancer do what it was put here to do. I see this as clearly erroneous.

Albert also referred to God several times in his opening. This is fine by me, so long as we don't enter a debate in which case his argument boils down to "because God said so." However, something that he should keep in mind is that God clearly imbued people with the freedom to choose, meaning that free will is inherently necessary to the greater good.

I strongly agree with this. As this nation's founders so eloquently put it, all men must have life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The way I see it, governments only role is to see that each person has this without infringing on any other person's ability to do so. There cannot be a good society in which people are not able to make their own choices when what is at stake is their own life.

Albert spent a lot of time with a very eloquent description of the good, the bad and the ugly. However, this description is not at all germane to the debate itself. I need no convincing that using drugs such as cocaine and heroine is bad. I am not here to argue that it is a good idea to abuse such drugs, or that doing so will be conducive to a good life. All I am saying is that it is morally wrong for the government to deny the individual the right to do what he wishes so long as he harms none other. Person P has no right to superimpose his own moral views upon Person Q if the latter of these two will not harm anyone. To do so would be in strict opposition to democracy and the principles upon which this country was built.

Free will is the greatest good man has. The ability to perceive beauty, the ability to feel love, the ability to learn, these are all great. But we must recognize life for the bumbling, akward beauty that it is. No matter how rational we are, no matter how good, no matter what we will not be happy unless we can truly say "I did that." Not "the government told me not to do that." Free will gives us the ability to savor every moment, so let us not trample excessively on the most precious thing we have of all. If you have been following any of the threads concerning the Problem of Evil, you will see that the only defense to it is that God values free will above disallowing all evil to occur. I do not presume that God exists (in fact I tend to lean the other way), but as you brought it up I think you should adress it.

To summarize:
(1) Good laws are those that contribute to the greatest good
(2) As we have our free will impeded by law, we lose overall good
(3) We should only make illegal actions that harm others in some
(4) Drugs do not directly harm anyone but the user

And now I would like to adress several problems in you argument.
Besides the already noted problem with your rather erroneous and irrational definition of "good", your argument has several inconsistencies and gaps.

When 70-something-year-old Senator Bob Dole became the poster child for the libido-enhancing drug, Viagra, he made a display of his immorality. Were he at a time in his life when the drug could help him sire a family, his Viagra use could be countenanced as a means to an end. But the only end Dole sought and pitched to the nation was pleasure. And neither pleasure nor pain are ends, they are but means to ends

How are pleasure and pain not ends? You have yet to explain this well. And if they are not means, cannot pleasure be a means to goodness. Your argument that taking viagra is somehow immoral is very weak, and you have not at all convinced me that you even have a defendable position on that issue.

Your entire argument is flawed in general in your assumption that
the statement, "Conversely, when ends/effects/results do not obtain from means/causes/acts, when the natural course of events is frustrated and dammed back from flowing into reality, then an unnatural, unreal, un-good vortex in the universe is opened" has any meaning to me (or anyone else) whatsoever).
What exactly is this "natural course of events." Unless you actually know it, and can somehow prove that anything contrary to is inherently bad, it should not be used in a purely philosophical argument.

As best as I can translate this, it means that anything that natural law (as in natural vs. artificial) would do is good, anything contrary to this is bad. I just don't understand this. As I posted above, this would actually make using cocaine good and taking cancer medication bad. Even assuming that all drug use falls under ugly, I see no reason (read: you have provided no reason) why the government should, or even has the right to, force people to be rational about everything they do.

So basically I just would like you to either re-explain to me what exactly you mean by good/bad (or that you in fact just want to concentrate on the ugly portion, and call that "immoral") or just make my job all the easier by sticking with what you go and attempting to use these definitions of good and bad to argue the moral imperative to make drugs illegal. Just keep in mind that you are NOT arguing that it is a moral imperative not to use drugs, which you seem to have spent a lot of time doing.

[Albert Cipriani]

The Nature of Natural Law & Illegal Drugs, 2 of 4

Rebuttal I
I need no convincing that using drugs such as cocaine and heroine is bad…. All I am saying is that it is morally wrong for the government to deny the individual the right to do what he wishes so long as he harms none other.

Once you are convinced of what is immoral, I would not think I should have to convince you that it should be proscribed by the government. If you conceive of democratic governance as nothing more or less than the extension or extrapolation of our collective sense of morality, then you have no conceptual basis from which to leverage your complaints against democratically passed laws reflecting that morality.

The most successful political lie of all time that is still making its rounds off the thick tongues and down the liberally drool-stained t-shirts of dull-witted voters is “You can’t legislate morality,” when, in fact, all legislation is nothing but an expression of the morality of democracy’s majority. Whether a law is good or bad is irrelevant to the fact that its passage depends upon the majority’s perception that it is good.

Ergo, my task here should only be to convince you that drugs are immoral. That you would vote according to that morality and support laws predicated upon that morality should – like the dawn that follows the night – follow axiomatically.

But even if my dawn did not follow your night, your un-argued assertion that the government ought not to pass a law that “harms none other” than the law-breaker does not follow linearly. That is, it is circular, the fallacy of circulus in demonstrando, an assertion that assumes its conclusion like a snake that’s swallowing its own tail.

You assume that the harm an immoral act wrecks upon the immoral actor harms no others. Do you not know “for whom the bell tolls”? Did you not hear that “No man is an island”? There is no such thing as victimless crimes because a crime against oneself diminishes us all.

