fluffygrrl

Hey Libertine - thanks for the reply. I have no idea how much alcohol there needs to have been imbibed between the two of us to turn the gofuckyourself board into a wittgenstainesque ethics seminar, but I imagine a lot.

Only if we insist to understand the problem in terms of material determinism. This may or may not be what we want, but it is at any rate bias. Just like there's no guarantee that the behaviour of photons can be understood in terms of billiard balls, just so there's no guarantee that the universe can be explained in terms of material interaction.

While I agree the issue is a problem, it's not our problem. It doesn't matter, for our purpose, if there needs or not to be a soul, if it needs or not to be so-or-so, or if it has or has not a reasonably, or materially, or otherwise explainable path of interaction with matter, or all that.

We merely need to observe that the role of the state can never exceed the material, and as such, anything outside of that, be it a soul or not, so-or-so, or otherwise, with or without conceivable method to influence the material is, remains, should be, should remain, outside the purvey of the state (understood, in this sense, in the widest sense, as any application of any social contract).

On the further point of free will, I'm willing to cut the gordian knot the following way : We presume it exists, because of the above reasons. The fact that we may or may not understand what it is or how it works has no bearing. Just like we presume legally supoena'd individuals have been given constructive notice, just so we presume acting individuals are employing their free will.

This is a necessary plug for our statal system in the face of the complexity of the universe, and says nothing about said complexity, merely something about our limits, what we can and can't do.

Youy will have to prove that this thing you label "sociopaths" in itself is something else from you and me. I suspect it is, like "terrorist" or "free will", or "constructive notice", merely a term of art, there to supplant a failure of our statal theory, rather than to positively describe anything.

I note your intelligent argumentation in favour of liberty, civil and otherwise, on material grounds - economical, foremost, who best to know what to spend our money on, with the broader expanse built on that, who best to know.

This is true, but in my eyes it has a flaw. It describes knowledge, not action. Who best to know ? Us, obviously. But who best to do ?

Ethics is about action. What should be done and what should not be done. It's not a matter of what should, or rather, in the case of your argument, could, be known. So, I agree with your intelligent argumentation, and look forward to you supplanting the one little crack in it, which unfortunately runs squarely in between knowledge and action.

This is an argument I wqould very much like to hear, especially the part where such casuality driven people would succeed in passing Turing tests, and thus prove themselves not approximable by machine-code.

Unfortunately, I fail to grasp how "genes, environment" are different, or not a case of, "higher, non-material, soul-like" things in your argumentation.

Cheers.