FWIW, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on Moral Particularism.
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-particularism/ Where Craig succeeded with having an hour-long conversation with Stephen Fry came in part from a familiarity with him, even though he didn't know precisely what would be discussed. It also seemed as though Craig and his producers did a bit of homework for bits of it. With Prof. Dancy, Craig was learning as he went along. With philosophy (at least with my exposure to the philosophy of science and technology), it doesn't lead to the first discussion being a real discussion. Starting from scratch in an area of philosophy where you have to disassemble ingrained patterns of thinking (yeah, I'm not narrowing things that much) requires a hell of a lot more time than what they had last night. >From here it gets really philosophically dorky, at least for a TV list. It didn't help that - from what I can tell - that the distinction between moral relativism and moral particularism is pretty damn subtle. Where the former makes claims against the universality of moral principles in the sense of a sliding value scale, the latter argues against the universality of those principles in an explanatory sense - why one does a particular thing or why one considers an action moral. Put another way moral relativism is an issue of relative application of moral principles, and moral particularism questions the possibility of This is part of why Dancy resisted definitions. As he mentioned in his example of lending a hand to the guy stealing car stereos, helping someone else may be a moral thing to do in one instance and an immoral thing to do in another. So Dancy and his fellow particularlists resist definitions or moral principles because if they are applied consistently in all cases you run into all sorts of problems. If they aren't applied consistently, they're kind of useless as principles or definitions. Mentally, most of us would not pay much mind to the exceptions to the rules or principles we consider to guide our actions. But when philosophy is geared toward establishing rigorous systems of thinking, those exceptions can vex them mightily. I don't know if C-Ferg is as serious about the invitation back as he was about the initial invite. As much as he'd need more time in a single show, I think single segments are perhaps more ratings-friendly (though the Peabody folks will consider themselves prescient). David ________________________________ From: Kevin M. <[email protected]> That said, the philosopher wasn't to my liking, and he didn't need to go on for 13 minutes the way he did. Once he said that morality is all relative, and then refused to define anything -- well, then the remaining 12 minutes could have been better served by Wavey the Crocodile (or a test pattern). Craig made the most of it, but Craig had to work very hard to get through the segment. -- Kevin M. (RPCV) -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.
