You are waiting in a queue for your car's
tires to be replaced.
Glad you said "car's tires" because I have a major
one of my own, Amorella.
Humor helps, boy. What with the rain and
pending wind and snow tomorrow you have decided to postpone your trip to
Cleveland until Saturday morning.
0936 hours. I have 220 some words in the Pyl section.
Pouch - 7
Pyl
said, "I am glad you understand, Blakie."
"We
would just be investing the money at this time in our lives. No need and not a
good time for investing anyway. Dad would like that we are not selling. It was
a rush anyway. Out of the blue someone wants to buy our plane. Odd in itself,
and in the middle of January too; in Cleveland no less."
"I
think it is strange too," spoke Justin. "Lindsey didn't know what
dissimilar meant in context. She appeared to be analyzing the word. Her sister,
Michael goes by Mykkie. Michael Carlson sounds much more feminine than Mykkie.
Both have the same last name. Both are certainly old enough to have been
married."
"Right,"
commented Pyl sarcastically. They both have the same last name. They should be
married at their age. Such mature observations."
Blake
smiled cautiously while seeing Justin change his face from curious to a silent
piquing aggravation. "Don't get riled," noted Blake, not realizing
his diplomatic filter had drifted away, "I've had to put up with her
feminist tongue a lot longer than you have." To which he uncontained
himself by laughing aloud and adding, "Penis envy, no doubt."
Pyl
caught his misinforming smile and retorted, "I hardly envy yours, my dear
brother."
"Shot
down, Blakie," quipped Justin in a slightly tempered grin.
***
Go ahead and post. - Amorella
Into Kenwood for lunch at Potbelly's and
Carol bought me socks at Macy's. Cleaned and sorted the 'sock' drawer of junk
and old, very worn socks; this took about an hour. Added three new pair of
socks (one package). I am letting her take back three other packages. Three new
pairs are enough. I must have twelve to fifteen pair. One only has two feet. I
should just take a nap for an hour while Carol is getting her hair done. This hair
business sometimes takes two hours.
Lots of wind whistling outside the windows
and doors what with tomorrow being Solstice. What are your thoughts, boy? -
Amorella
2246 hours. Keeping warm, Amorella.
That's not very philosophical. - Amorella
We have to continue to survive first.
What does survival mean to an immortal? -
Amorella
I
have no idea. In fact, I cannot imagine what 'existence', what 'being' is to an
immortal (if such a creature exists). I cannot imagine that an immortal would
have a 'consciousness' or even a 'spirit' that human beings could comprehend. I
have no idea. I have to return to Adler's book, The Angels and Us to
even grasp what human beings have 'suggested' what an 'immortal' is.
I jumped to Mortimer J. Adler in Wikipedia and after
re-reading this what is most important to me is not immortality or mortality,
it is how we live. I very much like this aspect in the 'moral philosophy'
section of Adler in Wikipedia.
** **
Moral philosophy
Adler referred to Aristotle's Nicomachean
Ethics as the "ethics of common sense" and also as "the only
moral philosophy that is sound, practical, and undogmatic". Thus, it is
the only ethical doctrine that answers all the questions that moral philosophy
should and can attempt to answer, neither more nor less, and that has answers
that are true by the standard of truth that is appropriate and applicable to
normative judgments. In contrast, he believed that other theories or doctrines
try to answer more questions than they can or fewer than they should, and their
answers are mixtures of truth and error, particularly the moral philosophy of
Immanuel Kant.
Adler believed we are as enlightened by
Aristotle's Ethics today as were those who listened to Aristotle's lectures
when they were first delivered because the ethical problems that human beings
confront in their lives have not changed over the centuries. Moral virtue and
the blessings of good fortune are today, as they have always been in the past,
the keys to living well, unaffected by all the technological changes in the
environment, as well as those in our social, political, and economic
institutions. He believed that the moral problems to be solved by the
individual are the same in every century, though they appear to us in different
guises.
According to Adler, six indispensable
conditions must be met in the effort to develop a sound moral philosophy that
corrects all the errors made in modern times.
First and foremost is the
definition of prescriptive truth, which sharply distinguishes it from the
definition of descriptive truth. Descriptive truth consists in the agreement or
conformity of the mind with reality. When we think that that which is, is, and
that which is not, is not, we think truly. To be true, what we think must
conform to the way things are. In sharp contrast, prescriptive truth consists
in the conformity of our appetites with right desire. The practical or
prescriptive judgments we make are true if they conform to right desire; or, in
other words, if they prescribe what we ought to desire. It is clear that
prescriptive truth cannot be the same as descriptive truth; and if the only
truth that human beings can know is descriptive truth – the truth of
propositions concerning what is and is not – then there can be no truth in
ethics. Propositions containing the word "ought" cannot conform to
reality. As a result, we have the twentieth-century mistake of dismissing all
ethical or value judgments as noncognitive. These must be regarded only as
wishes or demands we make on others. They are personal opinions and subjective
prejudices, not objective knowledge. In short, the very phrase
"noncognitive ethics" declares that ethics is not a body of
knowledge.
Second, in order to avoid
the naturalistic fallacy, we must formulate at least one self-evident
prescriptive truth, so that, with it as a premise, we can reason to the truth
of other prescriptives. David Hume said that if we had perfect or complete
descriptive knowledge of reality, we could not, by reasoning, derive a single
valid ought.
