[lit-ideas] Re: Life begins with a handshake

  • From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 5 May 2012 13:20:24 -0230

Please vide specific replies below:


> On May 4, 2012, at 12:01 PM, Mike Geary wrote:
> 
> > I'm getting sick and tired of all you Yankees making fun of God and all
> things wholesome and decent.  The average time of human coitus is two minutes
> (according to those who time these things).  

WO: Ignoring what Alfie J. Ayer would call Mike's meaningless "ejaculation" of
personal affrontery and focussing on his meaningful empirical claim: 

There would seem to be a definite pre-selection factor operative here that
could
skew the validity and generalizability of the empirical findings. A population
sample of "those who do the timing" meets criteria neither of methodological
randomness nor sexual casualness. Also, without a clearly operational
definition of "human coitus" that identifies behavioral markers for "coitus"
and conceptual criteria for "human," no valid conclusions can be drawn.

In terms of the moral permissibility of the maxim "All persons engage in coitus
for an average of 2 minutes," it is clear that the maxim is morally
impermissible as it is self-contradictory, free-rides, violates the
Principle of Equal Respect for Persons, and thus could not be legislated by a
rationally autonomous agent as a moral law.

Clearly enjoying what is left of his in-between-semesters positive and negative
freedom for another few days,

Walter O 
================================================================================


> 
> Hey, Sonny Jim, ah'm with youse.  Ah don't cair whit thon wee boys ta tha
> south of here call folk to the north of youse, but when someyin begins ta tak
> the piss oot ah oor dear laird's idea o' how long a tappin's supposed to
> last, well then boy, ah'm referrin' them tae a bible or a beatin, one or
> th'other.  Two minutes is the time established fer doing it decent, without
> yon porn o'graphy.  That's the way it's tae be.  Says Goad.  Since Eden. 
> Right?
> 
> David Ritchie,
> Crumbling Flats,
> Dunrumbling, 
> Near Glasgow
> 
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