[lit-ideas] Re: It means nothing, absolutely nothing...

  • From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:17:21 +0000 (GMT)



--- On Mon, 20/10/08, wokshevs@xxxxxx <wokshevs@xxxxxx> wrote:


> Murdering murderers
> is self-contradictory, and hence just doesn't cut it.

1) Didn't Kant argue that executing murderers was just? [It is largely 
semantics to say, because legal, such killing is not murder - we might debate 
whether killing killers is self-contradictory].
2) A _logical_ self-contradiction points up a logical impossibility or, more 
precisely perhaps, points up nothing because a self-contradiction fails to rule 
anything out. Clearly we can murder murderers and kill killers - so 
self-contradiction either does not occur here or we are using the term in an 
extended sense that goes beyond logical (self-)contradiction.
3) To act differently in similar situations is not to make a logical mistake - 
though it may be thought to be (sometimes at least) a moral mistake.
4) Consistency in action and judgment is a regulative ideal not a fact; but 
even as an ideal it may be over-valued.

Donal
Old England 

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