Posted by alexandra_k on October 2, 2005, at 21:46:45
In reply to Re: intolerance, posted by alexandra_k on October 2, 2005, at 21:01:51
and ethics is something that i've always stayed away from
because i see enough contradictions
enough conflict between my current convictions
and my current actions
and i'm not interested in ever increasingly sophisticated arguments to justify my actions
and i'm a little afraid of developing my moral sensibilities further still...
how much conflict between my convictions and my action can i face without becoming lost in despair?
and i dare say...
that this is not a quandry that most analytic philosophers consider themselves to be faced with...but i do have some fundamental assumptions about the way the world works...
i do not have reasons for them.
they are brute.
they are indefensible ultimately
but no matter what you are looking at
no matter how rigerous and methodical you aim to be
something will always be brute
like in physics you get mass and charge
and maybe... one day... consciousness
and for me i have some fundamental assumptions too...that we can handle the truth.
that the consequences of knowing the truth are positive rather than destructive.and so when you get that feeling of despair...
then something has gone wrong.
because the truth isn't supposed to be opressive
it is supposed to be liberating
and i believe that all truths can be handled
though it can be bloody hard to recast them in a way that remains true
that we can handle.and about morality...
and about the ability of people with emotional disorders to be moral...morality
perfect morality
is an ideal.
obtainable as a matter of principle i suppose
but not obtainable as a matter of contingent fact
and here i am just worried about people achieving their own standards of what they believe is right
(just in case anyone has issues about whether there are mind-independent or inter-subjective ethical facts or whether morality really is relative to each individual)
people do not do what they believe to be right
and that is a fact...
about our psychology i suppose.i would have thought morality would have more to do with doing the best you can with what you have got.
but courage... seems to mean doing what you believe is right DESPITE feeling afraid. Thus one cannot exhibit the virtue of courage if one does not experience fear in the appropriate contexts.
So maybe... There is something to the view after all...
Maybe people who do not feel the appropriate emotions cannot be moral when their emotion is inappropriate to the context.
But it is not just people with emotional disorders who do not expereince the appropriate emotion relative to the context.
It is not.
And so when it comes down to the actual practice...
The majority of us come up short
Irregardless of ones mental healthSo in practice...
It makes little difference.I just think that to emphasise that people with mental illness are unable to be moral (IN SOME CONTEXTS - a qualification that they seem to leave off) is more likely to encourage fear and discrimination toward people with mental illness than anything else.
Just like encouraging 'cognitive deficit' and 'irrationality' talk is more likely to encourage judgement and condemnation rather than empathy and attempts to understand.
Those things don't have to follow...
They do not follow as a matter of logical necessity...But they do follow.
They follow contingently.
As facts about our psychology.
And not just the 'ignorant masses' (to coin a phrase)
Philosophers are slaves to their psychology too
Slaves to their associations
And while they might be better placed to see that that is not logically implied...
There isn't enough time in the day to rationally investigate all logical implications...
So they are more likely to rely on their associations to find what is intuitively plausible to them.
Then begin devising intricate arguments to justify those intuitions.
Without investigating why it is that their intuitions are so very important to them...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:561840
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/write/20050910/msgs/562158.html