RP:
> Here's a piece from Slate (called to my attention by Jeff McLaughlin at
> Thompson Rivers University, Kamloops BC) in which various people offer
> their reflections on Richard Rorty.
>
> http://www.slate.com/id/2168488/fr/flyout
a quote from Stephen Metcalf from the above site: "always and everywhere
deplore cruelty;"
But why? Why deplore it? Why not embrace? I really like Rorty. But he,
like everyone else lacking God-given absolutes, seems confined to personal
preference. And from my perspective, judging from history and the history
of religion, it seems there's no God-given absolute against cruelty -- God
and Cheney seem to me to be best buddies. Rorty, I imagine, would respond
that cruelty doesn't work, it only begets more cruelty, ergo, don't be
cruel
(unless you want to rule?). But I would argue that the Western world is
where it is (mostly egalitarian, liberal, bourgeois democracies ) in large
part through past cruelty. I have to wonder, you know? Is all ethics
after
the fact? But not tonight. I'm going to bed.
Mike Geary
Memphis
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