Also, most night owls are able to switch over to more "normal" hours, so to a large extent this is a study of people who can't change their circadian rhythms.
Empirically, atheists act morally about as much as other people do. This is a general observation, and shows that arriving at a conclusion that theists are moral and atheists aren't is untenable.
Free Will is a very slippery concept. We know from psychological studies that people sometimes make decisions before they're aware that they're making decisions.. Its relationship to determinism is more complicated than it looks. Suppose I'm offered two entree choices. Depending on what they are, someone who knows me well enough would be certain that I'd pick the fried chicken over the stuffed green peppers, for example. This is pretty much certain. I'm predictable that way. Am I exercising free will in asking for the chicken? I don't feel any outside force pressuring me one way or another. Studies have also shown that willpower is a limited resource in individuals.
The problem with "free will" is that people toss it around like it meant something specific. We all feel like we have free will (most of us, anyway), whether or not we're right. We typically act as if we do.
The moral issue is that some people think that determinism preempts morality, that, unless there is free will, everyone is acting as they're preprogrammed to do, and everyone is therefore amoral.
The most obvious contradiction is that it implicitly assumes that we have a moral requirement or a free choice to consider someone not evil by means of determinism, and that doesn't make sense unless I'm assumed to have free will and that serial killer over there is assumed to lack it. (I've seen this sort of reasoning far too often, in various forms.) If we're all amoral because of determinism, then it is the laws of physics that dictate I write about morality.
So, if we assume we have free will of some form or another, we still don't necessarily assume that there is a God (and that's also a slippery concept). We can assume that we have free will and agree that some form of utilitarianism is the theoretical definition of morality, although very difficult to use in practice. There's no contradiction there.
Also, if a feeling of altruism isn't a justification for moral behavior, how about instructions from God? Doing something under a threat of eternal torture is not actual moral behavior.
I'm not sure I've explained what you want, since I don't fully understand what you want. Feel free to ask more questions or ask me to expand on some topics.
Your first cites doesn't support what you claim. Yes, there are federal crimes. No, there are things that can't be federal crimes.
Your second refers to a potential ban on research using federal funding. It mentions that any law banning cloning entirely would face difficult constitutional questions.
Nope. The US largely turned to enacting laws based on Protestant theology for some time. The number of Christians has been going significantly down since, say, the 1950s, and so that consensus is largely going away. This means that would-be theocrats have to be more vocal and energetic, and hence more visible.
I believe prostitution is only legal in the US in some counties in Nevada. The laws differ by state, and Nevada pushes the decision down to the county level.
There is a distinction between "legal" and "not criminalized". If an illegal act will get you a fine and doesn't go on your criminal record, it's generally considered not criminalized.
Without God I don't see how any moral philosophy really holds up
In which I suggest that you broaden either your philosophical education or your imagination, or both. You're taking a particularly limited view of morality, and automatically rejecting that which you don't understand. In fact, lots of atheists act morally by what your standards probably are. Why?
I for one don't believe the atheists who insists on both free will and morality without God.
Don't worry, I don't believe your excursions into moral philosophy, so we're even. The only way you're going to convince me is with good arguments, and your lack of understanding or belief don't constitute a good argument.
Why do you think there is a moral system with God? Isn't "morality is handed down from God" an unsupported moral statement? Doesn't it suffer from the problem that God doesn't clearly outline to each and every one of us what God wants us to do, and so most of us have to get our moral systems from one of a number of people who claim to know God's will, but disagree with each other?
All statements about morality ostensibly based on God's will boil down to "I am right because I say so". We can't even agree whether there is a God (whatever definition we use), and atheists appear to act about as morally as theists.
Moral theories like utilitarianism don't claim that anyone is particularly important.
The constitution is not a restriction on the Federal Government. It is the basis of it. Therefore, the Feds have no legal power that is not specified by the Constitution. The Supreme Court has made some decisions I disagree with on implementing this, but that's the idea.
There is nothing in the Constitution to suggest that the Feds can ban human cloning, as long as it isn't interstate commerce.
Congress does have the power to tax and spend for the general welfare, and a lot of Federal laws are related to that. The Feds get most of the tax money, so that gives them a lot of power to influence the states.
