Posts by BenWilson
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If you're going to rag on Kiwiblog, at least have the courage to go do it on Kiwiblog...
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No and colour me shocked! I really was picking Cameron by decision. I bet the PPV customers were a little pissed off though.
I doubt it...this is what boxing fans live for. I was woken up during the fight by what sounded like a riot down my street, and I pitched my ear in, realized it was excited hoots of laughter that I can only describe as
"definitely Pacific Island in origin", and concluded that Tua must have KOed Cameron. Ironically, the only person at Sunday Lunch who could actually tell me what happened was my Grandma. -
But where would the fun have been in that?
Indeed, I think a position that makes a claim is often worth having, whether the claim can be proved or not, if only to spark off debate. Almost all ethical theories are like that, and emotivism is no exception. It's just one that makes it's claim early in the ontogical chain. If people will make no claims they can't prove, then they have really become mathematicians, and talk only about the relations within structures. A worthy skill but it's only a fraction of thought, and I like to cast my net wider.
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Gotta say I find the idea of going along to a Tarantino film about Nazis when you are likely to be offended by negative German stereotypes makes about as much sense as renting a porno movies if you don't like sexist depictions of female sexuality (not to mention highly unlikely sexual scenarios). Tarantino has always been gratuitous, right from his early movies, that's one of the things I've always most liked about them. He doesn't piss around trying not to offend people, it's clear right from the outset that just about everything in them will be offensive from start to end. The question is: Are they entertaining? Most likely to a lot of people they are not, but to some people they are, and that's all that's being aimed for.
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That's kinda what I was thinking of: I guess pragmatism seems like an anti-ism ism.
Or is it still an ism? Even skepticism is an ism, so perhaps we can't escape being part of some ism (trying to might be called escapism ;-))
I'm not convinced my views are that analogous to pragmatism - pragmatists seem to be more akin to relativists, giving away 'absolute' truth altogether. But I still hold out for the possibility of some absolute truths, certainly logical ones and maybe scientific ones. Democracy of ideas strikes me as a form of solipsism. History is too full of examples of majorities being dead wrong on matters of fact to think that it makes sense to define truth in those terms. But I also think there are some things nonetheless about which there is no truth . Tastes are one example, and I think some kinds of moral statements (the fundamental judgments) fall into that category unless I hear of a reasonable proof otherwise. So far I've only heard assertions, and the (not altogether unreasonable) problem raised that emotivism doesn't give any useful framework for discussion of morals. Perhaps not (I think it's underdeveloped), but then again, there may be no such framework that would make sense to anyone who can't accept the idea that morals are arbitrary, so that kind of criticism may be akin to criticizing evolution because it doesn't give any proper account of angels and the devil.
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Thinking out loud, perhaps the Japanese were gambling that by the time the US had used it's undoubted superiority in industrial muscle to rebuild the fleet, they would have had enough time to conquer and control sufficient territory and industry to be able to fight back on equal terms. The Pearl Harbour attack was a win or lose gamble on a single roll of the dice.
I think it more likely that they thought they could sue for peace after some kind of stalemate, rather as the Hitler thought, wrt Britain. Both Axis powers seemed to have highly romanticized views on warfare and diplomacy, and totally failed to understand that instead of cowing their enemies, they had actually strengthened them.
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I'm not surprised MMA trumps boxing. It's much better viewing. Boxing is more refined, but in being so it also misses a great deal of the point of a bloodsport. In MMA you really get the impression of people actually fighting, and trying to win.
Interestingly, despite the apparent savagery of it, MMA leads to much lesser injuries. Boxing has pretty much decided that the only humane injury a human can receive in a fight is thousands of blows to the head from someone with hands of stone covered in thick gloves. Any time a fighter receives any telling blow they are allowed to fall to a knee and recover, making for long fights in which the loser basically hugs the winner to kill the fight. The usual outcome of boxing over time is to rapidly become brain dead.
MMA certainly allows for knockout wins, but they are very, very seldom the same as a boxing knockout, where one of the contestants receives an almighty undefended blow from a standing opponent and falls headlong to the floor. MMA knockouts are far more likely to be of the 'ground and pound' variety, where a fighter is trapped underneath, and can't defend against a torrent of blows, and taps out, receiving probably a number of cuts and contusions but far less brain damage. Also, of course, there are all the other finishing moves which don't involve knocking the opponents brains about at all, such as armbars and chokelocks, in which injuries are quite unlikely.
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I felt compelled to have Vista so I could feel my customers' pain. And I feel it. Every day it seems to hurt just a little more. Is it some form of built-in obsolescence?
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It may take a while to happen - but is cause for concern. It does mean it is more likely that earth changes can happen catastrophically rather than gradually for example.
Chaos theory would concur. The ability of chaotic systems to flip from one strange attractor to another at unpredictable times seems likely to have any number of practical analogies. It's generally going to be the exception, rather than the rule, for that to happen, and it seems unlikely that we could predict it, and thus unlikely we could stop it.
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Maybe, but that’s an “if”. At the very least, it would make sense to apply rationality unless we could know for sure there is only yuk and hurrah at the bottom, so to speak. You don’t need to resolve the “open question” issue in many actual debates.
That's a reasonable point. I also think the 'if' is unlikely to be resolved. But it's still there...
By debates getting more hostile, I'm referring to any number of debates that have involved heated ethical disputes and ended in open warfare. Slavery in the US would be a good example.
> I'm inclined to think that reason should still be applied as much as possible
Yet, you also say it’s clear that reason “is not working, was never going to work, and is actually simply being used as a Yuk or Hurrah tool”.
These positions are not mutually exclusive. In an altercation with some drunk in a bar, I'm always going to start with the talking, trying to get them to see reason. But that doesn't mean it's going to work, or was ever going to work. I just think it's worth trying because I don't have a taste for violence as a means of solving disputes. But I do think violence is almost inevitable in many disputes (and I think it's wise to be prepared for it).
Re the ick question, you are changing your usage of ick constantly. You say that ick adds nothing to "discrimination is wrong" and an emotivist would not disagree, they would see it as synonymous with "is wrong". But that's not the same ick as any misgivings you might have about homosexuality. It's a competing ick, and it may be a stronger ick.
I personally don't want to, for instance, see my parents shagging, or even to imagine it. But I have no problem with the idea that they are allowed to, and furthermore my very existence required that they did. One ick is against seeing an act, the other is against my own non-existence that would be a consequence of this act never happening.
Have you looked at Pragmatism at all? I haven’t read a lot (one book by Richard Rorty and a few articles) but it might just be your cup of tea.
Not in great depth. My 'hunt for a compatible moral theory' seems more and more like a 'hunt for evidence to confirm my prejudices', the longer it goes on. But I'll give it another look, this debate has rekindled some interest in ethics. My only real knowledge of Pragmatism is as a position on knowledge and truth, one that I initially agreed with, but generally lean away from in favor of Realism now. To me it's a little bit too akin to Solipsism. But I'm undecided/skeptical on all these isms, I must say.
On Ethical Pragmatism I lift this from Wiki: "Pragmatism sees no fundamental difference between practical and theoretical reason, nor any ontological difference between facts and values.". I have to say that I disagree with this position almost entirely. I think values are not facts, in fact I think this is exactly the position of Emotivists. But I don't think it's a provable thing, so my reasons for opposing Pragmatism might actually be quite understandable to Pragmatists. As I said before, I found it initially quite odd that most science students were Realists, but have subsequently figured that such a stance might be highly practical (in a funny twist), whether it is true or not.
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