Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 07:16:34 -0230 (NDT)
Subject: Re: PLC: Electric Animal


If morality is indeed tied to mortality, then  an animal cannot die
since only a languaged being can be moral/immoral. (I hope the Venn
diagram on this supports my logic here for turkey always dulls my mind
and senses.)  But why claim that morality is
tied to mortality in any essential or logical sense? If we did/could not
die, but could still feel physical and psychological pain, and continued
to require certain material and social conditions requisite for our agency
in the world, would the moral order not still be possible and actually in
force?

Walter
======
On Sun, 23 Apr 2000, PCR wrote:

> There is an odd statement claiming to be Lippit's thesis, and I am not sure if
> it is correct, but I have always found morality bound to mortality. The
> sentence is this:
> 
> Akira Mizuta Lippit wrote:
> 
> > Lippit arrives at a
> > remarkable thesis, revealing an extraordinary consensus in Western thought:
> > Animals do not have language, and hence cannot die.
> 
> I suppose language is something only moral mortal beings (animals) are capable
> of inventing, but it is not essential to their mortality, nor does its absence
> immortalize their being. I am pointing this out to stimulate conversation, not
> to be merely "picky" about words. The book sounds interesting, but possibly
> limited in audience - so, I am curious.
> 
> Sincerely,
> Peter Rugh
> 
> (unpublished philosophy student)
> 
> 
> 
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> 



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