Most of the specific laws area passed by States, which are limited only somewhat by the US Constitution. (They can't favor a particular religion, abridge free speech, etc.) I believe the requirements to have a license to drive on public roads are state laws, and I believe they're in place in all states. A lot of criminal law is fairly common between states. We can talk of first-degree murder because all states have similar murder laws. There's no requirement that a state make murder illegal, but all do.
That's how it works in this country, and some people like it that way. Other people would rather have more uniformity in their law.
In which case it costs them approximately nothing to distribute the source, and it won't reveal any secrets. They're required to make the source available, and they're responsible for keeping it available. If they want to have a third party do that, they need to make sure the third party continues to do that.
That applies if the binaries are distributed, not otherwise. It's perfectly legal to keep modified GPLed code to yourself, and RMS is fine with it. It is true that, if you distribute the binaries, you have a responsibility to give copies of the source to people not your customers.
Advanced weapons can be very useful in a non-nuclear war. Some of the stories I've heard about what US forces were capable of in the 1991 Gulf War were quite impressive. They're better now.
On, I believe, September 11, 1941, the USN was fully at war with Germany in the Atlantic. We didn't do well in that undeclared war, but we fought it. For much of the rest of 1941, we'd been busy violating the rights and responsibilities of neutrals, in favor of Britain. The entry of the US into the war actually disrupted the fighting, because the US stopped exporting as much war materiel.
I have gone to precisely one store (Target) where I stick my card in and enter my PIN. Every other store wants my signature, unless it's below their threshold and they don't want anything.
However, even a smart criminal is likely to screw up at least once, as opposed to making money in legit or financial-institution means, so prison is more of a deterrence to them.
I'm aware that criminals often get guns illegally. In many cases, it's illegal for them to have a gun in the first place. However, having more handguns around is likely to lead to more accidents. There are responsible gun owners who know what they're doing and keep their guns safely. There's no reason to believe that giving someone a gun will transform them into a responsible gun owner.
By arming that one woman, we're arming lots of them, since there's no way to predict in advance who will be seriously threatened. By arming lots of people, we increase the chance of a gun being used in the heat of passion, or someone panicking and shooting someone who wasn't in fact a serious threat. I've known a non-criminal or two who I thought dangerous.
FWIW, I know people who have been in hospitals because of mental health issues, and I'd trust some of them with guns as much as I'd trust anybody I hang around with.
Right now, I'm not proposing a solution. I really don't know enough for that. What I do know is that we've got a problem, and it would be nice to get everyone agreed that we have a problem that can likely be partially solved. I've noticed people going to forums just to shoot down anyone's suggestions, which strikes me as very unproductive and divisive.
Your gedankenexperiment doesn't even support your claim. There's a difference between wishing I were armed and wishing someone else were. Neither of us has empirical evidence. We differ on what the answer is likely to be.
Science is built by people with differing views, and physics in particular has been interested in new ideas. If you can't get any acceptance, you need to ask yourself what you're doing wrong.
Are you privy to the negotiations and contracts between Apple and the school district? People who buy in large quantities can often get deals that people who buy very small quantities don't. The school district likely told Apple what they wanted, and Apple quoted them a price.
As I said, the bombing campaigns were conducted in the full awareness that lots of civilians would die. (A police officer once pulled over "Bomber" Harris and told him he'd kill someone if he kept driving that way. Harris asked the constable if he knew how many people Harris killed every night.) Civilians were not specifically targeted, but after the very beginning of the war nobody held back bombing for fear of hitting civilians. (There was a 1939 daytime raid on a German port that wasn't carried through because the bomber crew couldn't be certain of hitting a warship and not something civilian. That didn't last.)
Postwar evidence is that area bombing of cities was not, overall, very effective in Germany. Nobody on the Allied side knew that at the time.
However, the point stands. The widely destructive Allied bombing was because they couldn't reliably hit precision targets.
BTW, you might want to check a map of Japan. Northern Hokkaido faces away from the Home Islands. And, yes, coal was a vital part of the Japanese economy, and they did a lot with it, and that's why sinking the ferries was so important.
Slashdot Mirror
Such an excellent example of what GP wrote about.
Also, most night owls are able to switch over to more "normal" hours, so to a large extent this is a study of people who can't change their circadian rhythms.
Empirically, atheists act morally about as much as other people do. This is a general observation, and shows that arriving at a conclusion that theists are moral and atheists aren't is untenable.
