Stephen Hawking: Biggest Human Failing Is Aggression

hypnosec writes: Aggression is the human failing that celebrity scientist Stephen Hawking would most like to correct, as it holds the potential to destroy human civilization. Hawking expressed his views while escorting Adaeze Uyanwah — London's Official Guest of Honor — around London's Science Museum. Uyanwah asked Hawking what human shortcomings he would alter, and which virtues he would enhance if this was possible. He replied, "The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression. It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory, or partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all. A major nuclear war would be the end of civilization, and maybe the end of the human race."

Comments

Re:errr. huh?

[Cytotoxic]

Non-aggression is a principle of ethics.

From the Wikipedia:

The Non-Aggression Principle (NAP) is the idea that each person has the right to make his or her own choices in life so long as they do not involve aggression, defined as the initiation of force or fraud, against others.

More technically, the principle asserts that aggression, a term defined by proponents as any encroachment on another person's life, liberty, or justly acquired property, or an attempt to obtain from another via deceit what could not be consensually obtained, is always illegitimate. Aggression, for the purposes of NAP, is defined as initiating or threatening violence against a person or legitimately owned property of another.

Like all ethics principles there are edge cases that create long, contentious discussions. But the basic idea is that you can use force to defend yourself (or others) against aggression as defined above. Otherwise, you leave everyone else alone.

Strangely, "We don't start things, but if you do we'll finish it and you won't like that." is probably an accurate synopsis of self-defense for a proponent of the NAP.