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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (74990)	2/22/2000 6:24:00 PM
From: jbe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

A nihilist is not necessarily someone who believes in nothing. The term was first coined by Ivan Turgenev, in his novel "Fathers and Sons." His hero, the "nihilist" Bazarov, did not believe in anything that could not be "proved", and so believed only in Science. The Russians later applied the term "nihilist" to anarchist revolutionaries/terrorists. If you look at any dictionary, you see that the word has acquired multiple meanings. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, in the field of ethics specifically, "nihilism" means "rejection of all distinctions of moral value, constituting a willingness to refute all previous theories of morality." When you write that "it just gets silly trying to say who is right in a world where right and wrong are [imo] completely subjective," you come awfully close to the above. But actually, I still prefer my term -- "absolute relativist" (or "absolutist relativist") -- because although you reject the distinctions, I don't think you are interested in going to the trouble of refuting them. <g> I also rather doubt that you practice what you preach. You have a lot to say about the evil people do in the name of some absolute(e.g., God commands me to kill all these unbelievers). But what about the evil that people do -- or, rather, fail to prevent others from doing -- in the name of absolutist relativism (or as a result of indifference, masquerading as "tolerance of cultural diversity")? Suppose you had the power to stop the slaughter of Tutsis in Rwanda, for example. Would you have refused to do so, saying that it would be "silly" to try to say who was right and who was wrong when the Hutus started doing their machete thing? Why try to ban the practice of female circumcision (mutilation)? After all, it's an age-old practice, part of the "cultural tradition" in a sizeable part of the world, and why should "we" impose "our" values on others? I could go on and on. But we should remember that there is such a thing as moral evolution. Practically all human societies, at one point, practiced human sacrifice. Hardly any do so now. The same thing is true of slavery. I will be bold enough to assert that these changes were positive steps in the right direction. Objectively positive steps!! Such evolution cannot take place if we all sit on our hands and say -- oh, well, let them do their thing. Who are we to challenge their ideas of right and wrong? Joan

To: epicure who wrote (74990)	2/22/2000 8:24:00 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

<<It just gets silly trying to say who is right in a world where right and wrong are (imo) completely subjective.>> I don't share that opinion. It is true that the application of right and wrong are subject to circumstance and individual perspective. It does get kind of silly trying to sort people out into the rights and the wrongs also. However, right and wrong as principles are not subjective at all (imo). So, I do believe in principles. How do you apply the golden rule thing with out determining (believing) that it is a good principle apriori. Have Peace, brees