From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Mon Sep 22 2003 - 20:29:34 BST
Matt, Sam
> Sam said:
> You make it sound as if there was no understanding of 'truth' involved
> in the evolution of my beliefs. I hold my beliefs because I think
> they're true, aka they have the highest Quality that I have yet found in
> my intellectual explorations. That may change - whether you call it DQ
> or the Holy Spirit, if you have a set of beliefs which rule out those
> things, and therefore the possibility of change, then you're eventually
> going to be marooned a long way from the current of truth. I see no
> philosophical distinction here between my beliefs and anyone else's on
> this forum, including yours.
>
> Matt:
> I agree very much with Sam here and particularly when he says later,
> "And on many of those things we'd be on the same side - but maybe for
> quite distinct reasons!" One of Rorty's main projects has been to clear
> space for people's own ideas of self-perfection. This is at the heart
> of the Enlightenment political project, it is what prompted Jefferson to
> enunciate the separation of church and state, it is what prompted
> Eisenhower to say that religion is at the heart of America--whatever
> religion it happens to be. The heart of secularism isn't that people
> should be atheists, it is that people should leave religion for at home.
> What this century's most important political theorist (with the
> possible exception of Habermas), John Rawls, does is show that this
> separation should be expanded to cover philosophy, too. This means that
> all private projects of self-creation, be they called religious or
> philosophical or spiritual or literary or whatever name they are given,
> should be privatized so that people can determine the meaning of life on
> their own without the interference of the state. Rorty argues that
> religion and philosophy should stay out of politics because it would
> stop the conversation. It doesn't matter how we got to our position of
> "cruelty is the worst thing we can do", be it from a Christian
> standpoint or a secular standpoint, from reading the Bible or reading
> Orwell. It just doesn't matter. What matters is that we got there and
> that we can then argue how we move from there to action, it is then that
> we can debate good policy.
I agree with both Sam and Matt except Matt in one breath says, based on
philosophical principle, that the state shouldn't interfere in a
person's "self-creation" and in the next breath says that philosophy
should stay out of politics. Apparently these kinds of contradictions
are accepted without a blink of an eye by Rorty fans.
More importantly, however, Matt's claim of a universal moral principle
that "cruelty is the worst thing we can do" is hardly shared by all,
including such disparate characters as Bin Laden and Shakespeare ("I
must be cruel, only to be kind.")
Cruelty is obviously not the worse thing we can do when societies are
threatened by biological forces. As Pirsig asserts, "The instrument of
conversation between society and biology has always been a policeman or
a soldier and his gun." (Lila, chp. 24.)
Platt
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