More On My Views.

Like I said, I bought that book on utilitarianism by J. J. C. Smart in 1994. And for a while I thought I might be a utilitarian. But I eventually found out utilitarianism has some flaws. I still like it's emphasis on outcomes alone, it's rejection of motive and it's reliance on rationality and on what produces that best results, the greatest numbers. But it doesn't protect personal rights enough and it seems to put too much emphasis on pleasure, at least its original form. Also like I told people a while back, it seems to think it's its job to make you happy whether you want to be or not. What if you choose to miserable? I concluded, by 1996 I think, that the best moral system would be one based solely on individual rights. That you should do as you please as long as you harm no one else and don't interfere with them or their lives. And that it always involve consenting adults. Of course, utilitarianism says you define utility whatever way you wish. So I still could use it that way. Also I like how utilitarianism rejects retribution and punishment for anything but protecting society. That I learned early on is one of the biggest criticisms against it. But that actually I think is what is best about it. I also decided early on that Maslow's pyramid or hierarchy of needs is really the end goal of all human conduct. (And my 1996 ethics teacher also said to promote human flourishing.) Then right after that I started hearing people saying the same, that Maslow's pyramid or is the end goal of all human conduct. I wondered at first if that was some kind of coincidence or, if said by people in my life, if they were copying and even mocking. But you know sometimes I find that I just come up with things independent of others. Sometimes just because it's logical. (I know in that 1996 ethics class the teacher had the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the back of the book. He also said that it is an attempt to make a universal moral standard, which human rights also is. Those were all things I was thinking by then, as I said. But I didn't think much of that. That time I just assumed that he said that and the book said that like I concluded because it made sense.)

I also thought for years that any laws that does anything outside of just protect individuals or society are pretty stupid. And I think I have been leaning in that direction all my life really. That view that I have had for some time now is known as the harm principle and John Stuart Mill came up with it in the nineteenth century. But I just found out this year any state that isn't a theocracy should really follow this rule. And any state that has a rule against an establishment of religion would be required to. Vice laws are really just basically what are called ecclesiastical laws, or church laws. (And I also found out last year that obscenity laws could be viewed as just another form of blasphemy law, or at least so Google AI said.) And as Thomas Jefferson once pointed out, the common law never had it. Laws that aren't church laws are usually only laws that protect individuals or property. Although people like Henry VIII sometimes turned ecclesiastical laws into official state laws. Also it's not clear where Jefferson was always coming from sometimes. He was obviously the product of the age of enlightenment, all of our founding fathers were. And he probably was a deist, though he never called himself one. (Benjamin Franklin definitely called himself a deist.) He was strongly in favor of the separation of church and state, at the federal and state level (though he also believed in states' rights, which would be a very conservative position today). But he also supported things like adultery and sodomy laws. And he went to church every Sunday and often talked like a Christian to people. I think though it just depended on who he was addressing. If he was addressing voters he probably deliberately sounded the other way. Also, the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights seems to support vice crimes when it says "In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society". Requirements of morality. And like I said I think that is ridiculous. But the UDHR is also an attempt to list the minimum standard of rights that all should have too.

I was also going to say that I had been sharing that quote from Timon of Athens that begins "Alcibiades, thou art a soldier, therefore seldom rich". I thought it could refer to people in society have dangerous jobs and sacrifice much for little pay. Like police officers as I've said and others. Google AI says it could be given that modern interpretation. But that is probably not what Shakespeare originally meant. He was talking about the life of a soldier in his time. He was probably talking about the character Alcibiades in the play too.