tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post886585974724164814..comments2024-02-20T12:26:24.682-05:00Comments on language goes on holiday: Keeping it realDuncan Richterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-15169586807374703012012-01-11T17:18:11.211-05:002012-01-11T17:18:11.211-05:00Thanks, Presskorn. That certainly sounds reasonabl...Thanks, Presskorn. That certainly sounds reasonable. I suppose it would, since Scanlon emphasizes reasonableness so much, but there's nothing wrong with that. As long as the reasonable remains reasonable. But perhaps that's what's at issue--that what not long ago would have been rejected as utterly and obviously unreasonable threatens to become regarded as reasonable. So appeals to reasonableness, much as I sympathize with them, might not actually work. I'll have to think about this some more.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-78608393759483565562012-01-11T11:19:12.156-05:002012-01-11T11:19:12.156-05:00The point about Anscombe, torture (and putting tor...The point about Anscombe, torture (and putting torture in italics) reminded me of the following Scanlon-quote (which I am sympathetic to):<br /><br />"When I ask myself what reason the fact that an action would be wrong provides me with not to do it, my answer is that such an action would be one that I could not justify to others on grounds I could expect them to accept. This leads me to describe the subject matter of judgments of right and wrong by saying that they are judgments about what would be permitted by principles that could not reasonably be rejected, by people who were moved to find principles for the general regulation of behavior that others, similarly motivated, could not reasonably reject. In particular, an act is wrong if and only if any principle that permitted it would be one that could reasonably be rejected by people with the motivation just described (or, equivalently, if and only if it would be disallowed by any principle that such people could not reasonably reject)." <br /><br />Thomas M. Scanlon, What We Owe To Each Other, p.4<br /><br />I guess this quote tries to spell out part of the "give your a wobble"-part...Presskornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03480116067878605339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-47201570787518791262012-01-11T08:38:22.523-05:002012-01-11T08:38:22.523-05:00Oh, and thanks for the link to your paper, Matt. A...Oh, and thanks for the link to your paper, Matt. Anyone interested in this subject should read it.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-84136734356629430062012-01-11T04:11:15.648-05:002012-01-11T04:11:15.648-05:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.sunnylovehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02859026723267193206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-4576613575425525132012-01-08T11:44:06.616-05:002012-01-08T11:44:06.616-05:00Yes, that sounds right. Your suggestion about what...Yes, that sounds right. Your suggestion about what Dummett might have meant is what I had in mind with the first possible answer I gave. <br /><br />Public refusal is not likely to do much good, as you say, unless you have some clout. Or perhaps if you do it in a way that gets people's attention.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-48024624546757878682012-01-08T11:28:42.296-05:002012-01-08T11:28:42.296-05:00Maybe Dummett's point was just that "if&q...Maybe Dummett's point was just that "if" is sometimes used synonymously with "whether"?<br /><br />Public refusal seems risky, of course, and maybe it only has an effect if one has some clout. As I discuss in my paper <a href="http://people.eku.edu/pianaltom/Humility_Disagreement.pdf" rel="nofollow">on humility and moral disagreement</a>, it might be that <i>if</i> the arguments get taken up in the public sphere, then "responding carefully" probably makes more sense (I don't know if I'd say it's a "duty," only because whether a stronger claim like that makes sense depends upon other features of one's situation).Matthew Pianaltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.com