For example, I was riding a motorcycle during the time that the helmet laws in California were passed, and I rode over the objections of my fellow cyclists. They argued as you argue. Each said he had a “right to do what he wishes,” even if that meant spilling his brains out on the pavement.

This so-called “right” is an appeal to the fiction that we are autonomous -- rather than integral -- members of society. It ignores the fact that when a helmet-less head fries its brains on the pavement, our collective investment in its education goes up in smoke. Such a brainless person wastes their family’s and friend’s emotional investment in them, too. And this assumes the happy prospect that this sorry example of Homo Sapiens is successful. Should said individual fail to compound his empty-headed condition by spilling what brains he has out, he obliges society to hold his feeding straw for the remainder of his vegetative existence. Ergo, no man has a “right” to oblige society to pick up after the mess he’s gotten himself into by doing “what he wishes.”

Rebuttal II
Free will is the greatest good man has…. So let us not trample excessively on the most precious thing we have of all.

A gift denotes a gift-giver. I congratulate you if you mean to say that God’s gift of freedom is the most exalted gift with which He has endowed some segments of His creation. But our debate is not about God. Ergo, in the context of Godless morality, our free will must not be apprehended as a gift but as a mere attribute on a par with the attribute of our opposable thumbs. So let’s not get all sacrosanct about our gift of freedom. This isn’t the place for it.

Our job as parents, educators, and clerics is to mess with other people’s freedom. You have characterized our obligation to guide the uninformed down the paths of righteousness as our trampling upon uninformed people's freedom. This is a kind of Orwelian doublespeak.

Rebuttal III
Good laws are those that contribute to the greatest good.

Surely, intelligence is a great good that contributes to the common good of all. You’d be eating your breakfast eggs raw, without toast, on your hands and knees, naked and without a napkin were it not for the intelligence of others.

But according to your premise, a good law would be any law that would “contribute to the greatest good.” So if intelligence contributes to the greater good of mankind, laws that raise our collective intelligence must, by your lights, be good laws. So you approve of Hitler’s IQ enhancing eugenic laws whereby he liquidated the mentally infirm to preempt them from breeding? If not, why not?

Rebuttal IV
As we have our free will impeded by law, we lose overall good.

Law has everything to do with our actions and nothing to do with our free will. I’ve wanted to rob a bank all my adult life, ever since I was a teller at Bank of America. It’s no crime. Ergo, your statement that law impedes free will illustrates that you have no clear conception of either.

Rebuttal V
Your entire argument is flawed… [it] has any meaning to me or anyone else whatsoever.

I see. Thank you for sharing that.

Rebuttal VI
I see no reason (read: you have provided no reason) why the government should, or even has the right to, force people to be rational about everything they do.

Grossly exaggerating your opponent’s position does not win you any points. We all should, and all have the obligation (not “right”) to convince (not “force”) people to be rational. Why do you object to so imminently and self-evidently compassionate an objective? The laws of our democratic government, as but an extension of our collectivized good will, are likewise an expression of compassion, not oppression.

Self-evidently bad laws emanate from the uncompassionate will of the majority trumping the will of the minority with laws from which the majority is immune. It was against such self-seeking proclivities that our supreme court was established (and has been failing to fulfill that mandate ever since).

For example, our progressive tax code takes money from the rich minority and gives it to the poor majority. As such, our tax laws violate the basic tenet of equal treatment. They exist as a testament to selective treatment and are thus prima-facie cases of bad law. But those who advocate drug laws are willing themselves to abide by those same drug laws. Thus, drug laws must be seen as a legitimately moral expression of their compassionate will to garner a collective good.

Rebuttal VII
You are implying that if a tornado was to kill 146 people, that would be good. Conversely, the ‘unnatural’ chemotherapy would be bad, because it is not caused in nature.

I never once used the analogous term “nature” to mean the birds-and-the-bees “nature” you are referring to. I used the term “natural law” as a synonym for empiricism. Hence, there is simply no excuse for your mis-categorization of my argument as nature = good. So cartoon-ish a characterization of my position is unworthy of a response, yet I will provide one just the same, just in case you were being serious.

Given the state of medical knowledge today, chemotherapy is a rational – and therefore good – response to cancer. Chemotherapy is as rational today as bloodletting was for two millennia. And 50 years hence, no doubt, new knowledge will consign chemotherapy (alongside bloodletting) to the same barbarously irrational dustbin of history.

For our reasoning is only as good as our knowledge. Since our knowledge is always incomplete, our reasoning predicated upon that incomplete knowledge must also be lacking. Hence, rational acts will not necessarily be objectively correct. BUT THEY WILL NECESSARILY ALWAYS BE SUBJECTIVELY CORRECT.

That is, when acting rationally, our incorrect behavior makes us objectively wrong, but subjectively right. Fallible conclusions rationally arrived at only prove we were ignorant, not immoral. Conversely, irrational conclusions embraced by a rational creature – even if their consequences are not perceived to be incorrect or at all harmful, immoral, or ignorant – prove that that creature has violated the natural law, acted immorally, and sinned against his own nature.

As for tornadoes, as with all inanimate things, they are – to borrow a phrase from Nietzsche – “beyond good and evil.” They simply are. What they do is beyond the purview of morality for no volition is involved and volition is morality’s prerequisite.

But all tornadoes are good in the amoral metaphysical sense of them linking up to the chain of cause and effect that stretches uninterrupted back to the Big Bang. In this sense tornadoes are very good no matter how many people they kill and, to quote the movie “Twister,” they are representative of the awesome “finger of God.”

