Apparently not, as a couple of people have said that they find it a useful explanation of my point of view.
What was useful was your tying of blame and duty, not your explanation of the difference between duty and beyond the call of duty. Bringing blame into the discussion was illuminating, at least providing an avenue for further inquiry.
What is still missing from the explanation is the source of this duty and who is the arbiter. You've taken upon yourself to play the arbiter role in the list of blame opportunities that I provided. Do you think that's the final word, that everyone, even everyone who operates in a duty model, would see it the same? Regarding source, I've picked up in your discussion a suggestion that God may be the source. Is that the source? Source and arbiter, if you please...
When folks have these sorts of discussions, sometimes we are engaged in explaining our point of view and sometimes we are engaged in trying to understand the other guy's point of view. At least some of us have been known to do the latter. <g> That is not a tidy process, particularly when there are multiple participants, so sometimes it's hard to know who's the pitcher and who's the batter at any given time.
Right now, FWIW, I'm trying to understand your POV. To do that I need source and arbiter for your model. You seem frustrated explaining to supposedly intelligent people what should be obvious. "It is not a novel view, but rather very conventional, by the way......." I assure you that it is not at all obvious to me that duty has anything to do with it. Different potential keys have been introduced. We've discussed self-interest, contracts, courtesy or civilized/feral, and duty. I "get" all of them except duty. I am generally aware of the notion since I grew up with it, but I rejected it so long ago for a model that makes sense to me and has been very workable ever since. The light bulb that went off when I read The Virtue of Selfishness could have been the hand of God on my shoulder, so clear was the message. Duty seems a muddled notion, a path to neurosis. Perhaps I can't appreciate it because I don't understand it. So, source and arbiter for the duty model would be helpful.
Speaking of appreciation, I appreciate all the paragraphs in the post to which I am responding. <g> |
