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June 13, 2005
Shermer's Principles of Provisional Morality
Michael Shermer's Three Principles of Provisional Morality and Evolutionary Ethic (found in the Edge - World Question Center)
- 1. The ask-first principle: to find out whether an action is right or wrong, ask first.
2. The happiness principle: it is a higher moral principle to always seek happiness with someone else's happiness in mind, and never seek happiness when it leads to someone else's unhappiness.
3. The liberty principle: it is a higher moral principle to always seek liberty with someone else's liberty in mind, and never seek liberty when it leads to someone else's loss of liberty.
0. The Zeroeth principle: do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Here is a great law from Steve Quartz
Quartz's Law of The Primacy of Feeling
- In everyday life, one's anticipated emotions regarding a decision is a better guide than rational deliberation. Brain science is increasingly appreciating the centrality of emotions as guides to life, and emotions are typically more in line with one's wishes than rational deliberation, which can be easily disconnected from one's desires and goals. The upshot: deliberation is cheap, emotions are honest.
McWhorter's Law of Social History
- In a context of widespread literacy, easy communications, and a large class of people with ample leisure time, the social movement that begins by addressing a concrete grievance will, after the grievance has been largely addressed, pass into the hands of persons inclined for individual reasons towards the dramatic and self-righteous, who will manipulate the movement's iconography and passion into a staged indignation difficult for outsiders to square with reality, and with little actively progressive or beneficent intention.
My rule:
- 95% of all literature consists of real people and real events with the names changed. Most fiction is the life experiences of the author, retold.
Posted by rakhier at June 13, 2005 10:45 AM