[lit-ideas] Re: race to the bottom
- From: Phil Enns <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 02 Mar 2007 08:58:57 -0400
Eric Yost wrote:
"Would you rather bring about that total loss of salvation than destroy the
Jovian civilization?"
You are fixated on a particular issue and it is affecting your judgment. A
Christian who believes in salvation would also reject the claim that wiping
out memory could bring about the 'total loss of salvation'.
You are trying desperately to produce a moral dilemma that involves, on the
one side, identity-as-an-object which can be possessed or lost, and, on the
other side, an absolutely evil enemy that would take away this
identity-as-an-object. As a moral dilemma, it fails in so many ways.
First, identity isn't something that can be interchanged, like memory
sticks. Second, moral dilemmas work only if one has to choose between
competing moral claims. You have given the option of utterly wiping out the
enemy but the alternative, that you have trouble articulating in moral
terms. Third, moral dilemmas are worth engaging only when, well, they are
engaging. All this talk of completely wiping out Western culture and
completely wiping out a race of people is so abstract and completely removed
from the sorts of dilemmas people are accustomed to making, that I really
have no idea what criteria one could draw on. I am just not accustomed to
making decisions on behalf of all humanity, or all of Western culture. Ask
me about the baby and the Botticelli, and I know how to grab on to that
question. Ask me about 'my culture' and I am at a loss. Fourth, you are
obviously loading the dilemma since you make out the one option to be that
of complete and utter evil. This leads me to think that there is something
going on with you and Muslim identity, so that you can only frame Islam as
utterly evil and depraved. I have too many Muslim friends, some of them
even Islamists, to entertain this as a compelling dilemma.
As I said before, this is no longer about moral standards. It is out of
character for you, so I won't try and guess what it really is about. When
you get over this, I am interested in discussing the idea of higher
standards.
Sincerely,
Phil Enns
Glen Haven, NS
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