Lack of sincerity

[Scarberry, Mark]

My apologies for one necessary off-topic response:
 
Bobby is absolutely right that some actions do not have self-referential motives, at least not as their primary motivation.
 
But the reason for this response is that Susan's slander of those who join the military should not be allowed to stand unanswered. There are lots of reasons why young people join the military. An important one is a desire to serve and to protect the rest of us. Wanting to die but afraid to commit suicide? Ridiculous and slanderous as any sort of general statement of why people join. Finally, dying for one's comrades--falling on a grenade--is mostly about protecting the buddies who have become a kind of family. I don't have time to respond to the rest of her post, have no desire to spark an off-topic discussion, and won't post further on this. But these discussions are archived, and at least the archive will show that the list did not just accept this slander.
 
Mark S. Scarberry
Pepperdine Univ. School of Law
 
(And yes, I know that because the statements are written, the proper tort would be libel, not slander, but I'm not talking about causes of action.)
 
 

________________________________

From: religionlaw-bounces at lists.ucla.edu on behalf of Susan Freiman
Sent: Sat 8/2/2008 8:58 AM
To: Law & Religion issues for Law Academics
Subject: Re: Lack of sincerity



Quick, before we're hissed off stage for being off topic:  Let me point
you to discussions about survival value of altruistic behavior -
self-interest includes preserving others of my species.  If I fall on
the grenade, I will finally get my parents' love.  I joined the Army and
put myself in danger because I want to die but am afraid to commit
suicide.  I am heavily in debt, my home is being foreclosed on, my wife
and infant child are about to be thrown into the street, but I know if I
am a war hero even posthumously, my family will be safe.  I'm the one
guilty of mailing anthrax.

I don't think existence of a self-referential motive is all that
demonstrable or all that false.  Not once one recognizes that my motive
may not be your motive, or even rational.

Susan

RJLipkin at aol.com wrote:
>     Susan writes:
> 
>         "There will always be self-interest behind any decision.  Even
> altruistic
> choices involve a belief that the action will send one to heaven, or the
> gratification of knowing one is better than others."
> 
>         If this means every decision to act entails that one /wants/
> to act, then it is true, but not terribly interesting.  If it means
> that every decision to act has a self-referential motive behind
> it--going to heaven, maintaining one's good reputation, and so
> forth--then it is demonstrably false.  Spontaneously falling upon a
> grenade to save one's comrades, cannot without circularity always be
> explained by appealing to self-referential motives.  Some actions are
> performed just because they are right even in some cases when the
> agent is brought to ruin by acting. Supererogatory conduct, for
> instance, need not invoke self-referential motives to explain why the
> agent acted as she did. And if one insists that self-referential
> motives must be operative, one is simply begging the question at
> issue, namely, must self-referential motives always play a part in
> explaining conduct?
>
> Bobby
>      
> Robert Justin Lipkin
> Professor of Law
> Widener University School of Law
> Delaware
> */
> /**/Ratio Juris/*, Contributor:  http://ratiojuris.blogspot.com/*/*/
> Essentially Contested America/*, *Editor-In-Chief
> *http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org//*
> */  <http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/>/*
> */In a message dated 8/2/2008 2:22:56 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> susan.freiman.law.65 at aya.yale.edu writes:
> <http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/>/*
>
>     */There will always be self-interest behind any decision.  Even
>     altruistic
>     choices involve a belief that the action will send one to heaven,
>     or the
>     gratification of knowing one is better than others.
>     <http://www.essentiallycontestedamerica.org/>/*
>
>
>
>
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