From: Andy <mimi.erva@xxxxxxxxx> To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, 29 September 2011, 20:12 Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Further to Economics Not >I don't understand your last sentence. I don't quite understand what you don't understand about it. > First comes figuring out that something is wrong, then comes figuring out the alternatives. My points did not deny things may happen in this 'First..then' order; though I suspect it can happen in either order - sometimes it is realising there is an alternative that brings home that "something is wrong" with how things are. My "last sentence" neither denied nor asserted this point about order, which is not a necessary order but a contingent one in my view. My point was that - irrespective of the order - the value of a criticism that "something is wrong" (or is imperfect) may be negligible unless linked to how that "wrong" may be corrected by some alternative (and without the correction involving some greater evil). There may be clearly "something wrong", for example, with some of the inequalities of income in our societies but admitting this is of negligible impact in persuasive terms for making changes, since we need to know for example whether those changes would actually remove the wrong and, if so, whether they do not have negative consequences that outweigh the wrong righted. A famous example in this regard is perhaps Rawl's argument, in his "A Theory Of Justice", to the effect that inequalities of that sort may be 'just' if even the worst-off under that inequality is better-off than they would be if that inequality were removed or lessened. Dilemmas lie at the heart of most social problems and that is why a criticism should address the dilemmas involved and not simply think pointing out a wrong in itself is enough to carry the day on any question of reform. It simply isn't. I am sympathetic to your points about the success of sociopaths in climbing corporate and other organisational ladders, but do not see how this impacts on my "last sentence" either. Donal Indian Summering "Everybody is saying this is a day only the Lord could make" London ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html