[lit-ideas] Re: Hume, Sweet Hume
- From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2008 14:48:00 +0900
Don't know what Andreas will say, but I will take a shot.
For those who seek absolute certainty, appealing to custom is bound to fail.
Custom is too varied to be an unfailing guide. There is, however, Edmund
Burke's observation that custom represents the accumulated learning of the
past and should not, thus, be casually discarded. The path of moderation is
to accept custom as a guide unless there are good reasons not to. These
reasons may be debatable but nonetheless superior to those they replace. The
two sides ("there are better ideas" and "no there aren't") are what are
generally called liberal and conservative positions in regard to the issue
at hand.
John
On Mon, Oct 6, 2008 at 9:03 AM, <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> In a message dated 10/5/2008 7:34:18 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> rpaul@xxxxxxxx writes:
>
> and Walter replied
>
> > ------> I'm not quite up to date on Hume scholarship, but I would be very
> > interested in learning about Hume's views as to how custom could possess
> any
> > epistemic value in the justification of moral deliberation and judgement.
> Nazis
> > appealed to "custom."
>
> I'm not sure where Hume talks of custom (or habit's) being of 'epistemic
> value' in justifying moral judgments.
>
>
> ------
>
> I'd wish Andreas Ramos, whose mother is German, and who's seen in fall --
> the Berlin Wall -- could also comment on W. O. -- Why is 'appealing to
> custom' sometimes okay (to use an Americanism) and sometimes non-okay.
>
> J. L.
> -- who some people call, friendly, "Bulgarian" _for long_.
>
>
>
>
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--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
Tel. +81-45-314-9324
http://www.wordworks.jp/
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