Third, the distinction
between real and apparent goods must be understood, as well as the fact that
only real goods are the objects of right desire. In the realm of appetite or
desire, some desires are natural and some are acquired. Those that are natural
are the same for all human beings as individual members of the human species.
They are as much a part of our natural endowment as our sensitive faculties and
our skeletal structure. Other desires we acquire in the course of experience,
under the influence of our upbringing or nurturing, or of environmental factors
that differ from individual to individual. Individuals differ in their acquired
desires, as they do not in their natural desires. This is essentially the
difference between "needs" and "wants." What is really good
for us is not really good because we desire it, but the very opposite. We
desire it because it is really good. By contrast, that which only appears good
to us (and may or may not be really good for us) appears good to us simply
because we want it at the moment. Its appearing good is the result of our
wanting it, and as our wants change, as they do from day to day, so do the
things that appear good to us. In light of the definition of prescriptive truth
as conformity with right desire, we can see that prescriptions are true only
when they enjoin us to want what we need, since every need is for something
that is really good for us. If right desire is desiring what we ought to
desire, and if we ought to desire only that which is really good for us and
nothing else, then we have found the one controlling self evident principle of
all ethical reasoning – the one indispensable categorical imperative. That
self-evident principle can be stated as follows: we ought to desire everything
that is really good for us. The principle is self-evident because its opposite
is unthinkable. It is unthinkable that we ought to desire anything that is
really bad for us; and it is equally unthinkable that we ought not to desire
everything that is really good for us. The meanings of the crucial words
"ought" and "really good" co-implicate each other, as do
the words "part" and "whole" when we say that the whole is
greater than any of its parts is a self-evident truth. Given this self-evident
prescriptive principle, and given the facts of human nature that tell us what
we naturally need, we can reason our way to a whole series of prescriptive
truths, all categorical.
Fourth, in all practical
matters or matters of conduct, the end precedes the means in our thinking about
them, while in action we move from means to ends. But we cannot think about our
ends until, among them, we have discovered our final or ultimate end – the end
that leaves nothing else to be rightly desired. The only word that names such a
final or ultimate end is "happiness." No one can ever say why he or
she wants happiness because happiness is not an end that is also a means to
something beyond itself. This truth cannot be understood without comprehending
the distinction between terminal and normative ends. A terminal end, as in
travel, is one that a person can reach at some moment and come to rest in.
Terminal ends, such as psychological contentment, can be reached and then
rested in on some days, but not others. Happiness, not conceived as
psychologically experienced contentment, but rather as a whole life well lived,
is not a terminal end because it is never attained at any time in the course of
one's whole life. If all ends were terminal ends, there could not be any one of
them that is the final or ultimate end in the course of living from moment to
moment. Only a normative end can be final and ultimate. Happiness functions as
the end that ought to control all the right choices we make in the course of
living. Though we never have happiness ethically understood at any moment of
our lives, we are always on the way to happiness if we freely make the choices
that we ought to make in order to achieve our ultimate normative end of having
lived well. But we suffer many accidents in the course of our lives, things
beyond our control – outrageous misfortunes or the blessings of good fortunes.
Moral virtue alone – or the habits of choosing as we ought – is a necessary,
but not sufficient condition of living well. The other necessary, but also not
sufficient condition is good fortune.
The fifth condition is that there
is not a plurality of moral virtues (which are named in so many ethical
treatises), but only one integral moral virtue. There may be a plurality of
aspects to moral virtue, but moral virtue is like a cube with many faces. The
unity of moral virtue is understood when it is realized that the many faces it
has may be analytically but not existentially distinct. In other words,
considering the four so-called cardinal virtues – temperance, courage, justice,
and prudence – the unity of virtue declares that no one can have any one of
these four without also having the other three. Since justice names an aspect
of virtue that is other regarding, while temperance and courage name aspects of
virtue that are self-regarding, and both the self- and other regarding aspects
of virtue involve prudence in the making of moral choices, no one can be
selfish in his right desires without also being altruistic, and conversely.
This explains why a morally virtuous person ought to be just even though his or
her being just may appear only to serve the good of others. According to the
unity of virtue, the individual cannot have the self-regarding aspects of
virtue – temperance and courage – without also having the other regarding
aspect of virtue, which is justice.
The sixth and final
condition in Adler’s teleological ethics is acknowledging the primacy of the
good and deriving the right there from. Those who assert the primacy of the
right make the mistake of thinking that they can know what is right, what is
morally obligatory in our treatment of others, without first knowing what is
really good for ourselves in the course of trying to live a morally good life.
Only when we know what is really good for ourselves can we know what are our
duties or moral obligations toward others. The primacy of the good with respect
to the right corrects the mistake of thinking that we are acting morally if we
do nothing that injures others. Our first moral obligation is to ourselves – to
seek all the things that are really good for us, the things all of us need, and
only those apparent goods that are innocuous rather than noxious.
From Wikipedia
** **
2316
hours. This is what I think, this is what Yermey should be considering
important not this earth woman Pyl. Nor should he be so concerned about the
one-minute time differential between machinery. He should be concerned for the
human species and how he is going to deal with meeting these primatial
humanoids first hand.
Sounds like we have a plan for discussion
and thought among Yermey, Hartolite and Friendly in Pouch-7. Post. - Amorella
Why am I not surprised?
Now, that is a good question, my man.
Something to sleep on. - Amorella
No comments:
Post a Comment