tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post1597611884124315115..comments2024-03-28T07:16:39.621+00:00Comments on Lallands Peat Worrier: Same-sex marriage: Scotland's fractured ethical dialogue...Lallands Peat Worrierhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18276270498204697708noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-56444130017080115292012-06-16T09:54:49.417+01:002012-06-16T09:54:49.417+01:00"What sort of ontologies and epistemologies a...<i>"What sort of ontologies and epistemologies are we relying on, and how do these differ from the basic concepts of nature and knowledge which our opponents accept? These aren’t avoidable questions."</i><br /><br />Shouting at the sea for being wet, I do realise, but I for one - and I suspect I carry the vast bulk of the Scottish public with me on this - find it both eminently possible and actively desirable to avoid questions which I require the assistance of a dictionary to understand in the first place.<br /><br />;)RevStuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03915111503712807257noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-18446480409599624762012-06-15T19:22:48.070+01:002012-06-15T19:22:48.070+01:00Ach fair enough Stravonian, but there isn't a ...Ach fair enough Stravonian, but there isn't a sizeable block of MSPs who think lollipop ladies should not exist. I hope!<br /><br />Brian Taylor is an interesting observer - the nature of his BBC job means that he has to boing like Zebedee from one hand to the other - if Eck or Lamont put in a good word for Auld Nick Brian's default response would have to be 'Aye weel you have to say...' I like him, think he dose a tough job pretty well.Edwin Moorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05317173893948248954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-27640745576416085882012-06-15T16:37:17.768+01:002012-06-15T16:37:17.768+01:00Indy
1 No one ever changed their circumstances w...Indy<br /><br />1 No one ever changed their circumstances without learning - but that does not mean formal education, which is, I think, the point you are trying to make.<br /><br />2 The gun versus the scimitar is analogous for the triumph of the modern world, including its technology. As I say, we can argue about the details of that progress, but few of us would want to undo it.<br /><br />3 I don't think many scientists would argue that our search for understanding is complete. As for the concept of multiverses, I have yet to see any evidence. We have barely scratched the surface of our own fourth dimension.<br /><br />4 Too many concepts in there to unpick in a response, but glad to see you brought it full circle - good old Aristotle.Stravoniannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-82691279443602184542012-06-15T16:34:17.536+01:002012-06-15T16:34:17.536+01:00Edwin
Holyrood paid tribute to an individual for ...Edwin<br /><br />Holyrood paid tribute to an individual for 60 years service. They would probably do the same for the schools crossing person if they weren't being forcibly retired at 65.<br /><br />Brian was just being a journalist - criticises you for having an opinion, criticises you for not expressing one. Don't take him too seriously.Stravoniannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-90219605320904064892012-06-15T08:37:47.129+01:002012-06-15T08:37:47.129+01:00Just a couple of comments.
1) Stravonian, nobody ...Just a couple of comments.<br /><br />1) Stravonian, nobody has ever changed their circumstances simply by learning. People change their circumstances by doing. Obviously learning and thinking helps people when it comes to doing! But many people involved in the trade union movement for example were not learned and did not need to learn that the circumstances of their lives were rotten. <br /><br />2) Having said that, the area of life in which knowledge applied really has the capacity to absolutely revolutionise peoples circumstances has not even been discussed here, which is interesting. I am talking about science of course. Technology has changed lives more completely than anything else and continues to change lives yet most people still don't understand even quite basic things such as how a light bulb switches on and off! <br /><br />3) The scientific understanding of the universe tells us that it is infinitely weirder and more complex than anything that could be understood as Natural Law I suggest. It is likely that the universe is actually completely different to our understanding of it. It is quite possible that we do live in a multiverse of which we comprehend very little. Most of us can only dip a toe in that water before running away, completely freaked out, but even a wee dip of the toe shows that much, if not most, of our understanding of reality is probably wrong. <br /><br />4)That suggests to me that anyone who thinks they really understand anything and that there are any eternal truths is probably mistaken but it is also irrelevant because here we all are and we have to rub along as best we can. So that is where common sense comes into play. Accept that you will never really know anything for sure and just make the best of things in a way that gives everyone an equal chance to be happy because that is all that really matters.Indyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04383904151475839441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-33372394541958946192012-06-14T15:33:19.959+01:002012-06-14T15:33:19.959+01:00The juxtaposition of marriage as a social construc...The juxtaposition of marriage as a social construct and Natural Law fails, in my view.<br /><br />A Catholic will argue that any enduring social construct, like marriage ( understood as between a man and woman), endures because it is in harmony with Natural Law.<br /><br />No social construct which is not in harmony with Natural Law can endure or serve human beings in a beneficial way.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-62495502560636998362012-06-14T11:49:54.013+01:002012-06-14T11:49:54.013+01:00@ Stravonian
