Eric Sevareid said "The chief cause of problems is solutions." Eugene Halton <eugene.w.halto...@nd.edu> wrote:
>I’m attempting to extrapolate from the exchange between Phyllis and Stefan, >though these comments are not directed to them. > >Phyllis Chiasson: “In the full statement, Peirce said that The only moral evil >is not to have an ultimate aim that can be 'consistently pursued'--or >something to that effect. Don't have my references with me. If one aimed at >eliminating one's breed or the human race, one (in the sense of a community of >whatever one is a community of) could not consistently apply such an aim >because there would eventually be a point (perhaps not in one's lifetime, but >eventually) when the ultimate aim is met and therefore could not be >consistently pursued and therefore evil….Thus, elimination of the human race >may or may not occur, but its pursuit cannot be considered an ultimate aim >because such elimination provides a clear and measurable outcome and a point >of completion, negating its worthiness and capability for consistent pursuit >and thus its eligibility for being an ultimate aim. >Regards, >Phyllis Chiasson > >“Even now, perhaps a majority of our countrymen still believe that science and >technics can solve all human problems. They have no suspicion that our runaway >science and technics themselves have come to constitute the main problem the >human race has to overcome…Strangely, the palpable rationality of the >scientific method within its own accredited area gave rise in the great >majority of its practitioners to a compulsive irrationality—an uncritical >faith in science’s godlike power to control the destinies of the human race.” >Lewis Mumford, “Prologue to Our Time: 1895-1975,” Findings and Keepings: >Analects for an Autobiography, (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), >374. > >So if Mumford was/is correct, would it then be possible to consider actually >existing science and technics today, that is, as they actually are and operate >as manifestations of nominalistic civilization, throwing open 10 Pandora’s >boxes for every one they attempt to close, as pursuing an ultimate end that >cannot be consistently pursued, that is, as evil? > >And if that is the case, yes, the list would reply that science could be >rehabilitated by Peirce’s method of science. But perhaps not humanly pursued >science, if the compulsive irrationalities now driving humans over the cliff >eliminate the human race. > >And if that would be the case, what a cold, inhuman way to think. > >Gene >
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