Rebuttal Recapitulation
I’ve defined reality and the good as one and the same thing, the unfolding through time of cause and effect, otherwise known as the natural law. Conversely, by default, I’ve defined the bad as any usurpation of a cause’s effect or of an effect’s cause, otherwise known as a violation of the natural law. The only known power in our universe capable of a usurpation of cause and effect is the immoral power of free will that makes us violators of and fugitives from the natural law. From this metaphysical explication of the good and the bad, I’ve shown that recreational drug taking violates the natural law and so, by extension, ought to also be a violation of secular law.

You, on the other foot in your mouth, have argued absolutely nothing. Your 1,200-word opening statement distills down to complaints, queries, exaggerations, and the following four un-argued flatfooted assertions:
1) Good laws are those that contribute to the greatest good.
2) As we have our free will impeded by law, we lose overall good.
3) We should only make illegal actions that harm others.
4) Drugs do not directly harm anyone but the user.

Thus far, this has not been a debate. It has been you complaining about my argument while not supporting one of your own.

Thesis Extension
The one G-string of intellectual justification clothing all the shameful arguments for legalized drug abuse is that drugs are pleasureful. Of course, pleasure, by definition, is hardly an intellectual justification.

Sins of the flesh are like that. They appeal to our likes. Like our tastes in foods, when it comes to our likes, we either have them or don’t have them. And having them, we cannot be convinced not to have them. but only be convinced not to actualize them.

Ergo, arguments against sins of the flesh always appeal to the objective consequences our likes involve, not to the subjective pleasures our likes evoke. Consequently, the counter-arguments for sins of the flesh appeal to the mitigation of these objective consequences, e.g., condoms, penicillin, divorce. Thus, the argument is one-sided, all on the side of us moralists; whereas, the libertarians’ counter-argument is the legal equivalent of “extenuating circumstances,” the colloquial equivalent of “an excuse.”

In short, arguments for making drugs illegal are based upon objectively verifiable consequences. All the counter arguments reduce to a “Yeah, but...” statement, a morally indefensible stance in a quasi-pragmatic quagmire. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic



Edit:
A few comments edited
- Nightshade

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

I would kindly ask that the debate participants refrain from using invective in the formal debate. The rules of decorum here in FDD are a little more rigorous than the regular fora and I wish to keep things cordial. Cooperation would be appreciated.

If you have any concerns or complaints, feel free to bring them up in the peanut gallery or Bugs, Problems, & Complaints (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=16).

Thank you,

- Nightshade, FD Moderator

[xorbie]

Your contradictions are fallacious, often self-contradictory and fail to show how any of my arguments is wrong in any manner. here is my rebutall.

Rebuttal I

Whether a law is good or bad is irrelevant to the fact that its passage depends upon the majority’s perception that it is good.
Self-evidently bad laws emanate from the uncompassionate will of the majority trumping the will of the minority with laws from which the majority is immune. It was against such self-seeking proclivities that our supreme court was established (and has been failing to fulfill that mandate ever since).

Do you not see how these two statements contradict one another? Of course there must be a mechanism to protect the minority from what the majority considers to be morally sound even when it amounts to violating the rights of the minority.

You seem to think that laws are all simply based on objective morality. However, you then proceed to twist the meaning of the very word “objective” into “what the majority feels.” As I have stated before, there can be no good law which disturbs each and every individual’s rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness . This has very few exceptions. One of which is children, who are not considered competent enough to make many important, critical, life-changing decisions. Another is when one individual’s actions will violate another’s fundamental rights. I repeat now, and will however many times it takes, that no other laws shall be passed.

Rebuttal II

That is, when acting rationally, our incorrect behavior makes us objectively wrong, but subjectively right. Fallible conclusions rationally arrived at only prove we were ignorant, not immoral. Conversely, irrational conclusions embraced by a rational creature – even if their consequences are not perceived to be incorrect or at all harmful, immoral, or ignorant – prove that that creature has violated the natural law, acted immorally, and sinned against his own nature.

So your definition of “moral” is “acting rationally.” Once again, I need to disagree. First of all, I will give you a prime example of how your theory of law combined with your theory of morality, if implemented (or true) could lead to a decidedly immoral, objectively unjust country.

In the US, we have this nice thing called freedom of religion. However, let’s assume the majority of the people were fundamental Muslims. They all believed you had to do A, B and C to get into heaven and avoid X, Y and Z. Now it would be totally rational for them to say “Let us do A, B, and C and not X, Y and Z.” Then because they are majority, they will turn all of this into law. And because they are willing to follow these laws, and are being compassionate (they want to get everyone into heaven), this is a good law. And congratulations, your wife will now be subjected to a stoning.

Of course, your rebuttal would be that this religion is irrational in the first place. After all, who could rationally believe that God would have us do A, B and C but not X, Y and Z? As a matter of fact, doing A, B and C, even if they don’t harm anyone would be irrational. Ah, yes. Let us make it illegal to be a fundamentalist. Now as much as I hate fundamentalism of all sorts and varieties, I refuse to stand by any “reasoning” that attempts to get rid of freedom of religion. By your laws, any religion, or system of thought, that could be rationally argued away, should not be believed in.

Rebuttal III

Law has everything to do with our actions and nothing to do with our free will. I’ve wanted to rob a bank all my adult life, ever since I was a teller at Bank of America. It’s no crime. Ergo, your statement that law impedes free will illustrates that you have no clear conception of either.

This makes no sense to me. I could conceivably argue that for you to even hold on to this desire is irrational, in that it will bring about frustration because you, of course, can not and will not (I hope) actually rob a bank. So yes, it appears your idea that in order to be morally right and good people must behave rationally does appear to impede on free will.

