[lit-ideas] Re: Malt, Coffee & Chuck Taylor

  • From: "John McCreery" <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 09:59:30 +0900

On 6/14/06, wokshevs@xxxxxx <wokshevs@xxxxxx> wrote:


P.P.S. Does Taylor allow for the possibility that moral spaces or frameworks
admit of moral assessment on grounds or criteria that are not themselves part
of any moral space or framework? If not, why not?


Don't know. Haven't finished the book yet.

Is Kant wrong?

No. Kant is partially right, as Newton was partially right. Empirical
research suggests that some framework, composed minimally of a set of
concepts glossable as "space," "time," "cause," "self," "good" and
"bad" is a necessary part of the human condition. It also shows that a
framework composed of homogeneous space and time, cause as a simple,
logical thing (If X then Y), selves as unitary wholes, and good and
bad defined in terms of the morals of 18th century Prussia is only one
of numerous possibilities. Which, of course, leaves open the question
how to choose between them.

Is there really

no non-circular, non-question-begging justification of a moral space/vocabulary
as Rorty would have us believe?


If the only admissable non-circular, non-question-begging
justification is one whose assumptions are clear and self-evident
truths from which the space in question can be deduced, no. If one
allows a reasonable doubt and based-on-the-evidence-we-have-in-hand
approach, opening the possibility of change if new evidence is brought
forward, sure. There are lots of possibilities. Some will survive.
Some will not. Some progress can be made, i.e., toward frameworks more
widely accepted and more widely acceptable to larger numbers of
people. History doesn't end. To ask the question as though it could is
naive.


--
John McCreery
The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN

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