From: hampday@earthlink.net
Date: Fri Dec 03 2004 - 18:13:55 GMT
Greetings, Platt --
> Don't you mean, "Unlike Ian"? He thinks "why" is a "damn question."
Sorry. I wasn't following this thread very carefully and must have confused
your positions.
> "Everything is Quality" is axiomatic. You can't deny it without admitting
> it, for your denial will assert the quality of truth.
I don't follow your logic here, Platt. If I deny that everything is Quality
I am admitting it? How so?
>As I've pointed out before, all the horrors inflicted by tyrants were sold
> on the basis of the "good of humanity." That altruistic platitude begs the
> question, "What is good?"
>
> > Again, this is a definition rather than an ultimatum. Are you
suggesting
> > another definition?
>
> I define virtuous conduct as enlightened self-interest.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, although I'm not clear as to what
"enlightened" adds to your moral system. The point is, if your
self-interest is not depriving the other person of his, your actions are
moral. If there is a "moral absolute" here, it is to not offend the
person(s) you are dealing with. That is, so long as he is doing you no
harm. Doesn't this make sense? Or am I oversimplifying morality?
> > > - morality must be based on "respect, care and love."
> >
> > > -- "our sense of morality (is) an innate and inherited human trait."
>
> In the minister's mind, they are absolutes. I don't see that he qualifies
> the statements in any way. He puts them out there as "givens" that no one
> can possibly question.
I see morality as an 'ad hominum' proposition. We serve our self-interests
through our social and entrepreneurial transactions. It's essentially
pragmatic. Good morality works; immorality doesn't.
>
> > > In other words, the minister admits to a set of absolute moral
> > > assumptions that belie his relativist message and contradicts his
> > > assertion that "the real danger to humanity is moral absolutism."
(Note
> > > that a "danger to humanity" is based on a moral absolute: it's wrong
to
> > > threaten humanity.)
> >
> > OK. I'll buy that one -- but only because it supports the absolute
> > automony of man. (I'm currently trying to develop that idea as a the
> > concept of "immutability". The split between differentiation and unity
may
> > itself be an absolute. What thinkest thou?)
>
> Agree. The concepts of the one, the many and the none are the three
> indispensable walls erected by intellect without which it cannot function.
>
> > I think Edington has
> > provided vivid examples of terrible acts against humanity by individuals
> > who were absolutely convinced they were right.
>
> Edington (and you I guess) assume that certain acts are "terrible" when
> the philosophical question remains, "On what basis should we judge an act
> to be "terrible."
When an act offends another. In patterntalk, certainly taking a life must
be the "highest level" of "low quality".
>
> Quoting Pirsig:
> "We must understand that when a society undermines intellectual freedom
> for its own purposes it is absolutely morally bad, but when it represses
> biological freedom for its own purposes it is absolutely morally good.
> These moral bads and goods are not just "customs." They are as real as
> rocks and trees." (Lila, 24)
>
> > Pirsig is putting down absolutism here, hence I don't see where Edington
> > is in disagreement.
>
> Rather than putting down absolutism, he invokes it in describing his moral
> framework.
I'll have to read that quote in context.
> Taking responsibility and suffering the consequences of one's bad choices
> provides an excellent moral formula for "the good of humanity" because, as
> you rightly point out, it insures freedom--the highest good in the MOQ.
We seem to be in agreement here, as usual. Yet I see your reluctance to
accept "relativity" as a condition of morality.
I'd really like to find a logical argument in support of moral absolutism.
If you have one, I'll mail it to Edington. Otherwise, he and I are of the
opinion that moral relativity is the only morality there is. (And he's a
theist!)
Essentially yours,
Ham
>
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