The most successful political lie of all time that is still making its rounds off the thick tongues and down the liberally drool-stained t-shirts of dull-witted voters is “You can’t legislate morality,” when, in fact, all legislation is nothing but an expression of the morality of democracy’s majority. Whether a law is good or bad is irrelevant to the fact that its passage depends upon the majority’s perception that it is good.

Let me show you how this argument is fallacious in several ways. First of all, that ad hominem attack on liberals is totally unwarranted. Now let us analyze what was actually said. Let us assume that the majority of the population actually agreed with you that rationality is what defines moral right, and that what is morally right should actually define what is legally allowable and will lead to a country whose society is moral and just. So in this very hypothetical situation that would never actually arise, society has now passed a law that says “everyone must act rationally at all times.” (Whether or not this notion of rationality you possess is even correct will be saved for later) Of course, society realizes that this law is impossible to impose. People behave irrationally every day. If everyone who behaved irrationally was to be punished, you would need huge agencies to oversee this. If everyone who had casual sex was to be punished, you would probably need a police force the size of Texas to oversee everyone. The society would quickly crumble. It appears ironically that forcing people to behave rationally is irrational.

Of course you will jump all over this. You will say it is “quasi-pragmatic.” You will say it is a “Yeah, but…” argument. You will say it is simply an excuse. You might even be right. But I am sorry to say that believing that any law that actually forces people to behave rationally is simply irrational. Even if such a law was good, that is to say if behaving rationally (as you define rational) were to lead to a good life, it would be impossible to have people follow it. It is not only impractical, it is impossible. Modern science clearly shows that people can become addicted to almost anything, TV, drugs, fatty foods – the list is endless. Should we ban them all? Your argument that this law of rationally should be imposed is fallacious in that the law itself is irrational. It would be impossible to ban people from eating too much fat food, from having frequent casual sex, from using Viagra, from watching too much TV. What you are trying to establish here is no democracy, it is an Authoritarian dictatorship of the worst kind. This is in no way rational.

Rebuttal IV

This is where I must take up the issue of what you consider to be rational. I can understand that you say that it is essentially to understand the laws of cause and effect. It would be irrational for me to think that I can jump off my roof and fly. It would be irrational to think that I can simply turn into a rhino if I really tried hard enough. However, you then jump to it being irrational to attempting to doing these things – that is to say that it would be irrational for me to jump off my roof in an attempt to fly, and it would be irrational for me to concentrate really hard on turning into a rhino. This is a much bigger leap than you might assume it to be. What if you have a deep urge to jump off the roof and fly. You know you cannot fly. But you have this urge. It drives you day and night. It is ruining your life. You cannot think of anything else. Finally, you just jump off. You bruise your leg, but otherwise you are fine. Your desire is gone, and you are now a peaceful and calm man. Now I suppose you could have spent $250 an hour on a therapist to cure this, but I would say that jumping off the roof to cure your problem is more rational, as it really only caused a few minor bruises. So you see, jumping off the roof was rational.

Your problem is that you assume this first, original desire to be irrational and thus any action stemming from it is irrational. This is not true. You could of course argue that in the example I gave, the man could very well have died and gained nothing. This is true. Thus, I have two points I must make here. First of all, you assume a total knowledge, bordering on omniscience. Humans have limited mental capacity, some more limited than others. Is it irrational to invest in a stock that then totally collapses? Perhaps Warren Buffet might think so, but it could have seemed like a totally good idea to me at the time. What this example shows is that it is wishful thinking to assume that people have a firm grasp of what each action they do will cause. We unfortunately do not. And this is what can make life beautiful. We try new things, we make mistakes, we learn. Oh sure, if I did a detailed analysis of my DNA and found out what foods I might like and dislike, I might not have tried that eggplant. But is that a good life? I would certainly argue not.

My second point is that, in my opinion, what is rational is what leads to a good life. For some people, prayer makes them happy. Belief in God makes them happy. Without these, they might lead trouble lives. Well good for them. For others, meditation is what does it. There are countless things. What you might consider utterly silly and totally irrational might be the very thing that someone else might consider to be the cornerstone of their life. Who are you to take this away?

For instance, you use the example of Hitler’s program of eliminating idiots from society. There is no logical argument that will prove this is rational. If I lived in a society that did this, it would bother me to no end. Such laws do not contribute to the common good, because nobody can live a good life in such a society. Please don’t attribute such atrocities to anything I would consider rational.

Rebuttal V

I must make this quick, as I am near the limit. I was prepared for you to bring up the fact that doing drugs harms people other than the user, and you did indeed bring it up. Here is the rebuttal I always provide.
What you are saying is basically this: Person A does drugs, and Person B desires Person A not to do drugs. Person B is sad and upset when Person A does drugs. Fair enough. And I can understand that this can make it morally wrong for Person A, especially if Person B is someone he cares about. However, making this sort of harm illegal would be tantamount to making it illegal not to reciprocate feelings of love. If I ask someone out on a date and she refuses, it does me harm. It is of course still legal for her.

I am rapidly approaching 2000 words, so that is all for now. I await your response eagerly.



Edit: minor VBB code error fixed
- Nightshade

[Albert Cipriani]

The Nature of Natural Law & Illegal Drugs, 3 of 4

Well, at least Xorbie is consistent, consistently un-argumentative and insistently assertive. I can find nary a thread of inference running through his last heavy over coat of 2000 words covering this topic.

