Is there a single moral issue that Christians hold dear that could not be arrived at through reason?
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Common sense? I assume by this so called common sense one means that it is universally known or knowable, a priori (it must be if it is lodged in some mystical common reasoning-as a moment of the process, and not derived or created from reflection)? Just based in some sort of common understanding? I went to get gas and some homie was getting gas with his rap blaring as he pumped. He then went inside and left his rap blaring. Naturally I went to the other end of the station. Obviously, culturally, this is just plane rude, but then this fills our culture today. Rudeness; thumping stereos, people blasting car horns a 5 in the morning rather than knocking on a door, beer cans everywhere, drug users that affect extended families and the society at large, divorce and children, cig butts thrown everywhere, filthy lawns, drunks,..........well one gets the picture. Do unto others...., I assume that is the one. Well I have news-it has to be taught, as obviously, our culture teaches no one how to be civil any longer. You don't come from the womb ethical or with a predisposition to goodness and niceness. True, one is structured to be an individual, and that means that one encounters the "other" (we are finite by the way, a thing in itself, as Kant would have it, and that means the other is also a thing in itself as well; this relation does establish the ethical, as the ethical is the relation, but we are responsible to enter it). But when a culture like ours that develops the individual as a non-individual, an abstract individual (based on isolated ego, self centeredness-you see, probably derived from holywood and 3 minute songs, ideology, politics, and etc.), it becomes nothing but a rude self serving using other people as objects place to be. Individuality is not possible without an other and each must recognize the other as person; or the ethical is not reached. This so called common sense is an illusion as what goes on here is not some universal do unto others junk, but a lack of training for the ethical and poor upbringing and a national embarrassment (well it would be if we had a sense for the ethical) -we are not animals but thinking beings.
Common sense? I assume by this so called common sense one means that it is universally known or knowable, a priori (it must be if it is lodged in some mystical common reasoning-as a moment of the process, and not derived or created from reflection)? Just based in some sort of common understanding?
Well, think about it Allen. Logic isn't bound by emotions so let's put that nagative baggage aside for a moment and answer a quick question here.
When you cut your finger, do you put a bandage on it out of pity or because it is a part of you that needs healing?
Well you demonstrated that "love your enemy" exists in other religions, but I'm not sure you showed it comes from reason. Certain anti-utilitarian values of Christianity, although they may exist in other faiths, might not be able to be reached by reason alone. It might be perfectly reasonable to treat the severely retarded or brain-injured as inhuman, and therefore use them in involuntary medical experiments as much as we would use apes, but I doubt many Christians would accept that. This disdain may come from empathy, not religion, but that does not mean it comes from reason.
Thomas are you actually implying here that ONLY Christians would have a problem with the severely retarded being used for experiments? Would your god care? He was repulsed by people with physical deformities that he did not even want them near his altar according to Leviticus 21! I for one as a non believer would have a serious problem with any human being being treated as such!
Let me ask a question-is a bandage the same as ethics? This is always where the confusion comes in, one refuses to see distinctions and muddles everything together. I assume then you are saying, our cave dwelling ancestors just a prior came up with bandages out of the mind without reflection.
Let me ask a question-is a bandage the same as ethics? This is always where the confusion comes in, one refuses to see distinctions and muddles everything together. I assume then you are saying, our cave dwelling ancestors just a prior came up with bandages out of the mind without reflection.
All Mr Spocks out there should remember that how one thinks or what one values is not how everyone else thinks and what everyone else values (or should; modal verbs are way over used)-there is not a universal in this (at least not yet). In a monarchy, doing unto others as one would want done to one, would not apply to the king and upper casts (see Nietzsche and his view of decadence in relation to our present "humanity". The common sense would be that the king owns it all and has a right to it). Old cultures took property that wasn't theirs because of power and the ethical structures were built on that right (see Foucault). One can read constantly of people judging the past from our present "superior" moral viewpoints (not bandages), and this makes little sense as the values and such we hold today will also change and may not fit into other ethical systems (I heard they are air brushing out Churchill's cigars in the photographs so evidently we want him in our ethical beliefs now as well). Anyone who has read history sees this. To judge the past in this way seems to imply that the "stage" of "reason" (or common sense if you like, or a practical reason) that we are at (of course one is tempted to view it as the final stage), was also available to those others as a necessity (logic is necessity, but as Kierkegaard wrote, life ain't logic) but they refused this reified ethics; as if the logic of our ethics are lodged in the mind for everyone at all times. This is a pretty big assumption and very biased.
