Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 10:33:41 -0400
Subject: Re: "new universalism"


terry goldie wrote:

> My
> policy, at times absurd, is to ask, "What would be the moral code of
> someone like me in that position?" To bring it close to home, the result
> is while as a Canadian I don't like the idea of Quebec sovereignty, I
> realize that if I were Quebecois I would likely support it, so I support
> it.

Terry, I don't think we need to do such a complicated dance from
position to position -- doesn't that just lead us toward another kind of
relativism? I could easily rewrite your sentence to say something like:
"While as a liberal-minded Canadian I don't like the idea of racial
segregation, I realise that if I were an ultra-nationalist South African
I would likely support it, so I support it"??? The absurdity of this
strategy, which you yourself acknowledge, undoes any hope of it working
for the creation of an ethical basis for action.

I see nothing wrong, either philosophically, politically or
strategically, with looking for universal moral claims upon which to
develop a new ethical code: top among these I would put the right to
life and the right to speak. Any system or claim that attempts to
curtail either of these rights is, quite simply, wrong.

So there.

Mac.


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