Yes, fair point about the need for p...@ Stravonian<br /><br />Yes, fair point about the need for politicians to move about traditions.<br /><br />I'm not sure that MacIntyre has an entirely satisfactory account of the nature of the modern nation state. He comes out (I think in 'After Virtue') with the marvellous phrase that asking someone to die for the modern nation state is like asking them to die for the telephone company. The main elements I take from him are: a) the state should be as local and 'communitarian' as possible (hence the defence of nationalism you find in some of his essays); b) the state should acknowledge and articulate the competing traditions rather than pretending they don't exist.<br /><br />As I said, I'm not convinced by his essentializing of traditions. But the general point that the state should learn to live with (and even facilitate) considerable ethical tensions rather than try to resolve them strikes me as rather a good one.Lazarushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09716412032074416331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-58813474956221682872012-06-14T09:27:46.196+01:002012-06-14T09:27:46.196+01:00Indy
I am afraid you don't address the issue ...Indy<br /><br />I am afraid you don't address the issue that they 'made the time'. There was among elements of the community, whatever their trade, a thirst for knowledge. From the 16th c onwards there appears to be a growing recognition of the ability of the individual to change their circumstances through learning.<br /><br />From the 18th c new forms of institution came into being that weren't just about defending artisan interests, but also about working together to achieve social progress. Fenwick has been little known in Scotland until recent years because their final act of collective progress was achieved through emigration. This may be why they have been recognised more in California then here.<br /><br />The exchange between Lazarus and Indy appears to miss the point that people, including politicians, move the basis for ethical arguments from one tradition to another. The fact that it may be possible to stick rigidly to a single ethical tradition isn't really useful. The same opponents will come at you using arguments from different traditions - and it probably won't help to appeal to the electorate on the basis of their philosophical inconsistency. MacIntyre seems to think that is a bad thing - I'm not so sure.Stravoniannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-52014260993954041462012-06-14T09:19:25.713+01:002012-06-14T09:19:25.713+01:00Glad I did everything I had to do yesterday, my d...Glad I did everything I had to do yesterday, my day will be spent in part absorbing this - fine piece from LPW and excellent thread.<br /><br /> It is indeed difficult to find many among us gabbers opposed to gay marriage. I am opposed to Nicola Sturgeon politically but she rightly regards gay marriage as something that will happen and must happen. <br /><br />It's not of course just the Catholic church that is against; the Church of Scotland (despite all its ball into long-grass instincts) has lost a large congregation today on the issue, and the Council of Imams has said that no Muslim can vote for a party which supports the measure (that sad small demo lead by Gordon Wilson was mostly Muslim - and I gather that most of them were there out of archaic loyalty to Bashir Maan).<br /><br />As I say enthralling discussion - If i can throw a curler in it would be to suggest that we need to be especially careful about when we achieve consensus - sometimes it can be a rather disturbing phenomenon as in the Holyrood Jubilee tributes, on which Brian Taylor or cannot be bettered - <br /><br />'A debate at Holyrood today anent Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee, using the word 'debate' in its loose, contemporary meaning of 'an outburst of collective loyalty'.”<br /><br />As someone who is actually in favour of a constituional monarchy, that all creeped me out. But three cheers still - on gay marriage at least.Edwin Moorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05317173893948248954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-3608212115138964822012-06-14T08:39:35.800+01:002012-06-14T08:39:35.800+01:00@ Indy
I'll resist taking up the same sex mar...@ Indy<br /><br />I'll resist taking up the same sex marriage issue just now as it'll only get us stuck in that particular pit and obscure the central, theoretical point at issue.<br /><br />So let's take euthanasia. You say it is wrong because it is unnecessary. Well, the standard reasons offered for euthanasia are usually about the relief of suffering; or the importance of autonomy; or an understanding of what it is to be dignified.<br /><br />All of these are goods: we can understand roughly the point of what someone is doing when they pursue them. But as soon as we dig beneath that surface understanding, we find disagreements about the precise nature of the values((eg) dignity: some would think about it as involving physical cleanness and independence; others would think of it as the facing of physical discomfit and the virtue of patience); and of their precise place in a good human life (how important is autonomy?).