Date: Sat, 31 Oct 1998 19:48:50 +0100
From: Manfred Schmidtke <m.schmidtke-AT-ebe-online.baynet.de>
Subject: re: Personal Responsibility


At 15:58 30.10.98 -0500, Unka Bart wrote:

>> >  One can interpret him as cancelling our right to our moral opinions:

>> hey dave.....stars got a right to shine, you got a right to moral
>> opinions, paint got a right to dry......er, what exactly is 'right'
>> adding?

>Stars, brother Jer, have the characteristic of "shining"  It ain't a
>"right," they don't have the ability to choose.  Brother David showed his
>remarkable perspicuity in pointing that out to you.

Having moral opinions is a characteristic of humans. You don't "choose" to
have moral opinions.

>> explain to me about morals dave? what they are and where they come from?

>Morals come from two sources.  I get mine from a Cracker-Jax box, but I
>suspect that most of the rest of us get them from the little voice inside
>each of us, that watches what we do and guides us.  Or *tries* to guide us.
>
>The little voice gets them, first from the parental figures it knows at the
>earliest times; and then spends a lifetime comparing what it got originally
>with what it learns as we wander through this vale of tears, and modifying
>what it knows with what it has learned.

Great. So it's not *you* who makes the decision, it's the little voice
inside of you. Or maybe that little voice *is* actually you. 

I agree with Jeremy here. Personal responsibility doesn't exist. For
everything we do, we have reasons... these reasons don't come out of
nowhere, they are give biologically or socially. If someone likes to walk
around, kill other humans and drink their blood, it is not *his* fault, it
is the fault of society which obviously failed to give him a reason to stop
this behaviour.

MANi