From: Valence (valence10@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Jun 17 2003 - 03:07:34 BST
Hey Johnny,
JOHNNY
> OK. OK, I'm back. I was going more by that post of the 'levels of love',
> where love is described as evolving away from social love (role-based
love)
> to a 'personal love' based on eudaimonia. I then looked up Eudiamonia and
> found: "a theory that the highest ethical goal is happiness and personal
> well-being." That does look to me like self-interest, still.
RICK
Well, I think Sam is probably the better person to take this up with you,
but I would think that the 'happiness' of Eudaimonia isn't some
self-interested, hedonistic kind of happiness... it's the happiness that
comes from living a life of virtue.
> > JOHNNY
> > > Adultery is very clear cut, it's entirely biological.
> >
> >RICK
> >Way to think outside the box J :-). But seriously, the particular mix of
> >self-righteousness and value rigidity that a statement like this
indicates
> >is downright intellectually scary. Besides, the term "adultery" isn't a
> >part of the term "emotional cheating", so if it's semantics you're
worried
> >about, you're objecting to nothing.
JOHNNY
> Why do you say it is self-righteous? I did think you both were suggesting
> that emotional cheating was adultery, I'm glad you weren't.
RICK
I said it was self-righteous because you would presume to dismiss a question
that Sam and I chose to ponder over as "very clear cut". An yes, I was
suggesting that it was 'like' adultery, or arguably a 'kind' of adultery.
That's right... I was toying with 'expanding' or 'evolving' the definition
of adultery. I'm sorry if creativity bums you out.
JOHNNY
But there did
> seem to be some confusion about what adultery was. Don't you remember
> Clinton? He did not have sexual relations with that woman. He wasn't
> lying, it was all sodomy, and it wasn't adultery.
RICK
What the heck are you talking about? Of course he was lying. Sodomy is a
'sexual relation'. And he got a Lewinsky, didn't he? Isn't that a 'sexual
relation'? But more importantly, whether or not his conduct fulfilled the
legal elements of adultery (or the dictionary's elements for that matter),
he CHEATED on his wife. Would it make you unhappy if I set up a dichotomy
between 'physical cheating' and 'emotional cheating' and said that your
strictly-biological-adultery is just another name for the former?
JOHNNY
You are right that people don't seem
> to think that is so strange anymore, it is a step in the direction of not
> being related to the children we raise at all.
RICK
I know, I know. The sky is falling, the sky is falling.
> >RICK
> >First off, "getting fat" still isn't a recognized cause of divorce (if my
> >snapshot was selective yours is outright fictitious).
JOHNNY
> Well, you have to say you are unhappy, you have irreconcilable
differences,
> etc. But lots of men divorce their wives if they don't like looking at
them
> anymore. I dont think that it is fictitious.
RICK
What was fictitious was the idea that 'getting fat' constituted grounds for
a divorce. I wouldn't dispute that people sometimes become unhappy with
their spouses because they aren't physically attracted to them anymore. But
isn't physical attraction a necessary part of a healthy marriage? Why
belittle the unhappiness that comes from being socially bound by contract to
a mate you don't find attractive? I think it is *expected* that mates would
be physically attracted to each other at least to some extent (as well as
mentally, socially, emotionally, etc) and that therefore, under your
philosophy, mates SHOULD be physically attracted to each other and a
marriage between two people who aren't mutually physically attracted would
be immoral.... Which would seem to make a divorce the moral remedy ;-)
JOHNNY
> is that right? In the Catholic church, barrenness is grounds for
annulment?
RICK
No. In American jurisprudence the failure to disclose an ability to
reproduce prior to marriage constituted a fraud that served as grounds for
annulment (and in several states even if the infertile party didn't know).
JOHNNY
> (If a marriage is annulled by the church, no divorce has to be filed?
What
> if the wedding wasn't in a church?)
RICK
Annulment and divorce are mutually exclusive legal remedies. An 'annulment'
is the remedy for a void marriage. That is, a marriage which legally "never
existed" because of some defect that existed *prior* to the marriage. Once
a marriage is annulled, it's like it legally never happened... the parties
go their separate ways having no rights or responsibilities with respect to
each other. A 'divorce' is the legal dissolution of a marriage. It doesn't
'legally erase' the marriage like an annulment. Rather, it breaks the
marriage up, decides property divisions and custody decisions and usually
leaves the parties with various rights and responsibilities with respect to
each other (ie. alimony, palimony, child support and custody sharing, etc).
Also, legally speaking, it makes no difference whether a marriage is in a
church, city hall, your backyard or anywhere... the law regarding
divorce/annulment doesn't care.
JOHNNY
What do you think
> of the new 'Covenant Marriages' some states are adopting?
RICK
Well, I think everyone has the freedom to knowingly and voluntarily bind
themselves to stupid contracts and provided those two prerequisites are met
I've got no problem with 'covenant marriages'. But personally, I'm against
them (ie. I'd never even consider it for myself). All it really is a
marriage where you have less rights (you can't divorce without a certain
kind of fault, you lose the right to sue your spouse on many causes of
action), and in my mind, only an idiot signs away rights he or she may need
in the future (rights are much easier to lose than to gain). Hey, just get
the regular marriage and leave your rights unexercised if you don't want
them (moreover, I'm not sure that their constitutionality has ever been
determined by the USSC... though I'd have to check on that to be sure).
JOHNNY
> And by the way, lots of abused people aren't married, so how do you
explain
> that?
RICK
I'm not sure I see how this question is relevant... explain?
take care
rick
The good people sleep much better at night than the bad people. Of course,
the bad people enjoy the waking hours much more. - Woody Allen
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue Jun 17 2003 - 03:06:25 BST