<br /><br />MacIntyre has three main points: that such 'deep' disagreements emerge from different traditions of ethical reasoning; that these traditions conflict; and that a resolution can only be provided from within the perspective of a particular tradition. (He would add that the tradition most able to to that is Aristotelian Thomism; and that the tradition it faces (liberalism) is no longer intellectually coherent -but put these specific claims aside.)<br /><br />In principle, I'm not sure I agree with him: I'm not sure that the messiness of ethical thinking can be reduced neatly to traditions. But at a practical level, he does point out the way ethical debates in modernity do tend to talk past each other and are traceable back to quite deep disagreements about what human beings are like and how ethics works.<br /><br />I think I'm rather more optimistic than LPW about the ability of such debates to advance towards a rational conclusion. But in any case,it would be a useful starting point for everyone to accept that their 'opponents' on any of these big issues are neither knaves nor fools and to make some effort to understand their deeper reasoning.Lazarushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09716412032074416331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-85303832130585368132012-06-13T22:27:06.233+01:002012-06-13T22:27:06.233+01:00Incidentally from a pretty uneducated common sense...Incidentally from a pretty uneducated common sense perspective I think the situations described by LPW are actually quite straightforward and can be answered with no inconsistency really.<br /><br />Euthanasia is wrong. Not because killing is always wrong – it isn’t – but it is always wrong when it is unnecessary. <br /><br />Arms companies - or indeed any other companies - using bribery and corruption are wrong and should be punished. The argument that it is necessary to stop an investigation because it may imperil international relations and security cooperation with a Middle Eastern country is also wrong because it is the corrupt nature of the middle eastern regimes that we sell arms to that causes the insecurity in the first place. If we stopped selling arms to these people, arms companies would lose money. People who make money out of the arms trade will naturally make up all kinds of excuses for it but they are just so much crap and really it us all about making money. If we threw the lot of them in jail the world would be a better place.<br /><br />On the next question, marriage is clearly a made up word. All words are made up. And the institution of marriage is also made up, in common with every other institution. Cos that’s what people do. Words, institutions, philosophies, excuses for selling arms to undemocratic regimes. All totally made up.<br /><br />The next question I am not sure I understand. But clearly there have always been gay people. There will always be gay people. But contemporary categorisations of sexual orientation do not reflect universal, underlying realities about the sexual nature of humankind because the categorisation of sexual orientation has never been universal and has changed over time back and forth. <br /><br />And there are always sub-cultures that exist under the “official” culture. Like Julian and Sandy on Round the Horn. And also people lie about sex. Quite a lot. <br /><br />That is not to say that there is not an underlying universal truth about sex. There is. The truth is that people are into all kinds of stuff. If they don’t actually do it they fantasise about it. And I don’t say that ALL homophobes are closet cases but I think we all know that many of them are. <br /><br />Then the final question that gay marriage has become a common sense issue rather than one underpinned by philosophical and ethical underpinning. Yep. And what is wrong with that? If someone said to me gay people should not be allowed to sign a mortgage or own a dog or drive a car or do any other thing that every other adult can do because of their sexual orientation I would think they were off their heads. Where is your common sense my good fellow, I would say. And marriage is no different. <br /><br />I dare say a perfectly coherent philosophical argument could be constructed to support the idea that gay people should not be allowed to own property along the same lines as then not being allowed to get married. After all they “can’t” have children (here common sense may pipe up and say actually they can but it is quickly repressed with the retort that they can’t have children NATURALLY) so who would they leave their property to? <br /><br />Doesn't society have a duty to ensure that the ownership of property be confined to families? Gay people and other weirdos could just rent – they would still have property, they would have almost exactly the same rights as owners, they just wouldn’t have that bit of paper that says I own these bricks and mortar. The argument against same sex marriage is equally as silly really.Indyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04383904151475839441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-55578683056697389772012-06-13T22:11:01.191+01:002012-06-13T22:11:01.191+01:00@ ratzo
