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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Fri, 6 Jul 2001 14:39:45 GMT
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Viewed:
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1304 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Dave Schuler writes:
> In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Eaton writes:
> I would sum up by saying that it is not all gray, and no *distinct* line
> exists (ie: one that can be precisely articulated).
Ah- I would are *similarly*. I.E. that a line *does* exist yet is next to
impossible to find accurately.
> I don't equate the lack of unhappiness with the presence of happiness, any
> more than I equate the lack of pain with the presence of pleasure.
Neither do I really-- that's why I said it only works if you define it
differently. I really rather like the hot/cold example better though,
because it's so much more tangible.
> That is,
> we don't have, say, 100 points of "feeling" that we must divide between
> happiness and unhappiness, such that we need not say "I am 63% happy and
> therefore I am 37% unhappy."
No, I would rate again on a temperature scale-- just as we don't say "It's
63% hot and therefore 37% cold, we similarly wouldn't say the same for
happiness. Rather, one would say "on a scale of -100 to 100, I'm feeling
around 30 right now." At no point along the line does happiness level "cease
to exist", it merely drops below the "norm", just like the temperature.
I *will* agree that there is a "point" at which we cease calling what we
feel "happy" and become what we call "unhappy", but that point fluctuates
consistantly depending on mood, etc.-- which I guess still means there is a
point, it's just hard to define. So, ok, I'll concede that it works as an
example, but it still doesn't invalidate my point, I think.
> Happiness and unhappiness are not mutually exclusive except as they apply
> to the same single event, and not necessarily even then, since ambivalence
> is possible, too.
I would argue that happiness and unhappiness *are* in the utterly specific,
mutually exclusive. Let's say you turn yourself in for murder. You're happy
insofar as you did the right thing, but unhappy insofar as you'll have to
endure punishment. With respect to the specific *aspects* of the events, I
would say that happiness and unhappiness *are* mutually exclusive.
DaveE
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