From: "james.daly" <james.daly-AT-ntlworld.com>
Subject: BHA: Re: moral/political theory
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2001 20:16:14 -0000


Hi Ruth -- -- --

theI agree with you that the good should not be identified with utility, but
in practice nowadays it tends to be. Rawls is a perfect example of what I
mean by the modern dichotomising of right and good.  He claimed the good can
be considered on its own, and that the right is something different which
limits the good.  He means that justice sets limits to utilitarianism.  I
suppose my position is basically Thomistic and I think the good includes
justice.  The right for me means what is in accordance with right reason,
Aristotle's orthos logos.  It is also in accordance with nature as an ideal,
a telos -- not the Hobbesian and Benthamite "mere nature" which Kant and
Hegel accept.  Aristotle's eudaimonia includes justice as part of the good
(integrally not quantitatively).  I agree with you that Plato's theory of
justice is ontological; it is pre-Cartesian, and dialectical.  The others on
my list are also non-Cartesian, and dialectical.  So my list stands --
Aristotle, Aquinas, Hegel, Marx and Bhaskar.

You asked -- -- --
 >I agree -- I hope -- with Mervyn that an
>ontological lack is a key to an understanding of values as the fulfilment
of
>essence. -- --  Can you explain this more?

What I meant was something like this: that for me RB's dialectic allows for
the negative in the form of a need, an ontological deficit, something owing
(an "ought"), something "worthy of [due to, debitum -- J. D.] human
nature"(Marx,*Capital*Vol 3).

james daly
james.daly-AT-ntlworld.com



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