[ExI] Charity vs. the Dole

[Rafal Smigrodzki]

On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 9:19 PM, Stathis Papaioannou<stathisp at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> But you also have a sense of what is "unfair" and "against human
> dignity" which doesn't have much to do with what most people think.

### Yes, but still almost never use these terms, since I prefer to
speak more precisely about moral desiderata (e.g. "in-group
non-violence", "contract", "QALY"). "Fairness" is almost always used
as a smoke screen. I remember arguing with this jerk, Dave
Whatshisname on wta, he always blathered about fairness but it turned
out he just hated rich people.
---------------------------

> Not a criticism, personal moral values are irreducible. Even
> consequentialist ethics is at bottom deontological, otherwise where
> does the idea that good consequences is what counts come from?
>
### From our neural structure. Somewhere in our brainstem there are
nuclei that participate in the programming of our limbic system that
shapes the functioning of our cortex, all of which adds to a
tautology, "Good is good because it is good". This seems to be a
universal feature of all functioning neural architectures that I know
of, although of course the exact content of "good" will greatly vary.

Rafal