I will discuss my own assumptions and avoid unexplained "whats" and simplistic reductions of complexity, as it is so hot out, I can only mow the lawn in sections and then need to cool off and have a refreshment; so I have time on my hands. In the previous post I used the "negativity" to show that a common sense approach to ethics, or morality does not exist as some "thing" found everywhere but is interpretable at time and place; at best there may be set up a locally set of ethics (this is the assumption of the post modern, that a singular stream does not exist universally and it is more a function of the particular culture, group, etc, and its {PMism} antagonism toward a singular world view is that they think it is predominately white male european, which is forced on everyone by the mighty whitey). If it was that one assumes the common sense (common, I assume universal or possessed by all-no one ever seems to explain oneself here) to be in reason or especially logic, then, 5 plus 5 is 10 and it has to be that, so a common sense associated with some embedded human rational logic would need to be "outside" and visible and expressed by all (assuming there is only one logic, like 5 plus 5, after all we have had 5 mill years to get it out; but then, perhaps, human interaction is more complex than a math problem). The behavior that I presented is not universal (agreed as good by everyone, so it is not common-I figured "real" life examples, experienced by all, would be viewed as facts on a philosophy thread). I do not think someone should disturb others with their noise, their trash, or whatever-maybe you do, and if so, I hope you get what is coming to you (I am not alone in this thought). That was the reason for the "other" stuff I put up (this is philosophy and it has been understood for a very long time that the "other" places one in ethics-even christians seem to over look the importance of the "other"-; as a matter of fact there has been some discussion that sociology is actually ethics). The reason being is that the disturber violates my space or he exceeds his boundary; and at his boundary is where the "other" begins. This all has to be thought up and then taught-language is the relation (there have been children found raised with nearly no human contact and they have no sense of the ethical). Not everyone believes that he should remain in his space, but that he has the right to extend himself into others without their consent-of course one could just be thoughtless and stupid. Ethical systems that give right to this violation of the other are everywhere (and required if we are going to interact-such as free speech), and in fact the violator, probably in some "common sense" mode believes he has the "common" right, or is within his ethics-if he can think that high, to be rude. It is this "common sense" that one experiences everywhere in its diversity rather than a singular expression, and it is not composed of a singular stream that leads to a singular conclusion, but based on the particular culture, unethical ideas of the solitary ego, and that "others" are ends (for them, the violator) or things (to be used or ignored). There is no authority here to say which are correct and which are not correct ethical systems to deal with this "other" (reason leaves us in the lurch as it functions in all of them), except for the "power" that determines the ethic to be used (either king, social contract, good upbringing, Joe Stalin, whatever), but you are not born with it.
It may not be ethical, but if every human unit functions properly in His needed ostensible condition of the structural (Jesus, Zizek was a de-constructionalist on that account) model of a community of globalized equilibrium, there exists no reason to get mad at the authorities who follow the ACTUAL relativity of injustice to Ethically PEace minded people.
You use ethical at first as if it weren't a category to shove all the "actual" ethical systems in. What is a human unit? One can get mad at the authorities when one starts assuming the ethical view of the authorities is violating a new uprising ethic (one has to be conscious of a view, it has to be developed and disseminated to the new stakeholders); that the "peace minded" have adopted or one that the peasants, black folks, arian germans-whoever (maybe this is a world meant for conflict-the animals and plants seem to behave that way-if so, the peace folks may be wrong-how do you know they are right?). The authorities think they are within their rights-who is right? How is that determined? I never heard of Zizek, or I have forgotten. Jesus, assumed to be god, would have the authority to pronounce what is the ethic; that is a god's prerogative, and it would be demanded of all people at all times and would be their responsibility to get into it (unless he "winked" at some of the ignorant past). If he is no god, than he is just another do-gooder, yeah a PM deconstructionist, a Gande figure, whatever, and if that is the case, his ethic is just as good as any other's and has no authority for its use except as generated (power) from followers and such (remember, a bunch of peace folk operate from a "power" {the mass, dominating education and religion, philosophy and such, governmental structures, ideals, etc). The opinionated race or parts of it can just announce it good and "true", I suppose, but opinions do not make it so. Usually, I assume, it is thought that the ethics we in the west have is because it is good for society and business and democracy and scammed out of the christian for the most part but also greek thought (Weber wrote a lot on this), but rapidly going out on its own. There is no need to think that our's is a golden age and that monarchies, dictatorships, tyrannies, and new forms are not in our future-after all, Athens was once a democracy and it has changed a lot, back and fourth, over the years-even Africa brags that it was once a heaven of all these noble thoughts; look at it today.
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