Ergo, my rebuttals of his “rebuttals” must be structural as opposed to substantive. In other words, those of you who are interested in the whys and wherefores of drug law ought to move on. You’ll dine on nothing of topical sustenance here. Here you’ll only witness my autopsy of Xorbie’s dead-on-arrival thoughts.

Rebutting Xorbie’s Rebuttal #1
1) I expressed the truism that a democratic law is dependent upon the majority’s “PERCEPTION” that the law is morally good.
2) I defined bad laws as those that were unequally applied.

To whit, Xorbie asserts: Do you not see how these two statements contradict one another?

No, I do not. Evidently Xorbie does see how they contradict. But we’ll never know how he manages to see his mirage cuz he only expounds himself while remaining unwilling or unable to explicate himself. How boring. So my rebuttal reduces to a merely academic exercise.

A contradiction, as opposed to the oppositional relationship known as a contrary, consists of two propositions in perfect opposition with one another, differing quantitatively and qualitatively, e.g., a universal affirmative is opposed by a particular negative. But my supposed contradiction consists of two positive universals. Ergo, Xorbie’s claim of contradiction falls. He is formally in error.

My universal statements redact to logical form as the following modal proposition and conditional modal proposition:
1) Democratic laws must necessarily derive from our foible perceptions that they SEEM TO BE GOOD.
2) If democratic laws are REALLY GOOD, then they must be indiscriminately applicable to all of us. (E.g., by this standard a bad law would be: only blue-eyed people can get marriage licenses.)

The two subject terms are:
1) democratic laws
2) democratic laws

The two predicate terms are:
1) must derive from what seems to be good
2) must derive from what really is good

The conditional term upon which good laws are contingent is:
1) the necessity of their indiscriminate applicability.

These terms equate to A = B, and A = C, if C = D. Fleshing out the symbols into language we have, for example:
(A) dogs are
(B) four-legged creatures and
(A) dogs are
(C) good pets, IF they are
(D) cared for properly.

In other words, what Xorbie asserts to be a contradiction is no more than two universal propositions that happen to share the same subject term (democratic law). Since they are not even logically related, for Xorbie to conceive of them as logical contradictions is a breathtakingly audacious act of imagination.

Rebutting Xorbie’s Rebuttal #2
Xorbie asserts that my wife will be subject to a stoning given the hypothetical of the US becoming an Islamic democracy. Is this his not-too-sly way of calling my wife a whore?

Then he asserts what he thinks I think of his hypothetical non-argument: Of course, your rebuttal would be that this religion (Islam) is irrational in the first place.

Of course -- not that it matters one whit -- but he’s wrong on all counts. But it is a clever technique of him to try to argue my side for me. If he continues to do so, I will surely lose this debate.

Political morality is moral relativity. The majority is the morality. Ergo, if 51% of the people want my wife stoned she should be stoned (i.e., executed, not drugged). Thus, democracy bestows the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people. I fully accept this democracy principle of majority rule, while Xorbie seems to be arguing for some sort of absolutist principle that would countermand the will of the majority. No wonder he is happily willing to flout the will of the majority that wants drugs kept illegal.

Rebutting Xorbie’s Rebuttal #3
I had written: Law has everything to do with our actions and nothing to do with our free will.

Xorbie responded: This makes no sense to me. (Editorial note: the “to me” is the operative concept here.)

Ergo, in the Xorbie Utopia, laws would not only be passed against what we do but also against what we want to do. Finally, in my dotage, after a lifetime of my willfully wishing to rob a bank, Bank of America could arrest me, removing once and for all the threat I’ve posed to them all my life long while simultaneously remaining one of their loyal customers.

Rebutting Xorbie’s Rebuttal #3 Some More
Xorbie asserts: I am sorry to say that believing that any law that actually forces people to behave rationally is simply irrational. Even if such a law was good, that is to say if behaving rationally were to lead to a good life, it would be impossible to have people follow it.

What’s irrational is Xorbie’s use of the English language. All kinds of things (That’s the operative word here.) force the behavior of other things (There’s that operative word again, just in case you missed it, Xorbie.)

Forces are a function of physicality, they play out on the field of material being. Laws, like all other abstractions, are a function of rationality; they play out on the field of mental being. Laws force nothing. I.e., laws only disincentivize our willingness to behave illegally.

So Xorbie’s further assertion that "It is not only impractical, but it is impossible” for rational laws to be followed falls under the weight of his own assertion. By definition, no law of any kind forces any kind of behavior. Ergo, Xorbie’s qualified contention is a distinction without a difference. And his contention that no amount of RATIONAL LAWS would be able to force RATIONAL BEHAVIOR goes up in smoke as the straw-man argument it is.

Rebutting Xorbie’s Rebuttal #4
Xorbie claims that jumping off a roof in an attempt to fly is irrational and yet also rational if it saved him “$250 an hour on a therapist.”

Agreed. I never argued that rationality is accessible to all people equally. That I have more of a grasp of rationality than Xorbie has been made evident by this debate, not just by this latest claim of his within this debate.

Not only is the relativity of rationality arbitrated by who we are, but it is also decided by time. So the five-year-old Xorbie’s attempt to fly would be rational; but the irrationality of the 25-year-old Xorbie’s attempt would necessitate the $250-per-hour psychiatrist couch.

Rebutting Xorbie’s Rebuttal #4 Into a Bloody Heap
Xorbie wrote: You use the example of Hitler’s program of eliminating idiots from society. There is no logical argument that will prove this is rational.

