[lit-ideas] Re: On being called a Lyre [dilemmas]

--- On Mon, 22/9/08, Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> "what 'ethics' can teach is to be better
> attuned to these difficulties
> and not ride on our moral high horse roughshod over
> them."
> 
> One would hope that several thousand years of philosophical
> reflection
> on ethics has produced more than 'Ethical issues are
> difficult'.

Interesting, but (a) I was not implying, indeed made this clear enough for 
those who have eyes to read, that this is the sum of its production (and so, 
insofar as you imply otherwise, you take a false point - one you will find it 
impossible to substantiate by the text of what I writ, or so I think you will 
find); and (b) what has it _produced_ in terms of established propositions or 
insights that take us well beyond the teachings of Socrates and Jesus?

Prepared to defend the view that, in Western thought at least, Socrates and 
Jesus are the two greatest ethicists - and they don't engage in 
thought-experiments as per certain kinds of 'analytic' philosophers and indeed 
would find the whole thing repugnant or beside the point, in particular when 
such experiments are seen as attempts to ground a 'moral system':- without 
offering a 'moral system', they each try to stir the conscience and both argue, 
in essence, (a radical and wonderful teaching btw) that it is better to suffer 
an injustice than to inflict an injustice. [Kant's theory is of course mostly 
an attempt to put some of this wonderful teaching on a rational basis, and 
Hume's is an attempt to base it in 'good' human nature].

Of course, for their efforts both were executed. But the influence of their 
teaching lives on.

Donal



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