Free Will is a very slippery concept. We know from psychological studies that people sometimes make decisions before they're aware that they're making decisions.. Its relationship to determinism is more complicated than it looks. Suppose I'm offered two entree choices. Depending on what they are, someone who knows me well enough would be certain that I'd pick the fried chicken over the stuffed green peppers, for example. This is pretty much certain. I'm predictable that way. Am I exercising free will in asking for the chicken? I don't feel any outside force pressuring me one way or another. Studies have also shown that willpower is a limited resource in individuals.
The problem with "free will" is that people toss it around like it meant something specific. We all feel like we have free will (most of us, anyway), whether or not we're right. We typically act as if we do.
The moral issue is that some people think that determinism preempts morality, that, unless there is free will, everyone is acting as they're preprogrammed to do, and everyone is therefore amoral.
The most obvious contradiction is that it implicitly assumes that we have a moral requirement or a free choice to consider someone not evil by means of determinism, and that doesn't make sense unless I'm assumed to have free will and that serial killer over there is assumed to lack it. (I've seen this sort of reasoning far too often, in various forms.) If we're all amoral because of determinism, then it is the laws of physics that dictate I write about morality.
So, if we assume we have free will of some form or another, we still don't necessarily assume that there is a God (and that's also a slippery concept). We can assume that we have free will and agree that some form of utilitarianism is the theoretical definition of morality, although very difficult to use in practice. There's no contradiction there.
Also, if a feeling of altruism isn't a justification for moral behavior, how about instructions from God? Doing something under a threat of eternal torture is not actual moral behavior.
I'm not sure I've explained what you want, since I don't fully understand what you want. Feel free to ask more questions or ask me to expand on some topics.
Your first cites doesn't support what you claim. Yes, there are federal crimes. No, there are things that can't be federal crimes.
Your second refers to a potential ban on research using federal funding. It mentions that any law banning cloning entirely would face difficult constitutional questions.
Nope. The US largely turned to enacting laws based on Protestant theology for some time. The number of Christians has been going significantly down since, say, the 1950s, and so that consensus is largely going away. This means that would-be theocrats have to be more vocal and energetic, and hence more visible.
I believe prostitution is only legal in the US in some counties in Nevada. The laws differ by state, and Nevada pushes the decision down to the county level.
There is a distinction between "legal" and "not criminalized". If an illegal act will get you a fine and doesn't go on your criminal record, it's generally considered not criminalized.
In which I suggest that you broaden either your philosophical education or your imagination, or both. You're taking a particularly limited view of morality, and automatically rejecting that which you don't understand. In fact, lots of atheists act morally by what your standards probably are. Why?
Don't worry, I don't believe your excursions into moral philosophy, so we're even. The only way you're going to convince me is with good arguments, and your lack of understanding or belief don't constitute a good argument.
Why do you think there is a moral system with God? Isn't "morality is handed down from God" an unsupported moral statement? Doesn't it suffer from the problem that God doesn't clearly outline to each and every one of us what God wants us to do, and so most of us have to get our moral systems from one of a number of people who claim to know God's will, but disagree with each other?
All statements about morality ostensibly based on God's will boil down to "I am right because I say so". We can't even agree whether there is a God (whatever definition we use), and atheists appear to act about as morally as theists.
Moral theories like utilitarianism don't claim that anyone is particularly important.
The constitution is not a restriction on the Federal Government. It is the basis of it. Therefore, the Feds have no legal power that is not specified by the Constitution. The Supreme Court has made some decisions I disagree with on implementing this, but that's the idea. There is nothing in the Constitution to suggest that the Feds can ban human cloning, as long as it isn't interstate commerce.
Congress does have the power to tax and spend for the general welfare, and a lot of Federal laws are related to that. The Feds get most of the tax money, so that gives them a lot of power to influence the states.
Most of the specific laws area passed by States, which are limited only somewhat by the US Constitution. (They can't favor a particular religion, abridge free speech, etc.) I believe the requirements to have a license to drive on public roads are state laws, and I believe they're in place in all states. A lot of criminal law is fairly common between states. We can talk of first-degree murder because all states have similar murder laws. There's no requirement that a state make murder illegal, but all do.
That's how it works in this country, and some people like it that way. Other people would rather have more uniformity in their law.
