RE: META: Baselining ethics discussion (was Re: Dark matter)

From: Peter Voss (peter@optimal.org)
Date: Thu Aug 24 2006 - 08:30:30 MDT


Ethics/ morality seems to be one of those subjects where the (philosophical)
establishment has some major blind spots (like religion).

Every two years or so I post a link to my essay on rational ethics to this
list: http://www.optimal.org/peter/rational_ethics.htm

Also relevant is: http://www.optimal.org/peter/prescriptive_ethics.htm

Hope this helps someone to get some clarity.

Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sl4@sl4.org [mailto:owner-sl4@sl4.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Medina
Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 6:12 AM
To: sl4@sl4.org
Subject: META: Baselining ethics discussion (was Re: Dark matter)

On 8/24/06, BillK <pharos@gmail.com> wrote:
> I doubt if this is really an SL4 topic,

Whether or not it is, it certainly falls under the Dead Horse
category, and hence should not take up more listspace (this is a
personal assertion only; I am not a Duly Appointed List Sniper).
RTFM, search the archives, and read relevant Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy and Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy entries prior to
getting into philosophical discussions to avoid wasting your and
everyone else's time.

E.g.,
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/
http://www.iep.utm.edu/o/objectiv.htm#H4
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-cognitivism/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/skepticism-moral/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism-moral/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-non-naturalism/
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-epistemology/

This is a *minimal* expectation; for some reason, many folks who
accept that talking sensibly about physics or mathematics requires
years of study somehow dismiss the notion that analytic philosophy
needs *any*, and don't even devote a week or two of readings before
delving into ethics, metaphysics, epistemology...

The time and effort you'll save (iff you're determined to discuss
ethics / moral philosophy) will be substantially greater than the time
spent getting to understand and think in terms of the pre-existing
theories.

With best wishes (and much pleading toward raising the level of discussion),

-- 
Jeff Medina
Sr. Systems Engineer, Lockheed Martin
Sr. Programmer, Elemental Solutions
Fellow, Institute for Ethics & Emerging Technologies
"Do you want to live forever?"
"Dunno. Ask me again in five hundred years."
(_Guards! Guards!_, Terry Pratchett)


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