Oh, no, I have to disagree here. Consider a specific sort of logic and reason - the study of mathematics. We don't study math because it makes us feel good - ask any third grader how he feels about fractions ;)
It may be true that it engenders an emotional response in us, but that's not why we do it - we do it because the doing of it brings us practical benefits. Studying mathematics allows us to do good things, like build buildings, and make medicines, and all sorts of other things to make the world a better place. We do it because doing it gives us things we want - any emotional response to the doing of it is strictly a side-effect in most cases.
And so it is with the use of logic and reason in general. We don't appeal to logic because it makes us feel all shiny and happy when we do - we do it because the doing of it has benefits for us.
Well, of course. They "reasoned" that people wouldn't understand, so they instead went with what they felt would have obtained the outcome they desired. Now you can say that they nonetheless should have tried to reason with their subjects, but of course by saying that, you're already imposing an arbitrary morality that you apparently have an significant amount of faith in.
Well, of course I would say that - that is sort of the point of having laws based on reason, isn't it? That totalitarian-wannabes don't get to discard it any more than the rest of us do just because it interferes with their desired outcome.
It's rather difficult to try to apply this system in retrospect, and figure out what people would have or should have done in such a case. You want to try to construct a perverse case where the system I propose would break down - that's perfectly fair, and exactly what I would do in your position. But I can always step back a bit further and point out that, were such a system in place with the attendant axioms, such a perverse case might very well not have arisen in the first place.
Here you're projecting your opinions onto me. You say that it was a failure of logic and reason, but that's certainly not what I was saying. My point was that it could very well have been a result of sound logic, but logic not based on the proper axioms - chief amomg them, the right to life.
Well, I'm not really saying that you're saying this - at least, that's not how I intend it. But I can cast it as a failure to apply the principles of reason - saying that it might have been based on bad axioms only reinforces my statements that we would need to start by exploring which things we are to treat as rights, before just setting sail on the seas of logic. The axioms we base society on do matter, very much - I think we are not really disagreeing in that respect.
It's certainly a moral judgement, but I fail to see how it can be a purely rational one. How is it any less "rational" to say that the ends do indeed justify the means?
That's a matter of the axioms we put in place, as much as anything else. I think it's not indefensible to suggest that one principle might be that the means must be proportional to the ends. I could end pollution tomorrow by slaughtering all of mankind, but this solution is invalid because of a few axioms we might propose. It's not proportional, it's not the only way to accomplish the desired goal, it violates our axiom that a person's preference for life is paramount to someone else's desire to end it, and so forth. All this illustrates is that we need a set of axioms with which to begin - some first principles. After we decide what those things are, then we proceed from there.
I'm not trying to make a case that laws based on reason are entirely perfect, or that a society based on such such a thing would be infinitely superior to a society with laws based on morality - only that it is at least as good in all aspects, and that it carries one important advantage. It promotes the use of reasoned discourse as a way of changing things. The argument that "God says X is wrong, and God says that you have to listen to me" is out the window in such a society. Since such an argument can be used for ill at least as well as for good, and since it is often an excuse for me imposing my will on you, I tend to think that ruling this argument out of bounds is a good thing in and of itself. We give up claims of special authority on morality, and instead substitute arguments designed to persuade people of the rightness of a particular thing.
We don't study math because it makes us feel good - ask any third grader how he feels about fractions ;)
A good many of them aren't terribly attracted to it, but some are, and those are the ones who become mathematicians. The rest go into politics or something.
It may be true that it engenders an emotional response in us, but that's not why we do it - we do it because the doing of it brings us practical benefits.
HA! HA! HA! What "practical benefits" did it bring Galileo and Copernicus to study the planets and conclude that the Church was bass-ackwards in saying that the earth was the center of the UN*V%#$E? There are, and have been throughout history, people who've devoted their lives to learning and discerning what's around them without the least regard for how it would affect them practically. You are quite resoundingly wrong on this.
it [slaugtering mankind to end pollution] violates our axiom that a person's preference for life is paramount to someone else's desire to end it
Funny, I thought "our" axiom (according to you) was survival of the species. But now, it looks like you're making a moral assumption, doesn't it? Seems to show the hollowness of your later statement that laws based on "reason" are superior to laws based on "morality", I'd say.
All this illustrates is that we need a set of axioms with which to begin - some first principles.
Well wake up and smell the java, General! We've already had such axioms for quite some time, as Diamond and I have been trying to explain to you.
You seem to be contradicting yourself left and right. First you say that reason alone is enough, then you say that we need axioms, which by definition are things that can't be based on reason, because they exists ipso facto. When they're spoken of in regard to how humans should conduct themselves, then we have a word for it: "morality".