Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 02:49:47 -0500 (EST) From: Matthew King <making-AT-yorku.ca> Subject: Re: Re: Homeopathic thread is relevant; think again On Sun, 13 Dec 1998, Michael Rooney wrote: > While your jargon-laden criteria are ornamented with > the usual leftist watchwords and catch-phrases, it's > utterly vague on the obvious, important, *practical* > issues: which desires are revolutionary? which are > "recuperative"? which scripts underline performativity? > which are everyday? How do you tell the difference? Maybe it would help (no sarcasm intended!) if you would tell us how *you* tell the difference, Michael. Thinking back to your illustration of why "decency" isn't any moral help--i.e., you might think you're being decent to (un)leash by sacrificing him--I wonder what you think *would* be a good moral standard which would show that sacrificing people is *wrong*? (You said that showing that the god doesn't exist would be a start--but it isn't the start of a *moral* argument.) Notice that if "decency" isn't any help, then Kant isn't any help either--if, for whatever reason, you think you're being decent to (un)leash by sacrificing him to the god, then clearly you're acting with a good will, not treating him merely as a means, etc. Utilitarianism isn't any help, because you think that everybody (including even (un)leash!) is going to be better off because of the sacrifice. So, say you appeal to (un)leash's inalienable right to life and liberty ... now what will you stand *that* on? Or say, even, that you appeal to a somewhat more sophisticated theory like Habermas's and say that you can't do anything to anyone that they wouldn't consent to under idealized conditions (though (un)leash's sacrificer could still argue that (un)leash *would* consent under the appropriate conditions) ... still, what do you stand *that* on, ultimately? (Ultimately, what you find Habermas's theory standing on are some ethical assumptions about how a healthy society should function ... assumptions which, while I for the most part happen to share them, are not unassailable. Good moral standards, meanwhile, *are* supposed to be unassailable. They're supposed to show that sacrificing (un)leash is wrong, no ifs, ands, or buts about it--because if they're not unassailable, then ultimately they're not any better than mere preferences, which are what you and Nathan have been accusing (un)leash of basing his moral thinking on.) Matthew ---Matthew A. King---Department of Philosophy---York University, Toronto--- "In the conviction that it is possible you may depart from life at once, act and speak and think in every case accordingly." ----------------------------(Marcus Aurelius)------------------------------
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