[lit-ideas] Re: Barrack shoe-in after Great-Aunt's crack-den shown to fund early anti-slavery and new Toni Morrison stuff {was Re: Study: Media coverage has favored Obama campaign
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 18:34:01 -0330
Reflections on Donal's and RP's remarks on maxims and "relevantly similar
situations."
On Kant's moral theory as I understand it, If a maxim is morally permissible (or
morally impermissible, or obligatory) the scope of that judgement extends to all
relevantly similar contexts of willing and action. Difficulties in identifying
"relevantly similar" are no greater than in matters of law where unintentional
homicide is differentiated from Murder 1, in matters of plagiarism where
intentional presentation of another's work as one's own is identified and
differentiated from exculpating ignorance, and in
matters of semantics where we typically intelligibly differentiate between
"indignation" and "anger," "sexual infatuation" from "agape," etc.. The
examples
can be multiplied. Surely, if humans lacked this capacity, we would not have
survived as a species. (This may be a case of the naturalistic fallacy. If so,
please delete the argument from my case.) If Popper can help here, let the man
in.
Is the status of a maxim relative to the virtues and abilities of agents? Is it
agent-relative? I don't believe it is. If one makes a moral judgement - i.e.,
Teachers ought to respect the autonomy of their students - the judgement has
universal applicability and validity. That is to say, the claim is intended to
apply to all teachers, regardless of the particular abilities and values of any
given individual teacher. One does not make a moral judgement by claiming:
"Violating the autonomy of the student is morally impermissible but perhaps
teachers possessed of superior rational abilities than I am, or teachers more
sensitive to the particularities of circumstances than I am, may justifiably
violate the autonomy of students." Such a qualification on the universal scope
of the judgement disqualifies the judgement as a moral judgement.
This should not be confused with the claim that one is not quite clear on
whether a student's autonomy is being violated by a certain pedagogical
practice or policy and defers judgement to someone believed to be more astute
and perceptive in such matters.
Walter O
MUN
I would never be disingenuous in praising the thinking of a fellow-philosopher.
Quoting Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
> I'll probably be up next night stupidly following your strange democratic
> system.
>
> Donal
> Apologies to Walter btw
> I'm still thinking of something decent enough to say in response to Walter's
> overly generous comments on a previous post of mine (I'm not that astute
> Walter, except maybe to the extent I believe you are genuine in suggesting
> some of my remarks may be).
> That the CatImp does not equal the Golden Rule is probably right, but how
> they may be related still troubles me, as does the CI itself as being
> explanatory of moral thinking. [My copy of Paton's book on this I haven't
> even yet located, and if I had would my duties included reading it (again)]?
>
> Nevertheless I do think that even if we agree (and even this is problematic)
> to treat 'like cases alike' we have the problem of characterising what makes
> them 'alike'. It might seem Plato's 'Theory of Forms' was at least an attempt
> to answer this (i.e. things are alike insofar as they are reflections of same
> Ideal Form) but no deeper answer has been forthcoming. The Popperian answer
> is (I guess) that 'alikeness' is _logically_ a matter of POV [i.e. the theory
> of 'similarity-in-_which_-respect' that underpins all our theories of
> 'likeness-ness' is a theory where the _which_ reflects a POV].[[This is a
> Kantian answer that many a Wittgensteinian might also agree to]].
>
> I am tempted to elaborate on Popper's 'sovereignty' "paradoxes", not because
> they obviously address CI issues, but because they are striking in their own
> right:- e.g. democracy is wrongly conceived, according to Popper, as
> 'majority rules' - the right 'conception' of 'democracy' is that it is a
> system where we can get rid of misrule without violence. The primary aim of
> civilisation [and democracy is a step forward in civilisation in his view] is
> the reduction of violence (though he believes also we have at times to use
> violence to achieve this aim, and finds this not paradoxical in any avoidable
> way but simply part of the dilemmas facing humans who want to reduce
> violence).
> This is, I think, a truly profound conception of democracy - one shorn of its
> authoritarian strands and placed within a wider context of fallibilism and
> the 'critical approach' - that is, the fallibilism and critical approach that
> Popper uses to characterize science, he applies in his political philosophy.
>
> I hope your elections are characterised by little violence, and little
> manipulation and corruption. Respect to McCain but I want Obama to win.
> As to Palin, John Cleese has been quoted as saying "I used to think Michael
> was the funniest Palin."
>
> Best to everyone on the list, whatever their preferences. Whatever they are,
> there is no 'Hello again' to Bush. This, I believe, is good.
>
>
>
>
>
>
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