Quote:
Originally Posted by chezlaw
More the other way round I think i.e 'don't lie', 'don't kill' are the defaults with particular exceptions requiring justification. It matters that we get this the right way round because we don't need any particular justification to tell the truth or not kill someone - these are literally the default positions.
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What do you mean they are the default positions? What reasons do we have to assume these are the default positions? If anything the default positions would be neither--that it is neither right nor wrong to lie or to kill. Then, when the lying happens and the murdering happens, we look at the results and see if it is to our liking.
Person A kills person B, person B's brother kills person A. Person A's father then kills person B's brother, and so it goes, on and on, vengeful men serving justice. This of course is not to our liking as we need all four of these able-bodied men to fight our wars and till our fields.
This scenario being plausible does not come apriori but rather from an understanding of human behavior -- jealousy, revenge, justice, etc. If humans only killed when it was ethical and right to do so, there's no way it would be illegal.
The fact that we observe something and make a decision about it being good to us or not, I dont think, can mean that our conclusion about the scenario is now the "default position."