Thanks, Helmut, that's a very apt observation.
I had posted this quote earlier on Facebook
in a couple of discussions of recent events
on the U.S. scene but then there was a line
in the passage Gary F. quoted from Peirce
that called it back to mind.

[PEIRCE-L] Lowell Lecture 3.5
https://list.iupui.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2017-12/msg00149.html

CSP:
| That truth and justice are great powers in the world
| is no figure of speech, but a plain fact to which
| theories must accommodate themselves.

I read Theodore Parker's moral, notably paraphrased
in recent times by Martin Luther King, Jr., more as
natural analogy than naturalistic fallacy, but it's
true, many fallacies are rooted in analogies, icons,
metaphors, and poetic images that we naturally push
too far past their breaking points.  It is a tricky
business, though, as all matters heuristical, since
we often learn much from straining analogies beyond
their natural limits and experimenting with ways to
repair them.  Still, all eventually reach a natural
limit and many -isms that lead us astray in the end,
alchemism, biologism, conceptualism, dyadicism, and
too reductive styles of mechanism, physicalism, and
psychologism, stem from figures taken too literally.

For my part, I confess to being rather fickle
as far as faith in a moral universe goes, but
on a good day I try to keep a good thought as
long as I can.

Regards,

Jon

On 12/13/2017 5:53 PM, Helmut Raulien wrote:
Jon, List,
I think, this post is about the naturalistic fallacy, is it? I want to recommend
a writing by Lawrence Kohlberg, whose book "The philosophy of moral development"
I have read, and the writing that surely suits to this topic, but which I have
not yet read, is called "From is to ought".
Best,
Helmut
13. Dezember 2017 um 22:16 Uhr "Jon Awbrey" <[email protected]> wrote:
o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

I do not pretend to understand the moral universe;
the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways;
I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by
the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience.
And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.

— Theodore Parker

☞ https://books.google.com/books?id=eHgYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA48#v=onepage&q&f=false

o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o~~~~~~~~~o

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