From: Patrick van den Berg (cirandar@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat Sep 20 2003 - 23:32:05 BST
Hi Platt,
> To assert that "what matters is the situation at hand" is itself an
> abstriction and a "generally stated" moral stance. The way you state
> it, it appears to be "eternally valid." As "merely a tool," it has no
> more standing than any other general, abstract principle.
A lecturer of philosophy of sciences once said: "I don't cling to any
dogma. Except this one." And an old roommate once said to me: "I'm
principally against having principles".
But okay, what I described was in the language of the world of platonic
absolutes (objective reality). If you want to say something in this
world that there is something beyond this world, you are only able to
say it in a way like this. Like sitting at a table discussing e.g.
truth, the nature of meaning, what mathematics says about the world,
etc. how do you point to another sort of discussion? Maybe by using
language such as I did (and I got it from a Rorty reader) you can argue
that such discussions, where the focus is the practical and not the
abstract, is valueable. Only to get the discussion onto another plane.
THEN you can start talking about ... (e.g.) the people in the local
political community trying to have their way in getting another busline
through our town, and how people nearby disagree with it, etc. You can
say: Hey the DQ of the people near the road is bad now, because they
don't want the busline. Now what's the nature of this DQ, and what the
sq part in it? etc. Discussions such as this point to an abstract world
of metaphysics. Another possibility is just discussing the situation
with the people and say how bad it is, how the peace of the town gets
less by having a buss every 15 minutes roar by etc. This type of
discussion points to the practical.
So what I mean by having an objective dream (or something like that) is
that here the practical is only of use for the abstract, whereas another
way would be that the abstract is of use only for the practical.
But hey, I like philosophizing about things for their own sake,
otherwise I wouldn't be here. I was just trying to voice this Rorty
reader, and I like defending it in a mail like this.
>
> But, the problem with the principle of "what matters is the situation
> at hand" or "situational ethics" is that it quickly leads to the
> principle of "anything goes."
>
> I don't see anything in Rorty that would negate his adherence to the
> "anything goes" principle other than a gang saying what's moral are
> the
> the gang's rules.
>
>
> Do you find in reading Rorty any situation where he would step in and
> say, "That's wrong" -- I mean besides his rule that it's wrong to
> invoke general moral principles?
Okay, the extreme relativistic stance, anything goes, every idea equals
every other idea in it's value, etc. But when one comes to the
conclusion that there is no one single objective truth out there, it
doesn't mean that there is no truth at all. Don't you agree, for example
(forgetting Rorty's point of view for a moment (where I only glanced
at)) that the Good doesn't exist as such, but that there are different
forms of very high quality in different settings? That the one good
quality is not equal, is incommensurable (to use a fancy word again)
with another good quality?
Greetings, Patrick.
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