Well, you asked for it, Xorbie. Here it is:
1) A genetic trait is intelligence.
2) Selective breeding is a way to select genetic traits.
3) Ergo, selective breeding is a way to select intelligence.

This is a logically valid syllogism. It is cast in the form of the First Figure, the clearest figure of them all (taking nothing away from the fairest-ness of the Wicked Witch in Snow White). The First Figure has two rules required for validity, that the quantity of the major premise (#1) be universal and that the quality of the minor premise (#2) be positive. My two premises conform to these two rules. Ergo, you are wrong. Hitler’s selective breeding program was logical.

Do you not know that virtually everything you put in your mouth is the fruit of selective breeding? How illogical is that?! If your daily breakfast gives mute testimony to the logic of breeding a better pig or stalk of corn, surely doing as much with human beings is just as logical.

Of course, selectively breeding humans -- tho logical -- is immoral. Logic uninformed by morality is the devil’s tool. Logic is only as good as the good rational percepts that are girding its loins.

Rebutting Xorbie’s Rebuttal #5
Xorbie feels that if illegal drug laws prevent a druggy from killing himself and thus save the druggy’s loved ones from the pain of love lost: [It]would be tantamount to making it illegal not to reciprocate feelings of love. If I ask someone out on a date and she refuses, it does me harm. It is of course still legal for her.

I’ve already demonstrated Xorbie’s confusion between means and ends, rationality and irrationality, and contradiction and a propositional sequence. Now we are treated to his confusion between consequences and unintended consequences.

The unintended consequences of taking illegal drugs are an overdose, death, and the inability to return the love of loved ones. Drug laws are blind to all such unintended consequences.

For example, a druggy who does not overdose or die or even have a single loved one whose love he can squander has, nonetheless, violated the drug laws. This is proof positive that the drug laws are not remotely related to the UNINTENDED consequences of being a druggy, but to the drug’s INTENDED consequences of being a druggy, i.e., the drug’s temporarily debilitating intellectual and physical effects.

As for the tasteful woman who has the good sense to INTENTIONALLY not date you, Xorbie, what’s her phone number? I’m sure she and I would hit it off. Seriously, the pain of rejection is also an unintentional consequence of her legitimate intention to avoid you. There are no laws against the unintended pains of courtship. But if the pain caused you was intentional, she would rightly be subject to legal sanction. We do have legal precedent against mental cruelty, the infliction of emotional distress, and verbal abuse. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

P.S. I genuinely like you Xorbie. You may think me foolish to think that I can know anything at all about you to like or dislike, but I believe that mere words on a screen can reveal a great deal more about ourselves than we generally imagine.

Your words on my screen indicate to me that you are a sincere, if somewhat overly enthusiastic and floppy, searcher. It’s the “sincere” that is operative with me. So I genuinely admire you and count you among the very very few that care about what most people could care less about.

Ergo, I trust you do not take my jabs and put-downs personally. I see them as part and parcel of my role as your debater. I expect as much from you tho you have yet to take any pot shots at me.

I deleted a couple demeaning references to you in my last post that the moderator found offensive. I hope you find nothing in this post offensive. But if you do and cannot take them as an expression of the good-naturedly antagonistic roles we have assumed as debaters, I will happily delete them.

[xorbie]

Rebuttal I

Let’s examine the statements again.

Whether a law is good or bad is irrelevant to the fact that its passage depends upon the majority’s perception that it is good.
Self-evidently bad laws emanate from the uncompassionate will of the majority trumping the will of the minority with laws from which the majority is immune. It was against such self-seeking proclivities that our supreme court was established (and has been failing to fulfill that mandate ever since).

First you say that a law will get passed so long as the majority perceives it to be good, and thus bad laws can get passed. Then you state that the supreme court was established so that bad laws will not get passed – and that even if the majority perceives a law to be good it will still not get passed. How are these two statements not in contradiction?

With your new rephrasing, I can see that your two points are not in contradiction, so let us proceed from there. I have a problem with your 2nd statement regarding democratic laws. There should, I strongly believe, be special laws for children, special laws for the elderly, special laws for the developmentally challenged and for several other groups who are deficient in some manner or another. I would not hesitate to call these laws good, and I think you need to demonstrate why they are bad. If you cannot prove that these laws are bad by any standard other than the one you just gave, I would suggest we chuck your criterion.

Rebuttal II

This one is almost too easy.

Political morality is moral relativity. The majority is the morality. Ergo, if 51% of the people want my wife stoned she should be stoned (i.e., executed, not drugged). Thus, democracy bestows the greatest amount of happiness to the greatest number of people. I fully accept this democracy principle of majority rule, while Xorbie seems to be arguing for some sort of absolutist principle that would countermand the will of the majority. No wonder he is happily willing to flout the will of the majority that wants drugs kept illegal.

How is this even a rebuttal to what I said? I was stating that by your definitions, freedom of religion should be taken away. Organized religion is by all accounts a pretty irrational thing. Should we ban it all? Make practicing Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Paganism and countless other religions illegal?

Of course I flout the will of the majority. The will of the majority has absolutely nothing to do with good or bad laws, and especially nothing to do with moral imperatives. I did not say “drugs will never be made illegal” – I think that would be a tough one indeed to debate my way out of. I am saying that is a moral imperative that drugs be legal, and the will of the majority has absolutely nothing to do with this.

Rebuttal III
had written:
quote:

Law has everything to do with our actions and nothing to do with our free will.



Xorbie responded:
quote:

This makes no sense to me. (Editorial note: the “to me” is the operative concept here.)



