is-ought distinction, etc.

by hassanisabbah

Posted to WritersAndGenres on 2003-10-29 12:44:00

Parent message is 536613
Yeah I have heard that chestnut, though with your philosophical acumen you should be aware there are numerous ethicist types who feel that is a false dichotomy…if humans struggling to achieve their own desires (food, money, shelter, etc.) believe they are entitled to those goals, then can they deny that other like-minded humans also should have rights to pursue their own requirements?

This is a brief form of Gewirth’s arguments for objective ethics and rights based on agency–it is contradictory to deny to others what a reasonable human accepts as his right or entitlement….sort of related to the categorical imperative if not the golden rule…yet there are problems of course if one does not accept the reasonable person standard, or in a situation of anarchy, famine, etc. Yet I think Professor Gewirth’s argument is sound though perhaps not sufficiently behaviorist or determinst–what would watson or skinner say?

Anyways I agree that Sartean freeedom is sort of ridiculous, and I never argued for an existentialist position, as you would have noted had you read my post on sociobiology…sorry if my pompousities bother you

http://humanities.uchicago.edu/faculty/mgreen/HumanRtsF00/Notes/Class/jGewirth.html