[ExI] Libertarianism wins again...

[Stefano Vaj]

2011/7/26 Dan <dan_ust at yahoo.com>

> But core moral precepts in such a system would incluyde, in my reckoning,
> things like allowing people to determine how they live their lives. One
> might see these as meta-values or, as Den Utl and Rassmussen put it,
> metanorms.
>

Or simply as a paradox.

If one accepts peoples' liberty to determine how they live, you implicitely
accept that they can, at least factually, pick and choose their value
system.

To believe that you have a moral right to impose your "core moral precepts",
implies denying that they can, or at least that they should. No big deals,
monotheists, and their secular offspring, have been doing that for
centuries.

Only, one cannot have its pie and eat it too. And transhumanism, as any
other rising, minority, revolutionary, school of thought, is way better off
if a few doubts exist about the existence of eternal, universal moral truths
that regularly end up being the parochial "yuck reaction" of the old,
pre-revolutionary mainstream in any given society.

This puts an end to any meaningful ethical or political or aesthetical
discussion? By no mean.

Simply, we have humbly to recognise that as long as we accept to limit
ourselves to strictly "rational" arguments, the only way to advocate for a
given position can only be based either on finding some common ground with
your opponents (or, more importantly, with the public, the audience you
share) or on showing the ultimate inconsistency of their own position.

Now, I suspect that this is not really possible with radical and consequent
anti-transhumanists, so we just have to agree to disagree, and wait and see
which worldview is going to prevail...

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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