[lit-ideas] Re: (a) Do You Have Free Will?/(b) Dworkin
- From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2011 17:22:32 +0100 (BST)
--- On Fri, 1/4/11, Omar Kusturica <omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
"* I don't think that you could claim that any particular moral claim is false
without making a claim on the same epistemological level, ie a moral claim."
This needs more explaining imo. An example might be useful here of a particular
moral claim - say, "Killing people just because they annoy you is right".
Someone claims this is false. Therefore they appear committed to saying that
'it is not true that it is right to kill people just because they annoy you'.
This is the negation of the particular moral claim and it would seem to be a
moral claim itself.
OK continues:-
"If so, you cannot claim that all moral claims are false without making a moral
claim either."
This does not obviously follow from the truth of the first step: for to say
"all moral claims are false" is to accept neither a moral claim nor its
negation (which may be also a moral claim) as true:- as it does not involve
accepting as true any moral claim, it is unclear how it is itself a moral
claim. It seems to be an 'is' or descriptive or factual claim and not an
'ought' or prescriptive or moral claim.
OK continues:-
"Moreover, you cannot claim that all moral claims are false without asserting
that opposing claims are simultaneously false, ie running into logical
contradiction."
This also needs unpacking, though it seems valid: that is, if all moral claims
are false then it must be false both that 'One ought to kill annoying people'
and 'It is not the case that one ought to kill annoying people", and this seems
to run (headlong) into a logical contradiction.
Somehow I do not think Mackie would run headlong into a logical contradiction
this way.
Donal
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
