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To: laredo44; Aquinasfan
Laredo wrote: There is absolutely a reason to prohibit murder, athiest or believer. It is uiversal, disputed by none.

Given a murder, would you prefer to be a) the victim, b) the murderer, c) neither, or d) makes no difference/don't know. The fact is no one selects option a). It is not my opinion vs. somebody else's. Nobody wants to be murdered. That universality is the reason to prohibit murder.

This is not a personal attack against you, but this argument is ridiculous. While I agree that murder is morally wrong, your attempt at a "universal argument" at least in the way you've shared it is untenable.

Structure your argument in a formal way:
Premise 1: It is universal that no human wishes to be murdered
Premise 2: Acting against a human's wishes is wrong
Conclusion: Therefore, murdering a human being is wrong

While we could find a nutcase who would theoretically "disprove" Premise 1, the weakness of this argument comes when reviewing Premise 2.

I could just as well say that no human wishes to be imprisoned, but of course society must imprison some. Or we could get more trivial and say that no human really wishes to pay his electic bill...

In summary, your argument as presented fails.

263 posted on 02/28/2003 1:13:09 PM PST by ER_in_OC,CA
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To: ER_in_OC,CA
I could just as well say that no human wishes to be imprisoned, but of course society must imprison some.

Actually, I'd guess your conjecture to be false. Many people have accepted punishment, even when applied to themselves, as something that is good and right. Who reading this has not said at some point if even to themselves, "I deserved that" in reference to a punsihment they received?

However, let me clarify what I mean a bit. I would couch your example more like this. Given: Murder is wrong -- already established by me. New question, prior to any murders being committed: Should murderers be punished? Nobody is in immediate danger of being punished and therefore has no vested interest in voting themselves out of an unpleasantness. How would people vote? There may be a miniscule few that would try to argue the person could be rehabilitated without punishment, but the vast majority would answer yes.

Going further, take the matter of dancing. Some think it is wrong others not. If you asked them if dancers should be punished, I'd guess you'd not get any sort of universal agreement.

283 posted on 02/28/2003 1:57:44 PM PST by laredo44
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