Seems to me that what philosophical abstraction gets you sometimes is, well . . . philosophical abstraction. Practice is definitely more complex, which is probably why, after reading Kant, we run off to novels and other literature that represents people in more concrete dilemmas?
So you would claim that what we have is another case of a philosophical "ideal" that doesn't match "reality."
By the way, one of my econo-trained-monkey-MBA dear close friends sent me a response that Rawls sounded to him like "Pareto optimality" (whatever the hell that is -- I've heard it used).
Peter Kosenko
---------- Original Message ---------------------------------- From: Miles Jackson <cqmv at pdx.edu> Reply-To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 07:48:43 -0800 (PST)
>
>
>On Tue, 20 Nov 2001, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> Peter Kosenko wrote:
>>
>> >Since we have no
>> >preconception of the "value" of the other, we must
>> >perforce grant them the humanity we grant
>> >ourselves.
>>
>> Do unto others as you would have them do unto you?
>>
>> Doug
>
>You know, no offense to any ethicists around here, but most
>convoluted ethical philosophical perspectives always seem to
>boil down to a cliche like this ...
>
>Miles
>
>