Patrick Elliott wrote:
> In article <475### [at] hotmailcom>, a_l### [at] hotmailcom 
> says...
>> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>> In article <4753b011$1@news.povray.org>, dne### [at] sanrrcom says...
>>>> Tim Cook wrote:
>>>>> Ethics is almost entirely 
>>>>> arbitrary, aside some fundamental survival derivatives.
>>>> I would disagree, but that's OK.
>>>>
>>> I would disagree too. You don't learn ethics by someone *telling* you 
>>> that its bad, you do so by testing the boundaries of what, first, you 
>>> parents allow, then society, and concluding, based on evidence, that 
>>> there are **consequences** for acting unethically. Its only arbitrary in 
>>> the sense that "sometimes" the rules are based on irrational projections 
>>> of imaginary consequences, or misinterpretations of the magnitude, 
>>> nature, existence or even the actual cause of real consequences.
>>>
>> That is not ethics, that is culture. You learn ethics by finding out why 
>> the universe exist and what it's ultimate goal is. Use that as a basis 
>> to explain mankind's existence and its final purpose. From that you can 
>> derive what you as a person should do. At least that is how I did it 
>> (granted, I still have to fill in some minor details).
>>
> One of us is using a completely crazy definition of what "ethics" means, 
> and since yours is nothing like what *anyone* I have ever talked to 
> uses, I don't think its mine. Just saying...

Mine wasn't a definition. It was a procedure to arrive at a set of 
morals. If you follow ethics through the ages you will see that in most 
cases ethics are passed down from one generation to another with or 
without minor changes. There are however discontinuities as a result of 
people (prophets) that follow my recipe.

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