Ethical foundations of the left

Justin Schwartz jkschw at hotmail.com
Wed Aug 1 07:59:47 PDT 2001



>From: Daniel Davies <d_squared_2002 at yahoo.co.uk>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
>Subject: Re: Ethical foundations of the left
>Date: Wed, 1 Aug 2001 07:33:16 +0100 (BST)
>
>
>I question whether a shell-game isn't being played with "understanding" in
>this
>example. Does a slave really understand what he's doing in building a
>pyramid?
> Would a slave make a distinction between a pyramid and a pyramid-shaped
>folly?

If the slaves didn't understand well enough, we wouldn't have pyramids. Look, on my definition of "understand," to graso the truth conditions, a pyradmid is a triangular solid made of stone to buty a mummified member of the Egyptian royal family and prepare him or her for her vaoyage to the afterworld. You think the slaves didn't know that? Then you have a lower opinion of their intelligence than I did.


>
>We but I think that there is some point to the story in that unless we are
>in an
>equal and noncoercive situation, we have no hope of understanding *exactly*
>the
>same thing.
>

Well, then, as I have repeatedly said, none of us have ever understood the same thing, but it doesn't seem to have slowed us down very much.

--jks

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