Ethics is probably like Chomskyan universal grammar -- ineluctably human but subject to local variations...
---- Original message ----
>Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 16:28:10 -0800 (PST)
>From: Chris Doss <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com>
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] How radical was Derrida? (was 'does anyone read poststructuralism anymore?')
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
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>What is your evidence that x is universally wrong? Give an argument against x that would convince a strong believer in x. PS. "I feel revolted by x" or "I feel very stongly that x is universally wrong" or "everybody around me thinks that x is universally wrong" are not evidence.
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>The reason that you and I do not believe in witches is the same reason that people in 14th-century Europe believed that there were witches. People we trust have told us that there are no witches all our lives, witches are incompatible with our view of the world, and we have seen no evidence that there are witches. Similarly, a person in 14th-century Europe has been told by people that they trust all their lives that there are witches, witches are compatible with his or her view of the world, and he or her has seen no evidence that there are not witches. This is how human cognition works.
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>Aristotle was, of course, right, but that does not have a bearing on this argument.
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>----- Original Message ----
>From: C. G. Estabrook <galliher at illinois.edu>
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Sent: Sun, November 8, 2009 2:15:16 AM
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] How radical was Derrida? (was 'does anyone read poststructuralism anymore?')
>
>But x is universally wrong, and there are no (effectual) witches.
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>As Aristotle points out, the truth of some things depends on believing this or that, but that of other things doesn't.
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