In which case it costs them approximately nothing to distribute the source, and it won't reveal any secrets. They're required to make the source available, and they're responsible for keeping it available. If they want to have a third party do that, they need to make sure the third party continues to do that.
That applies if the binaries are distributed, not otherwise. It's perfectly legal to keep modified GPLed code to yourself, and RMS is fine with it. It is true that, if you distribute the binaries, you have a responsibility to give copies of the source to people not your customers.
To be honest, on numerous occasions I have intentionally transferred a specific bodily fluid to my wife. Am I in trouble?
After our past disagreements, it feels odd to see something you wrote that I agree with so much.
Advanced weapons can be very useful in a non-nuclear war. Some of the stories I've heard about what US forces were capable of in the 1991 Gulf War were quite impressive. They're better now.
On, I believe, September 11, 1941, the USN was fully at war with Germany in the Atlantic. We didn't do well in that undeclared war, but we fought it. For much of the rest of 1941, we'd been busy violating the rights and responsibilities of neutrals, in favor of Britain. The entry of the US into the war actually disrupted the fighting, because the US stopped exporting as much war materiel.
I always thought it was a good thing that Microsoft got BSD networking code. The GPL(s) really aren't suited for infrastructure code.
They started out dealing with counterfeiters. Guarding the President is just their most visible job.
I have gone to precisely one store (Target) where I stick my card in and enter my PIN. Every other store wants my signature, unless it's below their threshold and they don't want anything.
Sometimes my lane departure warning software can see markings I can't (typically on a rainy night), and sometimes I see markings it misses.
It seems to work well enough.
However, even a smart criminal is likely to screw up at least once, as opposed to making money in legit or financial-institution means, so prison is more of a deterrence to them.
I'm aware that criminals often get guns illegally. In many cases, it's illegal for them to have a gun in the first place. However, having more handguns around is likely to lead to more accidents. There are responsible gun owners who know what they're doing and keep their guns safely. There's no reason to believe that giving someone a gun will transform them into a responsible gun owner.
By arming that one woman, we're arming lots of them, since there's no way to predict in advance who will be seriously threatened. By arming lots of people, we increase the chance of a gun being used in the heat of passion, or someone panicking and shooting someone who wasn't in fact a serious threat. I've known a non-criminal or two who I thought dangerous.
FWIW, I know people who have been in hospitals because of mental health issues, and I'd trust some of them with guns as much as I'd trust anybody I hang around with.
Right now, I'm not proposing a solution. I really don't know enough for that. What I do know is that we've got a problem, and it would be nice to get everyone agreed that we have a problem that can likely be partially solved. I've noticed people going to forums just to shoot down anyone's suggestions, which strikes me as very unproductive and divisive.
Your gedankenexperiment doesn't even support your claim. There's a difference between wishing I were armed and wishing someone else were. Neither of us has empirical evidence. We differ on what the answer is likely to be.
Science is built by people with differing views, and physics in particular has been interested in new ideas. If you can't get any acceptance, you need to ask yourself what you're doing wrong.
Are you privy to the negotiations and contracts between Apple and the school district? People who buy in large quantities can often get deals that people who buy very small quantities don't. The school district likely told Apple what they wanted, and Apple quoted them a price.
As I said, the bombing campaigns were conducted in the full awareness that lots of civilians would die. (A police officer once pulled over "Bomber" Harris and told him he'd kill someone if he kept driving that way. Harris asked the constable if he knew how many people Harris killed every night.) Civilians were not specifically targeted, but after the very beginning of the war nobody held back bombing for fear of hitting civilians. (There was a 1939 daytime raid on a German port that wasn't carried through because the bomber crew couldn't be certain of hitting a warship and not something civilian. That didn't last.)
Postwar evidence is that area bombing of cities was not, overall, very effective in Germany. Nobody on the Allied side knew that at the time.
However, the point stands. The widely destructive Allied bombing was because they couldn't reliably hit precision targets.
BTW, you might want to check a map of Japan. Northern Hokkaido faces away from the Home Islands. And, yes, coal was a vital part of the Japanese economy, and they did a lot with it, and that's why sinking the ferries was so important.
Or, if you like, we'd have to get rid of massive quantities of guns. Getting massive security in place is a lot easier and more reliable.