Please don’t take my comments out of context and then argue based on whatever convenient meaning you can now derive from them. I was making a point, and I will repeat it, that if we define “rational” to be “good” and say that laws must stem from this goodness, we are impeding on free will (specifically, the will to be irrational).

So Xorbie’s further assertion that "It is not only impractical, but it is impossible” for rational laws to be followed falls under the weight of his own assertion. By definition, no law of any kind forces any kind of behavior. Ergo, Xorbie’s qualified contention is a distinction without a difference. And his contention that no amount of RATIONAL LAWS would be able to force RATIONAL BEHAVIOR goes up in smoke as the straw-man argument it is.

You did it again. I said that a law that forces people to be rational would in itself be irrational. You are making it look as if I am arguing against rational laws. Of course rational laws can make rational behavior seem more attractive to an individual contemplating something illegal (although this will not always happen). What I am saying is that laws that attempt to force people to always behave rationally are irrational laws.

Rebuttal IV
Xorbie claims that jumping off a roof in an attempt to fly is irrational and yet also rational if it saved him “$250 an hour on a therapist.”

Agreed. I never argued that rationality is accessible to all people equally. That I have more of a grasp of rationality than Xorbie has been made evident by this debate, not just by this latest claim of his within this debate.

Not only is the relativity of rationality arbitrated by who we are, but it is also decided by time. So the five-year-old Xorbie’s attempt to fly would be rational; but the irrationality of the 25-year-old Xorbie’s attempt would necessitate the $250-per-hour psychiatrist couch.

Dare I say you did it again? My point was that if you knew that jumping off that roof might give you physical pain (that is to say you are aware that you will not in fact be flying) but might save you immense psychological harm, how would it be irrational? You see, the jump makes it unnecessary to go the therapist, not necessitates it. You are just repeating the same points over and over while twisting my comments. How is jumping off a roof necessarily irrational, when I have just shown you how it can be rational?

Up until you rebutting my IV into a bloody heap, you had been subtle about this. I never said selective breeding was illogical, I said it was irrational. Your logical argument merely proves that selective breeding will make for a smarter population. Your logical argument does not show that eugenics is rational.

Rebuttal V
For example, a druggy who does not overdose or die or even have a single loved one whose love he can squander has, nonetheless, violated the drug laws. This is proof positive that the drug laws are not remotely related to the UNINTENDED consequences of being a druggy, but to the drug’s INTENDED consequences of being a druggy, i.e., the drug’s temporarily debilitating intellectual and physical effects.

Yes, assuming that the laws are in place, we can be pretty sure that it is illegal to smoke drugs even if nobody loves you. Last I check, however, this was not an argument about the current legal status of drugs, but the morality behind the legalization (or illegalization) of drugs. The intended consequence of taking drugs (not “being a druggy”) is not often the same thing. For a casual user (they do exist), it might be just to get high and have a jolly good time. For a hardcore addict, the psychological, and with some drugs the physical, pain caused by going too long without can only be ended with another hit.

More from me

Having shown that your rebuttal have amounted mostly to twisting my words and quoting me out of context, I would like to make clear my argument, which you either truly misunderstand or remain willfully ignorant of.

Outside of society, people can do anything. They can kill, steal, rape and pillage to their heart’s content. However, they do not want these things to be done to them, and that is where society comes from. People get together and say “You know what? I think I will agree not to kill everyone, on the basis that everyone else will also agree. Then, we can all join forces and ensure nobody outside our society kills us. And we can give some of our earnings to ensure that nobody inside of our society kills us.”

Society is not born out of some sort of need to ensure that everyone behaves morally, society is totally unconcerned with the morality or ethics of its peoples. Society is concerned only with ensuring that nobody infringes on the rights of anyone else. Let’s say that action X is somehow immoral, even though it harms none but the doer. I think it would be a hard stretch to say that society has the responsibility or even the right to prevent anyone from performing X. And this is where the confusion arises. When I say that good laws must contribute to the general good, I think I speak of an entirely different “general good” than you do.

I speak not of vagaries such as “total pleasure” or similar nebulous utilitarian concepts. “Good” is when everyone is free to seek their own happiness. “Good” is when everyone has an equal chance to live off their own work, and live comfortable. “Good” is not forcing one man to work hard and feed 20. This might be for some “common good” but it certainly is not “Good.” Laws should not necessarily be applied indiscriminately. There are those in our society that cannot make decisions regarding their own happiness, such as the young. There are those that cannot live comfortably off their work, such as the developmentally challenged and elderly. It is society’s job to ensure some level of comfort for these individuals.

However, I do agree that with these exceptions in mind, laws should be applied indiscriminately. However, that is no argument against the use of drugs. In fact, it can be used to show that such laws are, in fact, immoral and unjust (or just “bad” as per Albert’s definition). First of all, this criterion alone is not enough to justify illegalization of drugs. Clearly, other criteria are necessary. Albert argues that good laws should be applied indiscriminately and should stem from natural laws. Fair enough. However, he has failed to show that doing drugs is in fact irrational. Using Viagra, for instance, seems to be perfectly rational. I agree that often pleasure and rationality point the moral compass in opposite directions, but not that they inherently and necessarily do.

