[lit-ideas] Re: Socratic Congress
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2009 18:33:01 -0230
Quoting Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx>:
> Volodya: is Eric claiming that his view about absolute views
> is only "relatively true." (We're still awaiting some sense
> on that notion.)
>
>
> I considered writing that "every view carries its own
> exceptions including this view," but thought it too snide.
> Sort of like objecting to Popper's falsification principle
> on the grounds that it is not subject to falsification.
>
>
> Volodya: Eric maintains an absolute claim about absolute
> claims ...
>
>
> My starting premise -- and I'm open to instruction -- is
> that moral considerations, like mathematics, is creative and
> open-ended. Like Goedel's Incompleteness operating in the
> realm of moral axioms ...
>
Just a small comment on Eric's penultimate point. What I'd say is creative and
open-ended here is our understanding of the situations to which moral norms and
principles apply. (I believe that understanding runs parallel with the growth of
a certain cosmopolitan sensibility that transcends parochialisms such as the
sovereignty of nation-states, the values and virtues of my tribe, etc..) Those
principles, I believe, are pretty much fixed by our capacities for rational
judgement and agency and our recognition of our common humanity, be we Spartan
or Athenian. They all revolve around respect for the autonomy and dignity of
others and ourselves as persons (ends-in-themselves). Moral principles, though
as finite in number as the number of notes on the musical scale, permit an
infinite range of applications, in virtue of the features of contexts and the
circumstances of application by agents. So we keep ending up with new songs and
crazy ideas like "universal human rights" and "duty to protect." How those
humans get through the day, I just don't know.
Walter O
MUN
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