[lbo-talk] Blue Dogs cashing in

Matthias Wasser matthias.wasser at gmail.com
Mon Jul 27 06:35:50 PDT 2009


On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 9:12 AM, Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:


> If a proposition applies to more than 1 incident, then it is abstract.
> If it applies to _anything_ that happens tomorrow, then it is abstract.
> If it applies to two or more people, then it is abstract. I'm not sure
> how Doug is using the word "abstract" here. If a moral proposition isn't
> abstract it is meaningless.
>
> Carrol

When Doug says a moral statement isn't abstract in this discussion, he means - and can correct me if I'm misrepresenting him - that "x is wrong" isn't a statement about a property that inheres in the platonic form of x (because, of course, there is no platonic form of x) but a statement about his attitude towards the vast majority of encounterable objects in the world that we would call "x;" namely, "boy, do I hate x!" Is this not precisely the attitude you have towards the prison system, the Democratic Party, et cetera? When you way you want abolition of the prisons I'm pretty sure you aren't just aggregating individual opinions about particular prisons, the vast majority of which you are surely individually unacquainted with.



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