Ethical foundations of the left

Justin Schwartz jkschw at hotmail.com
Wed Jul 25 13:04:36 PDT 2001



>
>A belief would only be dogmatic when there is good reason to change ones
>beliefs. I tend to think of an intuition as "awaiting further information,
>but leaning toward..."

Well, all beliefs are intuitions then, no? But intuitions, as I use the term, are stronger and vaguer. Vague, because they can be cashed out in many ways. Stronger, because they're something we want to say, not just are learning towards.


>
>Would you agree that we can differentiate between an internal state of
>affairs (subjective), a social state of affairs (intersubjective) and an
>external state of affairs (objective)? If so, then we have 'validated' the
>separation of three 'spheres' through which we 'experience' the world, one
>of them being that there is an external world...

I'm not sure I would agree. depends on the purpose these distinctions are bring used for. (What else would you expect a pragmatist to say?)
>
>>That's how you use the words, not me.
>
>Fair enough. But in principle we could agree on a lexicon that allows us to
>communicative, right?

Maybe, maybe not. It's not a given.


>it is worth keeping a distinction (even if we're not
>going to clarify it now) between facts and norms. UB as cap of M is a
>factual claim. It isn't really a norm that guides actions... I believe that
>capital punishment is wrong... is a norm guiding belief, I believe that UB
>is the cap of M, is belief that, for all intents and purposes, one treats
>as hypothetical knowledge.
>

Well, I have lots of normative beliefs I have never acted on. I think murder is wrong, but while I have never murdered anyone, I have not done so not because of my moral belief about it, but because I've never really wanted to kill anyone (apart from the usual momentary flash of rage). --jks

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