On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 6:03 PM, David Bruggeman <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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. Fair enough, and, though this is admittedly unfair to Craig, I'd refer you to Tom Snyder's interview with Ayn Rand (or, as I like to call her, Evil Incarnate). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4doTzCs9lEc Snyder, like Ferguson, was attempting to get a philosopher to expound upon a particular approach. Like Ferguson, Snyder admits (at least) to not reading any material beforehand. But Dancy, unlike Rand, seemed more comfortable on camera (Rand & Snyder had no studio audience, much to Rand's benefit), but appeared unclear of how to explain his perspective, which he had to have known he'd be expected to do. Yes, they had to start from scratch, but this interview never left scratch and remained scratch for 13 minutes. Again, I concede it is unfair to have expected Craig to do as well as Tom did in this interview, since I consider the Snyder/Rand interview to be among the best I've ever seen. But I frankly don't have a large pool of philosophers-on-talk-shows to draw from. I suppose one might consider Richard Dawkins (if one is drunk, deaf, and blind), but he doesn't seem to subscribe to a particular philosophy, if for no other reason than he doesn't seem to understand any of them (don't get me wrong -- Dawkins may have a one-in-a-lifetime scientific mind, but when he talks or writes about anything else, I want to say to him what Ricky Gervais says to Karl Pilkington: "Stop talking sh*t!"). > 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. That last sentence of yours sums up what a cursory review of mine indicates is the flaw. Moral philosophy, as I understand it, is designed to be applied to the real world. But a philosophy absent any clear definition or scope (a.k.a. situational behavior/response) is in internal thought process (at best) with no external debate or application being possible, as one's experience or philosophy becomes irrelevant to another's (particularly with nothing clearly defined). To wit: My definition of "help" does not include aiding and abetting someone in a criminal act, but since Dancy would have rejected my concept of defining help, we'd be at an impasse had we engaged in conversation/debate. And from the follow-up e-mail: > I was focusing more on trying to explain what I think moral particularism is > than expressing whether or not I appreciated the attempt at late night > explanation. I do, but I'm also an unapologetic fan of Ferguson and his > show. He set the bar high, and scraped his back on it. Nice jump all the > same. An hour with a relatively unknown quantity would have been perhaps > too much of a risk, at least his first time at it. Oh, I think Craig gets an A for effort, but would have done better with a philosopher who could better articulate his or her philosophy. If only Ayn Rand were still alive. No -- wait -- forget I said that. -- 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.
