On 9/6/13 11:19 PM, "MarshaV" <[email protected]> wrote: >dmb, >I shudder to think where you learned such tactics. >Marsha
Ain¹t serendipity strange. About five weeks ago I fell and severely sprained my ankle. So a majority of my time has been spent reading and of course monitoring this and the Lila Squad lists. I rarely post to either during the summer because it takes up time I prefer spending on other activities. And, because overtime both lists have drifted into individual polemics coupled with vicious personal attacks like this one (that I find morally repugnant) and knowing that if I get involved I can and will give as well as I get, I just choose to mostly avoid posting. But Mr Buchanan beyond¹s the pale post yesterday I just couldn¹t ignore. Thus my sarcastic response. My two current and parallel reads are seconds passes thru Partrick Doorly¹s new ³The Truth about Art-Reclaiming Quality² and Jonathan Haidt¹s, ³The Righteous Mind, Why Good People and Divided by Politics and Religion.² This morning I picked up where I left off in the later and and in the third chapter, ³Elephants Rule² I read in section 4 ³Psychopaths reason but don¹t feel²: ³Roughly one in a hundred men (and many fewer women) are psychopaths. Most are not violent, but the ones who are commit nearly half of the most serious crimes....... There¹s the unusual stuff that psychopaths do-impulsive antisocial behavior, beginning in childhood-and there are moral emotions that psychopaths lack. ..... The ability to reason combined with a lack of moral emotions is dangerous........ Psychopathy does not appear to be caused by poor mothering or early trauma, or any other nurture-based explanation. It¹s a genetically heritable condition that creates brains that are unmoved by the needs, suffering, or dignity of others.² Some time ago, when I first read this book, in an exchange with DMB I recommended he read it because I thought it posed serious scientific challenge to Pirsig¹s MoQ theory. I suspect he did not take my suggestion or if he did he felt that scientific finding above hit too close to home. Dave PS: Just as I was about to post this DMB¹s response to my previous post came thru. It was yet another diatribe against Martha which ended with this: ³I think it's an uncanny description of Marsha's attitude, don't you?² Honestly? I think trying to evaluate a serious biological condition on the basis of email list posts by even by someone trained and certified to practice psychology or psychiatry would be irresponsible. By a untrained layperson, morally repugnant. But my gut reaction based on the above I would say you more closely or more likely fit that profile and she does. You have a long and consistent history of bullying, badgering, and mounting politically campaigns to drive people off this list who you judge to be not ³intellectual² with little or no regard for their ³needs, suffering, or dignity² > On Sep 6, 2013, at 5:15 PM, david buchanan <[email protected]> wrote: > > This post is dedicated to my dear friend Marsha. > > > Can a psychopath be > a good philosopher? > > > "There is a strong analogy here with > postmodernism. Just as psychopaths lack moral virtues and values and do not > want them, postmodernists lack epistemic virtues and values and do not want > them. There is a trend in philosophy of science, in trying to distinguish > science from pseudoscience and nonscience, which is not to look for any one or > few essentialistic features but to find the distinction in a cluster-class of > epistemic virtues and values that promote the pursuit of knowledge. Among > these are being clear, valuing evidence, exposing theories to testing, not > being dogmatic, keeping explanations and explanatory entities as simple as > possible, and not letting politics determine good scholarship. This is why no > religion or theology is a science and why astrology and homeopathy are not > real sciences either. They lack epistemic virtues and values. And > postmodernists lack them too. They lack them, and moreover they don¹t want > them. In fact, in analogy with the narcissism of psychopaths, postmodernists > view themselves as superior to those who possess epistemic virtues and values. > They see themselves as above such things, as superior. ³You don¹t really think > that people believe because of arguments, do you?² is a common question put by > postmodernists, usually with an arrogant and condescending tone." > > See the > full article at > http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=fi&page=stamos_31_5 > > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing > etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: h > ttp://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/a > rchives.html Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
