--- joanna <123hop at comcast.net> wrote:
"I'm saying that I can see how moral quandries that present as individual problems are simply manifestations of the individual's attempt to work through arbitrary social norms."
OK. Divorce is probably an "arbitrary social norm." Both partners from the same class background know that. Does that tell you whether those partners should or shouldnt get divorced (or even separated)? Remember Angels in America? How do you know that Louis is wrong for leaving Prior? Why does the writer forgive Louis in the end but not the Mormon guy?
Iris Murdoch's point is that contemporary thinkers (including Marx, Freud, the existentialists and structuralists) all in different ways deny the reality of Kantian moral imperatives (or any abstract scheme of values). Yet we all go on living is if there were right and wrong choices.
OK, 'nuff said on this subject.
BobW
No need to reply. I obviously walked into the wrong thread.
BobW
> Miles Jackson wrote:
>
> > I'm not sure how to respond other than to say--you
> cannot
> >understand the private moral struggles people have
> without understanding
> >the sociohistorical context in which those moral
> struggles emerge.
> >
> To put it another way, if you live in a society that
> accepts slavery,
> the practice might not offend or distress you. If
> you live in a
> polyandrous society, the fact that your wife is
> sleeping with your best
> friend might not disturb you. If you live in a
> society that worships
> money and "success" the sociopathic actions that
> lead to these gains
> might not strike you as being unusual.
>
> I'm not saying it's all relative; I'm saying that I
> can see how moral
> quandries that present as individual problems are
> simply manifestations
> of the individual's attempt to work through
> arbitrary social norms. Even
> the need for working through might be socially
> defined.
>
> What is interesting to me is that some feelings --
> like compassion --
> are not socially defined and such feelings are able
> to serve as a
> universal solvent for other socially defined toxins.
>
> Joanna
>
>
>
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