From: johnny moral (johnnymoral@hotmail.com)
Date: Tue Jun 17 2003 - 06:52:04 BST
Hi Rick,
> > 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.
Yes, I'm sure that's the proper way to understand it. But it seems to me
that though virtue is an intellectual concept, it is also just plain virtue.
And living a lfe of virtue doesn't require intellectual awareness, or any
evolution of social level virtue, I don't think. I don't see what makes it
the fourth level.
>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.
Oh, I'm sorry. But it's not like we're discussing philosophy or art or
politics. It is close to adultery. It could lead to adultery. How's that?
Adultery is the flip side of marriage law. A marriage license is a
license issued by the state for a man and a woman to have intercourse, to
have children together. If you don't have a license, it is illegal. So I
don't see any room for creativity there. There are other words you can use
that convey the meaning your looking for.
>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?
Sodomy is sodomy, it isn't a sexual relation. His words were carefully
chosen. In fact, his actions were carefully chosen. (A hack like Kennedy
would probably get her pregnant and have to drown her or something.) That
dichotomy would make me happy, sure. (But, you know, legally, it doesn't
even have to be cheating. Hillary could set up a three-way, they both could
make love to Monica, but it would still be adultery if he puts it in, not
adultery if he doesn't. Two women can't commit adultery. Or two men.
Adultery is related to sexual reproduction. The
Marriage-Adultery-Fornication pattern is a social patterns that regulates
biology.
>RICK
>I know, I know. The sky is falling, the sky is falling.
Yes, people want to regulate biology with intellectual patterns now. Move
reproduction into the laborotory. Basically, be there with you in the
bedroom. Making sure that you only are getting personal pleasure, not
actually reproducing. They won't have to do much enforcing of that, because
the social moral patterns that control people's desires will have been
manipulated to make us not want to. It's quite possible that people will
never look in the eyes of their other half and make a baby together, because
they won't want to risk bi-polar disorder or five hundred other things.
How would you feel about a law, instead of that Brownback anti-cloning bill,
that didn't mention cloning, but simply said that all babies must be the
natural product of one man and one woman? None of us can be geneticly
modified. I'd like to say that the man and woman must be married also, but
that would make it more complicated, so I'll leave that out.
MoQ is kind of wishy-washy about biotechnology. It would seem to suggest
that evolution is great, so lets apply our intellect to evolving the human
species faster and better. But at the same time, the patterns of biological
level are supposed to be stable, while the evolution takes place in the
level of ideas. I don't know...
>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?
Not if you're ugly, or so I would assume. Conde Nast is part of the Giant,
no doubt. They love divorce, it sells clothes. Singles spend, and work.
Married people just sit there like static social patterns, putting all their
money into household goods, bought in bulk. They sometimes even get by on -
get this - one income! The lazy scoundrels!
>Why
>belittle the unhappiness that comes from being socially bound by contract
>to
>a mate you don't find attractive?
Possibly because there could be a child, or one coming? I agree there is
no point for a person to be bound by contract to a person of their same sex,
nor is there a point if the marriage was never consumated. People don't
change so much. If someone is attractive to you when you first marry,
they'll still be attractive. Even if they get heavier.
>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 ;-)
Yes, I agree. No one should marry someone they aren't attracted to.
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