But isn’t use of “hard” drugs irrational? It depends. The first high, as addicts will unanimously tell you, is a really great experience. Assuming an individual was somehow assured that he or she would not become an addict, one time (or infrequent) use of these drugs would really not be irrational. Moreover, for someone who was already addicted, use of these drugs or perhaps somewhat less powerful ones, helps would help tremendously. Quitting cold turkey is a task of such proportions that I simply don’t see the majority of people being able to do so. Now we can go ahead and pretend that addicts don’t exist, and it would be nice if they did not. But the sad truth is that they do, and drug laws harm them. Thus I have shown that for two distinct groups of people, use of drugs is not in any way irrational or harmful. Unless you can show that it is still somehow irrational to use drugs, I think you either need to withdraw your criterion for good laws that is hinged upon indiscriminate application or your criterion hinged upon rationally as the basis of law. Pick one.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

We are now entering the fourth and final round of the debate. The debate participants will now submit their concluding statements.

- Nightshade, FD Moderator

[Albert Cipriani]

The Nature of Natural Law & Illegal Drugs, 4 of 4

I concede this debate to Xorbie. I don’t know what I was thinking.

I should have known that a metaphysical presentation of the good-evil-law triad, logic, analogies, illustrations from my own life, historical precedent, fine definitional distinctions and humor would be no match against Xorbie’s monotonous assertiveness.

Even now, he’s so assertive that he continues to assert the one point I’d conceded to him:

Albert: “Xorbie claims that jumping off a roof in an attempt to fly is irrational and yet also rational if it saved him ‘$250 an hour on a therapist.’

Agreed.”

Xorbie: “Dare I say you did it again?... You are jut repeating the same points over and over while twisting my comments. How is jumping off a roof necessarily irrational, when I have just shown you how it can be rational?”

The only appropriate response to such blind intransigent assertiveness is apathy. You’re a good kid, Xorbie. But I must leave you to your demons.

Despair is a sin. It is the twin counterfeit of the sin of presumption. How ironic that Xorbie’s presumption of being able to think should tempt me to commit the opposite offense of despairing of thought. What hope is there to think that thoughts matter when Xorbie can so glibly put together nonsense thoughts like this:

If we define rational to be good and say that laws must stem from this goodness, we are impeding on free will (specifically, the will to be irrational).

The symbolic transcription of which looks like this: if A = B, and C derives from B, D cannot = A. In terms of the causal connection of linear thoughts, this is the geological equivalent of the Grand Canyon. That’s how big a gap there is between Xorbie’s conclusion and premises.

Then there is this brain stopping assertion:

I never said selective breeding was illogical, I said it was irrational. Your logical argument merely proves that selective breeding will make for a smarter population. Your logical argument does not show that eugenics is rational.

The problem is that I believe Xorbie honestly believes his own words. I don’t think he’s just blowing smoke and trying to be argumentative sans an argument. Ergo, somewhere in the folds of his cortex, logical thought does not seem to him to be a subset of rational thought. The “thought” itself boggles my mind. If logic isn’t rational, what is it? If logic isn’t rational, what hope do we have in trying to think about anything?

According to Xorbie, my valid syllogism proving that eugenics is logical only proves that eugenics works, not that eugenics is rational. Somehow somewhere in Xorbie’s brain this distinction without a difference holds. Like a pup tent stake in the ground, it keeps him safe and unsound, dry and untouched amid my monsoon of words to the contrary.

I wish you nothing but the best, Xorbie. I’ve tried my best with you. May God Bless and Save You, Albert the Traditional Catholic
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ReligiousPhilosophy/

[xorbie]

Well, I must say that was somewhat depressing. Here I was thinking I was actually learning something, and Albert was well. Actually, this was one of the best Natural Law arguments I have seen. The only thing I think Albert and I fundamentally disagree on in the purpose of a good law, and somehow (although that was the central point in this debate) that was lost somewhere.

Albert:

Your blessing means nothing to me outside of its obviously condescending nature.

You can go ahead and say all I have going is "monotone assertiveness" and continue to egregiously misrepresent both of our quotes by taking out of context or just "paraphrasing." Fair enough. I suspect debate was just not meant for you. The goal here is to learn, to understand. Your underhanded tactics show that all you care to do here is to attempt to prove your superiority. I won't have it. What you told me, I must reciprocate to you. I don't know if you actually believe what you type, or if you are just twisting my words on the off chance that nobody else will notice what you are doing, but either way it is wrong.

Perhaps next time I will choose a debate partner more carefully.

p.s. I simply could not let this one go:

Ergo, somewhere in the folds of his cortex, logical thought does not seem to him to be a subset of rational thought. The “thought” itself boggles my mind. If logic isn’t rational, what is it? If logic isn’t rational, what hope do we have in trying to think about anything?

According to Xorbie, my valid syllogism proving that eugenics is logical only proves that eugenics works, not that eugenics is rational. Somehow somewhere in Xorbie’s brain this distinction without a difference holds. Like a pup tent stake in the ground, it keeps him safe and unsound, dry and untouched amid my monsoon of words to the contrary.

Logic is, of course, part of rationality. It is a precursor to rationality. One cannot be rational and illogical. However, one can easily be logical and not be rational. A logical proof the selective breeding will raise intelligence is not something mind blowing. Do you want an applause or something? However, this does not mean that eugenics should actually be used, unless you could prove that increasing intelligence is good at the cost of whatever detrimental affects selective breeding has.

Even assuming that all drug use is immoral, and that making it illegal would have an appreciable effect on the number of drug users or amount of drug use, you would still need to show that the effects of this would outweight the detrimental effects of such a law.

I refuse to grant you the first two, and you still have failed to show the third.

[KnightWhoSaysNi]

This concludes the formal debate on the legality of drugs from an ethical perspective. I would like to thank Albert Cipriani and xorbie for participating their time.

- Nightshade, FD Moderator