From: Wim Nusselder (wim.nusselder@antenna.nl)
Date: Sun Oct 27 2002 - 11:40:50 GMT
Dear Horse,
You wrote 22/10 00:29 +0100:
'why is making a moral judgement wrong and is there anything other than
experience, in one form or another, that enables us to make these
judgements.'
Yes, judgements are not only exclusively enabled by experience. If we take
'to judge' in a broad sense in which it is more or less synonymous with 'to
value', every experience implies judgement according to the MoQ.
I wrote 20/10 21:53 +0200 (in the 'empathic rationality' thread):
'I think that judging others is inevitable and moral at the social level
(the level of the reproduction of habits and culture). ... Judging others IS
avoidable and immoral at the intellectual level (the level of the
reproduction of stories and systems of ideas that motivate and justify our
actions). We can and must judge roles and behavior, but we needn't and
shouldn't judge persons.'
So I think making a moral judgement is ONLY wrong (in the -relative- sense
of not being the optimal moral action) at the intellectual level and only
when we presume (even contingently) to judge PERSONS, i.e. the wholes that
express themselves only partially in behavior. It is wrong because these
persons/wholes are dynamic. They are open to Dynamic Quality, so they cannot
be defined by their static patterns of values. In religious (Quaker) terms:
they have a direct link to God, they have a potential for being divinely
guided and making God/religious Truth/Meaning visible to others. This
individual openness to Dynamic Quality is a prerequisite for evolutionary
progress at the intellectual level. Moral judgement of persons 'boxes' them
in categories according to their static patterns of values, risks making
them behave accordingly and thus hampers evolutionary progress at the
intellectual level.
You wrote 20/10 22:43 +0100:
'When we make judgements of others we make our judgements based on how we
experience their behaviour - what else is there to experience. We have no
access to the inner feelings and motivations of others except by their
actions.'
I wouldn't rule out the possibility that we DO have access to the inner
feelings and motivations of others in other ways than by their analyzing
their actions. We often think we know other people's feelings and
motivations without being able to explain to others how we know from their
actions. This 'empathy' may be only a result of 'modelling' them,
considering how we would feel in their circumstances and why we would act in
the way they do. It may also be the result of some sort of extra-sensory
perception. That extra-sensory perception may be comparable to (or a result
of) sub-atomic phenomena like a pair of a sub-atomic particle and its
anti-particle (that was created at the same place and time) both being lost
(in energy) or changing their spin at the same moment even when they are far
apart.
With friendly greetings,
Wim
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