An answer to Jim about last year (appealing to Steve this year).
> > [Tantillo responded]:
> > I can understand your impatience with moral philosophy as expressed in this reply. ...The "sense of ethics" one gets from listening to philosophers is that philosophy, as you say, "just poses questions and never ever ever ever ever reaches conclusions"
> > ...Marcia Eaton concurs: "Philosophy has a history of asking, and not answering, questions"
> > ..The point of philosophy is to ask uncomfortable questions. This is not a sign of disrespect, nor is it dangerous. It's dangerous when we stop asking these questions.
This year's Chautauqua (you guessed well, i am re-reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainance) is:
Ok, i agree with the above, it is good to pose questions and to *pretend* as a kind of methodology to get a step back out of issues, and, as you say, to ask uncomfortable questions. My problem with you and Steve (mainly) is:
How come you always ask THE SAME 'uncompfortable' questions? And to whom are they uncomfortable? Perhaps to people like my and John. So well done, you make us think twice. How about you? Read on:
> > I have sought not so much to articulate a "knockdown argument" about hunting's rightness or wrongness in absolute terms as I have sought to give a plausible account of hunting's virtues, as well as its vices, in the course of trying to understand hunting philosophically.
> >
Although i have not followed the hunting debate (it is obvious that it is of much more importance in the US, together with the the issue of animal rights activists, because there is corporate capital threatened and thus reasons for the development of errr ... ethics on this field (!..)).
Right: Why do you feel the need to play the devil's advocate ALWAYS ON THE SAME SIDE? Is this a coincidence? I certainly don't recall you saying anything positive about the organisms that plutonium was going to destroy in Europa, nor about the damage that GMOs might bring to biodiversity etc, etc etc.
So is this really your 'uncomfortable' side, or is it the perfectly comfortable side for you?
Are you realy impartial? If yes, why us eco-fanatics are never satisfied with your ... objectiveness and ... impartiality?
- Easy: Because there is no such thing. You are NOT asking questions Jim, you imply answers. Every question mark you write means an argument, a rhetoric question, not a genuine uncertainty. And ALL your questions are placed as to create doubts for always the same kind of moral dillemas. See your own questions:
>
> > When I pursue the seemingly pointless questions like,
> > Is hunting violent?
> > Is evolution morally relevant?
> > Is death a harm?
> > Do animals suffer?
>
> > I am hoping to get a little more sophisticated in my thinking about such questions; maybe a little less certain about my presuppositions; and hopefully on balance a bit more knowledgeable and more articulate about *WHY* these questions/problems are difficult.
> >
>
This would be honest to do if your answers to the above were not always (or were not always implied to be):
-No
-No
-No
-No
In the case you answered yes to any of the above, one would have even more arguments in order to support these widely-sensed 'presuppositions'. However, what you are trying to do, is not to give ANY MEANS for the justification of such arguments, whilst you give PLENTY of means to the reactionary side.
In short, I am trying to say that all the semiotics around you (and Steve) transform all your questions to statements, arguments, opinions that all of a coincidence, seem, sound, smell and are reactionary. They are NOT neither innocent, nor 'questions'.
Maria-Stella
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