[lit-ideas] Re: The value of consistency
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2010 14:04:36 -0230
Being a believer in and promoter of spooning in general, I applaud activities of
spooning consistency in particular. Having said that, it also needs be said that
hallucinogenic versions of the CI must be differentiated from more sober
accounts of its requirements. Finally, may I say that indeed life is short and
after having skimmed through the journalistic account given in the Telegraph, I
find nothing worthy of consideration regarding any sort of "rehab" of the Second
Critique. Either Donal is mistaken or she sees apparitions in the Second
Critique not available to this (or any other) student of Kantian moral theory.
Walter O
Department of Cognitive and Sexual Health
Universitaet Koenigsburg
Richmond, Virginia
Quoting Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
> For those mainlining the second Critique, snorting the categorical imperative
> or spooning consistency, a rehab programme devised by the late Lord
> Bingham:-
>
>
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/law-obituaries/7997574/Lord-Bingham-of-Cornhill.html
>
> There it is writ:-
>
> "Bingham was often described as a liberal with a small "l", and when asked
> about the description he admitted that he "wouldn't want to be called
> illiberal". He was suspicious, however, of the notion that the law lords
> could be easily categorised. "They're curiously unpredictable," he said. "I
> don't think any of us aims to be consistent. I actually regard consistency in
> a judge as a vice." "
>
> Admittedly it is later writ:-
>
> "Bingham's publications included The Business of Judging (2000) and, most
> recently, The Rule of Law (2010), a characteristically accessible explanation
> of such notions as equality before the law, respect for human rights and
> procedures that safeguard fair trials. As one reviewer wrote, the book also
> functions as an insight into "a special kind of mind": "Tom Bingham is a Lord
> Denning of sorts, but one with discipline in place of egoism" and "a
> consistent rather than selective sense of right and wrong"."
>
> But then, if consistency is a vice, this may be no bad thing. Or perhaps it
> is simply that the notion of consistency is itself here not being used
> consistently enough.
>
> The question whether law and morals may be rightly analogised here also
> raises its shrunken, hairless head.
>
> Donal
> Not so long ago, or far away
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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