-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Brodie <richard@brodietech.com>
Date: Sunday, March 07, 1999 6:10 PM
>True goodwill, though, persists even in the face of overwhelming evidence
to
>the contrary. It's simply a choice that one must make. If you make it on a
>case-by-case basis, you don't have it.
>
>You might already be likening this to the Prisoners' Dilemma and be ready
to
>argue that goodwill is a rational choice in certain situations. But true
>goodwill is faith without reason, good acts for their own sake. It's an act
>of Faith. And it's certainly useful in dealing with everyone, not just
those
>who share it.
You seem to be implying that reason cannot lead to true goodwill. It can. You can reason that being selective with your goodwill may have better payoffs sometimes, but it costs too much to figure out when to apply it in a realistic environment with uncertain information, not to mention possibly undermining one's own self-esteem.
If that is not the case, then having faith in goodwill is simply more
harmful
than being reasonably goodwilled (unless your True Purpose is to become a
martyr :-). Either way, you are better off (or at least no worse off) using
reason rather than faith.
What if for every situation where faith is useful, it can be shown that you would be at least as well off using reason and sometimes better off? Wouldn't that be an excellent reason to abandon faith? Of course it would take a reasonable person to understand the merit of this argument and therein lies the dilemma :-)
David