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Old 09-22-2005, 05:49 AM   #57 (permalink)
asaris
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Location: Washington, DC
Analog -- what you give isn't really an argument, it's an explanation. You write "I believe this because it is the result of my logical answer from many periods of thought." What in these periods of thought led you to believe you could quantify (at least in theory) how strong one's impulses of good and evil are? And what makes you think they're more static than dynamic?

Nothingx -- you say the fact that a knife cuts everything indiscriminately makes it evil. First of all, note that given what you said above, this means that a dull knife is a good knife, which is counter-intuitive to say the least. If I'm trying to cut meat, I definitely want a sharp knife -- in fact, for pretty much everything I use knives for, I want a sharp knife. Second, it seems clear to me that, all other things being equal, a teleological account of good and evil is the best, since, among other things, it allows us to speak of good and evil in the same sense in different contexts. It's also fairly intuitive -- we're doing good when we're doing what we're 'supposed' to be doing. And, of course, it doesn't require a deity. Now, a lot of people object to a teleological account of human morality on the grounds that we either do not have an end or, if we do, we don't know what it is. But that's not the case when we're talking about inanimate objects; we know what they're for, because we made them. We know that a knife is for cutting, because we made it to cut things. So it just seems obvious that a sharp knife is a good knife, because it fulfills its ends.
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"Die Deutschen meinen, daß die Kraft sich in Härte und Grausamkeit offenbaren müsse, sie unterwerfen sich dann gerne und mit Bewunderung:[...]. Daß es Kraft giebt in der Milde und Stille, das glauben sie nicht leicht."

"The Germans believe that power must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty and then submit themselves gladly and with admiration[...]. They do not believe readily that there is power in meekness and calm."

-- Friedrich Nietzsche
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