[lit-ideas] Re: stilted
- From: "Walter C. Okshevsky" <wokshevs@xxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx, Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:32:22 -0230
Quoting Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
>
>
> --- On Wed, 22/4/09, palma <palma@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> > Cc: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxx>
> > Date: Wednesday, 22 April, 2009, 9:23 AM
> > nonsense on stilts (the phrase) come
> > from J. Bentham
> > there also in the literature the lowerbound
> > expression
> > being "a shit from the heels up" due to the late G. Ryle
> > (1900-1976) of
> > Oxford.
>
> 1. Bentham, afair, used to phrase to describe the idea of "rights",
> particularly in the sense of "natural rights" [e.g. the right to life]. But
> clearly anyone who could devise a "panopticon" had some screw loose
> somewhere.
>
> 2. Which is better - being "a shit from the heels up" or having shit on your
> heel?
>
> Donal
> Ldn
I think Donal's archival knowledge is accurate. "Nonsense on stilts" is indeed a
term of art originally attributable to Jerry Bentham.
As to which shit is "better," I would think that "having" trumps "being." If
only because that which we own is not as constitutive of either our personhood
or identity as is that which we are. We continue to be the moral agents that we
are even in the face of loss of material and psychological possessions, and in
the face of increases in such possessions. Ca voulait dire: I am my personhood
regardless of the value of my stock holdings on the market.
Walter O.
>
>
>
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