I'd guess you were thinking of this i...@ ratzo<br /><br />I'd guess you were thinking of this interview: <br /><br />http://brandon.multics.org/library/Alasdair%20MacIntyre/macintyre2002education.pdf<br /><br />If you'd read a little further, you'd have seen:<br /><br />'To this the response will rightly be: you are being absurdly Utopian.Yet there is some point in being Utopian...If we set our standards too low, then we will not recognize how drastic our failures often are. The test of our curriculum is what our children become, not only in the workplace but in being able to think about themselves and their society imaginatively and constructively, able to use the resources provided by the past in order to envisage and an implement new possibilities' (p15).<br /><br />And a bit further on:<br /><br />'A society in which fishing crews and farmers and auto mechanics and construction workers were able to think about their lives critically and constructively in the light afforded by this sort of education would be a society on the verge of revolution.'<br /><br />Utopian perhaps, but the same sort of Utopian thought that set up the WEA and the Open University and doesn't regard ordinary people as fit only to be wage slaves or the dupes of modish politicians. And you're right, I do find that appealing.Lazarushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09716412032074416331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-59450909833675154512012-06-13T21:33:20.612+01:002012-06-13T21:33:20.612+01:00It's nothing to do with lack of intellect but ...It's nothing to do with lack of intellect but lack of time. The necessity to earn a living. And I would be the last person to say that there is any lack of intellect in working class people. If there is a lack of intellectualism that is, in my opinion, a thoroughly good thing.<br /><br />But then I belong to the common sense school.Indyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04383904151475839441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-23789900659969285402012-06-13T20:27:56.764+01:002012-06-13T20:27:56.764+01:00An interesting application of MacIntyre - a kind o...An interesting application of MacIntyre - a kind of philosophical Victor Meldrew, hankering after a lost world. “I don’t believe it, they’ve ditched Aristotle. What will they think of next?”<br /><br />The answer of course is that they thought of many things, and wrought changes on the world and on society that Aristotle would find unimaginable. We may argue over the details of that progress, but few of us would want to go back to the pre-enlightenment days when the beliefs of nations were supposedly settled by disputes between rulers.<br /><br />We are all Jenny Geddes now; an uncomfortable fact for church leaders, who find it difficult to make their flock follow their lead.<br /><br />It is an interesting concept that the early philosophers got things right and all those who came after were led astray, but I suggest it is a difficult one to make stand up. If true, it would make philosophy the one field of human endeavour in which succeeding generations proceeded to unlearn everything inherited from their predecessors and put nothing new in its place.<br /><br />When Indiana Jones faced death at the hands of a scimitar wielding Arab, he didn’t try learning swordplay in double quick time, he just shot him, because he could.<br /> <br />There never was a golden age when all men (women were usually excluded) studied morals and ethics. I am sure most people have always described what they believe by naming their religion or their political affiliations, or summarising their responses to the dilemmas they have faced. As Aristole said “We are what we repeatedly do.”<br /><br />I was disappointed in Indy’s comment – the one thing that has changed over recent centuries is that the pursuit of knowledge has moved from the community into the formal education system. Miners and weavers may not have spent many evenings after a 12-hour shift in pursuit of knowledge, but many of them did spend their weekends in that pursuit. <br /> <br />From Ayrshire, David Dale started out as an apprentice weaver and went on to found New Lanark and to promote a new approach to business. It was possibly in Fenwick that Dale first encountered co-operative working. The Fenwick Weavers, perhaps unwittingly, founded the co-operative movement; they also started their own clandestine parliament in which they could debate the great issues of the day. Just five years earlier, in 1756, in Wanlockhead, the miners had founded their own subscription library. Until the last century, formal higher education was denied to most people by a lack of resources, not a lack of intellect.Stravoniannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-34428271062151166482012-06-13T17:51:42.958+01:002012-06-13T17:51:42.958+01:00In the wider supposedly revolutionary intellectual...In the wider supposedly revolutionary intellectual culture envisaged by MacIntyre EVERYONE will speak Greek, will have a deep knowledge of history and "great quantities of Literature, especially Shakespeare", plus calculus, statistics, experimental physics and observational astronomy. <br /><br />In other words, whatever the actual value of these subjects, his utopia is almost perversely ridiculous and inhuman. Its no surprise therefore that 'lazarus' finds him so appealing.ratzohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17512152633620132970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-90347528744370407222012-06-13T13:45:59.792+01:002012-06-13T13:45:59.792+01:00I'd definitely agree that there's a lack o...I'd definitely agree that there's a lack of consistency in peoples moral positions, and certainly the majority will not have considered this in depth, but I'm not convinced it's a problem to use different normative ethical frameworks to work within while exploring ethical issues.<br /><br />It certainly helps if people recognise this is the nature of their discourse and, like most things, ethical frameworks are social constructs. <br /><br />But then I'm a moral relativist, heavily influenced by evolutionary psychology and Foucault with a fascination with experimental Trolleyology.Aidan Skinnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13832377406191636045noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-80045293140145069822012-06-13T09:00:54.993+01:002012-06-13T09:00:54.993+01:00Thanks for a very fair minded reaction.
