Subject:
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Re: Validity testing (was: Did animals have rights before we invented rights?)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Thu, 5 Jul 2001 03:10:15 GMT
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Viewed:
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1263 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Ross Crawford writes:
> Hmmm. Maybe. But I'd use the example of Newtonian physics to say even though
> it doesn't hold in extreme conditions, it's generally "good enough" for
> everyday life. Maybe that also holds for this situation...
Well, for one, I tend to be somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to
this kind of thing (philisophical). If I can tell something *does* break in
extremes, I can tell it's not "perfect". And sure, that means (for me) that
I accept almost nothing as "fact" in the world of philosophy, but I'm more
than willing to accept that fate...
But as for the "everyday life" aspect, I'll make one minor modification. We
use Newtonian physics for everyday physics, but we are *aware* that it's not
perfect. Now, personally, if we *weren't* aware that it wasn't perfect, I'd
say we had a problem. What's important to me in morality is the underlying
rules. If the rule "yelling at your kids is immoral" were a fundamental
truth, that's fine. But since we know it breaks at the extremes, we know
that there are underlying principles that somehow differ from the norm to
the extreme. And *that's* where I want to investigate. Bob yells at his
kids. Is it immoral? Why? Because he broke the "don't yell at your kids"
rule? Or is the reason something deeper? Now, for many, this isn't a
problem. People will simply let their judgement go and not bother to try to
understand it. Why not? Because it's all in all pretty useless information,
and people aren't that curious. But I'm an extreme. I *do* want to know the
underlying rules that govern morality.
So anyway, yes, you're right-- 99% of the time, moral rules agree and are
unquestioned. 99% of the time we can ignore the extremes. Heck, for many of
the examples I personally hypothesize about it's a lot closer to 100% of the
time. But as long as we're aware and acknowledge that the rules aren't
perfect, we're ok.
DaveE
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