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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: The Philosopher who wrote (68849)	11/27/2002 6:45:10 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 82486

I would usually be making a value judgement if I decided that something was important or not, but then we get in to the whole major issue of - "Are (any) values objective?" Its a big argument and since it seems like I am getting involved in another big issue (abortion, or at least an issue that touches on the abortion issue) I'm not sure I want to go around about objective vs. subjective values again. But I'm not sure that by "important" that Neo meant "of vital significance and great import", but rather major. If he had said "I have had people deny that there were major differences between man and beast, which is totally absurd and merely obstructionist", would you have the same problem that you have with the phrase as he actually wrote it? Also when you talk about objective and subjective there are different shades of meaning. "What color looks nice on a late model sedan?" is pretty much a purely subjective issue. I think the actions of Pol Pot in killing 25% percent of his country's people were objectively evil but others, even if they would also consider what happened there to be horrible would point out that different people have different opinions, and would say that no one has a privileged position that can make their viewpoint objective or better then the opinion of others. When you and Neo are arguing if people are objectivly more important then animals you not only have to nail down what you mean by important but what you mean by objective and subjective. By subjective do you mean "different people will have different opinions, and will care more or less about those opinions in different contexts", or do you mean something more like "different people have different opinions and none of them can really be said to be better or more sensible (at least on the issue at hand) then anyone else's"? Tim