There'...Thanks for a very fair minded reaction.<br /><br />There's a sociological element in MacIntyre's thought which Indy touches on: ideas and traditions are embodied in institutions or practices and not just philosophical systems. Part of the problem is, as you suggest, that we simply don't take time to examine the depths of each side's reasoning. But another part of the problem is that, as a nation, we don't (yet) have the institutions which can provide a diverse cultural hinterland which feeds into the political debate.<br /><br />Probably a key element of this is that there is no functioning conservative party in Scottish politics.Lazarushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09716412032074416331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-26383395285265622272012-06-13T08:24:04.368+01:002012-06-13T08:24:04.368+01:00You write this as though there was some point in t...You write this as though there was some point in time when ordinary people were clearer about the ontologies and epistemologies they were relying on. <br /><br />I suggest there has never been any point in the history of our nation when more than about 5 - 10pc of the population has known what those words even mean, far less being clear about their own positions.<br /><br />Ditto comments about the Enlightenment. While it was the case that Scotland at that time had (probably) the highest literacy levels in the world I suggest that ordinary people took very little to do with the Enlightenment. They were far more likely to spend their time weaving or mining or some such thing. I don't think many people would have swanned down to their nearest lecture or philosophical discussion after putting in a 12 hr shift!Indyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04383904151475839441noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-59115894977606756942012-06-12T23:02:01.720+01:002012-06-12T23:02:01.720+01:00I've never understood why people get so caught...I've never understood why people get so caught up in the same-sex marriage issue. I would think that given all of the problems with the economy, most would have enough to worry about in regards to their own family then to worry about someone else's perfectly harmless family arrangements.forestry investmentshttp://www.greenworldbvi.com/alternative-investments-options/bamboo-forestry-timber/forestry/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-55276935139364622472012-06-12T18:33:19.785+01:002012-06-12T18:33:19.785+01:00I think it's probably worth bearing in mind th...I think it's probably worth bearing in mind that the discussion around equal marriage isn't merely anti-intellectual, with poor foundations, because of a Scottish intellectual vacuum.<br /><br />It's a deliberate strategy taken both by the SNP, who can't afford to make Equal Marriage into any particularly principled position, and by the Equal Marriage campaign, who, in the true tradition of the lgbt movement over the past few decades, have preferred a safe, middle-class, decidedly "anti-queer" approach.<br /><br />This ultimately means a failure to get to the fundamentals of the debate, and also that equal marriage is treated as an isolated issue, without any meaningful background in understandings of homophobia, or queer liberation.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1638916042737526171.post-86228275161199211132012-06-12T14:27:02.486+01:002012-06-12T14:27:02.486+01:00At a time when it appears all the ideals and princ...At a time when it appears all the ideals and principles of the Enlightenment are being rolled back taking us into a neo-mediaeval mindset can we hope for a Second Scottish Enlightenment as successful as the first in spreading ideas of logic, education, reason, fairness and equality? More than that, who will come forward to drive such a movement, rather than simply seek to be at the apex of the techno-feudal pyramid?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com