Posted by alexandra_k on October 2, 2005, at 19:56:52
In reply to Re: The albatross, posted by zeugma on October 2, 2005, at 17:54:04
'if man should desire what he is incapable of possessing then despair must be his eternal lot'
William Blake
The ideal...
The ideal of an impassioned search for truth
Is unobtainable.
And what they don't teach us...
Is that it is actually undesirable
Because it is not contrary to reason
To prefer the destruction of the universe
Over the scratching of my finger.
When we lose our passion
We lose our humanity
And when we lose our humanity...That is what is abhorrant.
Or at least...
It should be.Over the last few weeks...
You would not believe how many times I have heard people say...
I have heard people say that people
(Actually, they don't call them 'people' they call them 'patients' or 'clients')
I have heard people say that these people
With emotional disorders
Are unable to me moral.
Are unable to be virtuous.And this is a non-consequentialist view.
So it is pointless to say in response
'And what do you think the consequences of hearing that is likely to be for those who suffer from emotional disorder?'But that is abhorrant to me.
I do not believe the world works that way.
I refuse to believe the world works that way.
Where some people are unable to be moral through no fault of their own.But if one must have the 'appropriate' emotion
In order to be moral...
Then people like you and I are screwed.And I don't know how to argue against that...
The position is repulsive to me.
But I don't know how to argue against that...
Aside from the circularity objection that virtue ethics is circular:
How do we know which acts are moral?
The acts performed by a virtuous person...
How do we know which people are virtuous?
The people who perform the moral acts...
Aside from another circularity objection that appeals to emotion are circular:
What is it to have the appropriate emotion?
It is the tendancy to perform moral acts...But I don't really know what to say...
It reviles me...
And I'm tempted to say that some people have issues with self-esteem
They try to opress certain groups of people as 'other'
In order to feel better about themselves.But thats not very charitable...
It is not.And I don't know what to say...
I've expressed my concerns
(While admitting difficulty arguing for them)
And the response was...
That is what is so very tragic about mental illness.But that is not good enough.
That is not good enough for me.But it tells me that in philosophy...
There is a sickness...
Something is wrong...
People have left the path...And it is hearing the plight of the continental philosophers
(Though even that term isn't philosophically PC anymore...)
But it is hearing the plight of the continental philosophers
Telling us how they have been oppressed by the establishment
That shows me what happens to those who push the boundaries
What happens to those who push the limits
What happens to those who attempt to write so that the intelligent general reader can take something from what is said
What happens to those who attempt to adress the concerns of the intelligent general readerAnd I don't know...
I'm an analytic philosopher through and through.
I would have loved to study Sartre and Camus
My only issue with existentialism is:
Hope
I believe they were wrong there and it led me to nihilism
But thats reading on my own
Reading for interest
And I know better than to talk about that in academia...But analytic philosophy misses the point
That is true.
And what I like about Dennett is his ability to spin a story
For the intelligent general reader
A story of the emergence of life, the emergence of consciousness and selfhood and intentionality on this planet...
But when I write about that...
When I write like that...
I am warned:
Thats not philosophy
Thats not *good* philosophy
It is unclear and impreciseAnd from an analytic philosophy pov that is right...
But from the pov of the intelligent general reader
He spins a beautiful story with due reverence for the empirical facts...
A beautiful story that helps me immensely with respect to my making sense of where I am in the world. Where my place is. Where I have come from. Where I want to be going.And so which activity is more worthwhile?
And what is it that I want to be?
Decisions...
There must be a middle ground...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:561840
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20050910/msgs/562099.html