Hi John,

>I guess Jim that I could sum up the thesis of moral monism in one slippery
>term: caring.

If this was really what you were getting at in your previous email, then
thank you, I do appreciate the explanation.

[snip]
>I would contend that a logos is a multiple accounts analysis and therefore
>as Rappaport indicates we need to invent a new paradigm or consensus which
>he calls the 'ecological logos'. He says that most neolithic societies were
>already at this point of conceptualization via sympathy, or caring, and the
>exercise of dialectical reasoning. Since the term ecosystem is a concept,
>rather than simply a directly intuited object, it would necessarily follow
>that the most knowledgeable ecologists are the persons that are most
>intimately familiar with their own environs (the neolithic hunter-gatherers,
>pastoralists, swidden agriculturalists and so on).

A couple of questions, then, for you.  A) Is it really possible to "invent
a new paradigm"?  and B) How does Rappaport know that "neolithic societies"
were "already at this point of conceptualization"?  Can we really
generalize about any "societies" in this way? or perhaps only about
individual members of societies?  And can we really know the inner thought
processes of "neolithic" societies?  I'd just be curious to hear your
thoughts on these questions.

-snip-

>The mind grapples with it's limited powers of comprehension (as opposed to
>emotion which apprehends and intuits)  to actually 'grasp' being, and the
>truth about being. But due to its' inability to understand 'undifferentiable
>thought' the intellect is often sundered on the 'slippery slopes' of
>'calculative rationality' or cast in terms that Kant uses, dogma &
>mathematics. This is why the use of en-principation (heirarchies) to
>engender first principles (the sole task of philosophy)  is so valid in the
>elaboration of ethical standards; since without principles there can be no
>sense of causality, and therefore no inferences. I know that much of what
>Minteer is saying is nothing but rhetoric, and actually mumble jumble
>because his use of specialized philosophical terms occassionally occurs in a
>colloquial manner.

I would like very much to hear what parts of Minteer's essay you consider
to be "nothing but rhetoric." Also, if you have the time, it would be great
if you provided a more detailed explanation of why what Minteer is saying
is "actually mumble jumble because his use of specialized philosophical
terms occassionally occurs in a colloquial manner."  I don't know which of
his specialized philosophical terms you are referring to, nor do I
understand what you mean by saying that his use of these terms "occurs in a
colloquial manner."

-snip-
>
>Monism, Foundationalism....sounds like a great debate going on and then the
>bastards start shouting fascism to each other, well at least Callicott does
>not. He admits he is by consequence a fascist for being an enemy to
>bureaucracies.
>
>But Callicott uses the most spurious of reasoning himself. He actually
>thinks that vegetarianism would result in an increase in the human
>population, rather than less people simply because there would be more to
>eat thus more people reaching reproductive age that would otherwise die of
>starvation. Well as if starvation is a really good way to control
>populations. This does not imply that he is fascist but it does imply that
>people cannot control their own reproduction. We have birth control methods,
>many of them...so why should we necessarily think that eating meat will save
>the ecosystems of the world. That may be a plausible hypothesis, but there
>are exceptions to the rule. Bhuddists do not kill animals, and the countries
>where Bhuddists still live such as in Bhutan and Nepal are not full of
>starving people, nor on the brink of ecological collapse, and neither are
>the religious groups of practical vegetarians.

Just as a coincidence, I ran across something yesterday about moral
exceptions to the Buddhist "rules" against killing.  I offer it here simply
for general interest, not to provoke a fight. . . .
http://www.friesian.com/divebomb.htm


>
>Callicott mentions 'God served meat' as the proper form of food for man. He
>of course is borrowing the idea from Leopold.
>
>Like I said in plain english, if the world is going to improve for one's
>children in the future, then the most logical and caring thing to do is to
>limit the procreation of even more children than one already has. This is
>not something for the state or corporations to engage in as a form of social
>engineering, but it is something for the individual person to acknowledge
>and consider. Is it any less valuable to have 2 children than it is to
>have 7?

Thanks for the plain English version . . . is your advocacy of limiting
procreation something you'd like to see implemented across the board, or
does this principle allow for contextual deviation, say, for individuals to
whom it is *very important* to have large families (i.e. anything greater
than 2 children)?  Is the person who chooses to have three children acting
immorally?  Is that person acting morally or immorally if they have three
children and have all the love, caring, and financial/emotional resources
for raising those three children up in the world to be happy, well-adjusted
people?

In other words, there seems to be something of a logical contradiction in
your plain english that if "the world is going to improve for one's
children in the future," then one should "limit the procreation of even
more children than one already has."  How can an individual human being
improve the world for his or her own children in the future if he or she
limits the number of children to less "than one already has"?  Should one
subtract a child already in existence?   :-)   I'm honestly not trying to
be a smart aleck here--I'm really just seeking some clarity about what it
is you're saying.

>
>Who knows? Are vasectomies in men good? Is the spaying of pets good? Of
>course as long as the person getting it done realizes the consequences in
>advance....so you don't have to stop or start eating meat to save the
>biosphere, you only need to limit the number of children that you bring into
>the world...

One or two more questions.  A) "to save the biosphere" . . .  does the
biosphere really need "saving"?  How do we know this?  What do we mean by
"saving the biosphere"?  Save the biosphere from what?
B) To save the biosphere, I *only* need to limit the number of children I
bring into the world? Is that it? is that all I have to do?  Is there not a
distinction to be made between people who bring children into the world and
raise them on good, sound Thoreauvian "simple life" moral values, and
others who may have no children at all and selfishly consume material
resources as if there were no tomorrow?  Again, I'm just looking for you to
clarify and/or elaborate on what you've already stated here in plain
English.


that is purely democratic because you cannot deprive the unborn
>that were not conceived, you can only deprive the living. Vegetarianism is
>an immediate solution to reducing human consumption of resources, so that is
>good too.

I'll let the vegetarianism "solution" and the assorted, related fossil
fuels/agricultural inputs issues go for the moment.  Thanks John, for a
most thoughtful and thought provoking post.

Jim


>
>john foster



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