[lit-ideas] Re: Socratic Congress
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2009 15:47:34 -0700
Eric Yost wrote
Robert: To say that only Kant knew what was morally right (or wrong)
while the peasants in the countryside near Königsberg did not, is a bit
like saying that nobody could distinguish truth from falsity until the
advent of the late Donald Davidson.
[piano interlude]
Every absolute view carries its own exceptions -- as in condemnation of
torture on all occasions. In the nuclear-bomb-ticking-clock scenario,
somebody's gonna get tortured, either the captured terrorist or the
survivors of the blast. Or both.
It's Kant and his soi-dissant followers who are absolutists, not me.
They're the ones who believe that when the Gestapo comes round you
should not lie to them if they ask whether there's a Jew in your attic;
they're the ones who don't believe a mother should push her child off
the tracks as a train is bearing down (thereby, in effect, giving up her
own life). Etc.
I don't want to discuss 'ticking bomb' examples. Really. Not now. I'd
hope that Eric has some response to the first paragraph of mine he
quotes, although it was aimed nowhere near him.
Robert Paul
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