[lit-ideas] Re: The Reluctant Water Boarder
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2009 20:27:01 -0700
Eric Yost wrote
Robert quotes Liz: I must be saying “You may not do evil that good may
come,” which is a disagreeably high-minded doctrine.
Someone asked, I think it was JL, the source of Elizabeth Anscombe's
remarks about boiling babies. I provided it: the pamphlet, Mr. Truman's
Degree, 1956.
Did you think that in providing it I was signing on to everything she
said in it? Perhaps if I provide a Leibniz quote on the indivisibility
of matter, I am thereby endorsing it? You know better.
Walter mentioned Rawls' theory of distributive justice a while back.
Isn't that essentially "doing unfair things for (perceived) greater
social justice"?
Rawls says no such thing.
Assuming injustice is an evil, wouldn't the same argument apply to
affirmative action? Racial quotas? Wouldn't they be classed as a form of
evil?
'Assuming injustice is an evil...' No reason to think that, surely.
Wasn't there an earlier mention of Bentham's notion of elevated nonsense?
Robert Paul
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