[lit-ideas] Re: Malt, Coffee & Chuck Taylor (shortisher)
- From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, wokshevs@xxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 19:00:16 -0230
Folks -- Returned mail. Our computer services are involved in hooking up our
phones to the cyberspatial world and messages are being returned. I have a
high-tech new phone that even makes coffee. Of course, I can't figure out how
to do an outgoing voice-mail message. Pardon the delay.
Cheers, Walter
MUN
Quoting wokshevs@xxxxxx:
> I had thought that the fallacy of ad hominem consisted in the illegitimate
> attempt to discredit an argument by appeal to some characteristic of *the
> individual* making that argument, rather than to the validity and soundness
> of
> the argument itself. John seems to read the fallacy to refer to some
> characteristic shared by all members of the human species that would
> disqualify
> the soundness of an argument presented by a representative of that species.
> John may have come up with a new informal fallacy: argumentum ad species?
> ("You
> believe that because you're human." Consider the alternative.)
>
> Regarding specification of a maxim: The factors John identifies below,
> factors I
> purportedly "artfully ignore," are of course all possibly relevant to the
> identification of a maxim and the assessment of its moral
> permissibility/impermissibility. I do not dispute that. I dealt with a much
> simpler yet still quite realistic case in order to address points made by RP
> -
> considerations which did not, in my mind, require a more comprehensive
> articulation of the maxim in question than the one I provided. Is some
> aspect
> of Kant's moral theory falsified or rendered unsound in some way once a
> maxim
> is more fully articulated/specified?
>
> Walter C. Okshevsky
> Memorial University
>
> Quoting John McCreery <john.mccreery@xxxxxxxxx>:
>
> > I have been following with great delight Walter and Robert's
> > dissection of Kant. It is always a pleasure to watch professionals in
> > action. But amateur as I am, I feel bit uncomfortable with the
> > statement appended below. Here it seems to me that the philosopher
> > makes one of those sudden descents from elevated analysis to
> > idealistic ad hominem that is likely to discredit the whole business.
> > Asking why the analysis might strike one as silly, he appeals to a
> > character flaw, euphemistically described as a "human tendency." At
> > the same time he artfully ignores such material considerations as (a)
> > does the flower picker own the meadow and have every right in the
> > world to pick the flowers in question, especially since she herself
> > had scattered the seed earlier in the year or (b) does she know full
> > well that the flower in question is not a rare species growing in a
> > highly trafficked park where if everyone who passed by plucked a
> > flower all the flowers would soon be gone but instead a common variety
> > located in a rarely visited meadow that she herself took several hours
> > of hiking to reach and, thus, that plucking a flower or two for her
> > pleasure will have no perceptible effect on the meadow or its ecology?
> > Instead, we are asked to imagine a hypothetical meadow with flowers
> > conceived as a collection of points in a zero-sum game, so that
> > picking even one is a small but significant step toward total
> > degradation, giving no thought to anything else. Now that does seem
> > silly.
> >
> > John
> >
> > >
> > > The reason why so much of this analysis might strike one as just plain
> > silly is
> > > because our very human tendency to think "Oh come on, one (bunch) of
> > flowers
> > > isn't going to harm anyone/anybody." Or: "What a beautiful meadow; I
> know
> > I
> > > shouldn't really disturb its pristine wonder, but perhaps only this once
> > and
> > > this is such an isolated place that surely there won't be many more
> people
> > > coming by to pick flowers." That is precisely the structure of the kind
> of
> > > illegitimate self-exemption Kant's CI-procedure intends to identify.
> > "After
> > > all, there is nobody in the world just like me; I'm special; my
> interests
> > and
> > > desires are thus privileged. I have a right to be a free-rider. And even
> if
> > I
> > > don't, who cares?" (This attitude will be part of the "Coming World
> > Crisis.")
> > >
> > --
> > John McCreery
> > The Word Works, Ltd., Yokohama, JAPAN
> >
> > US CITIZEN ABROAD?
> > YOU'RE THE DECIDER!
> > Register to Vote in '06 Elections
> > www.VoteFromAbroad.org
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>
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