Harold Pinter acknowledgement speech

[Occhidiangela]

Call it a hunch if you like. I called it at the time a *complete lack of evidence for the contrary position*. I still do.

In the long term, we're all dead. In the mid term, there are about a hundred thousand different ways of threats emerging. Saddam was actually quite far down the list. Shall we blow up every potential threat, solve every "mid term" security problem? Good luck.

But, clearly, there isn't gonna be no consensus on this one.

Bottoms up,

-Jester
[right][snapback]97529[/snapback][/right]

1. For point of reference, on strategic issues, I tend to lump short term into two years or less, mid term 3 - 7, and long term 7-20. After that, you are on China time. ;) I should have framed my points with that premise early, my oversight.

2. Threat lists for American policy since 1989 start in the Persian Gulf, and always have, with a significant parallel and no less dire secondary in North Korea: no matter that China is and has been the biggest strategic threat, rather rival, since about the day The Wall came down. Our politicians have been too busy selling America to the Chinese to notice. :angry: When the long term impacts of that show up, they'll all be either dead or on the lecture circuit, or president of the World Bank. :angry:

In critiquing American security decisions -- the good, the bad, and the ugly -- go ahead and cherry pick PNAC positions and motivations, cherry pick intel of varying, including bad, quality.

Then, tell me where the difference is in method? :rolleyes:

Occhi

[Chaerophon]

If I am correct that inverted commas are here used to indicate that a word is not meant to mean what it means (inverted commas indicating intended irony), then how should one be expected to construe the phrase “truth vs. ‘truth’”? Is this construction rightly intended to mean truth vs. not-truth? The understanding of a word sandwiched between inverted commas as not meaning what it means confronts one who would know what a thing is, and not merely one element in the list of what a thing is not, with obvious dilemma in immediate application: What then is moral ‘truth’? Does this perhaps mean moral not-truth?

Quite the word puzzle that you've got there...

You are not correct to assume that the inverted commas are used with that purpose. What I mean to say is that, in many cases, moral "truths" are only empirically verifiable in context. Quite simply, what is a moral truth - as embodied in behaviours that are morally permissable and even encouraged - in one societal context may not be so in another. Even modern Kantians (Rawls et al) can usually accept that this is the case. Although they may wish to assert that theirs is a "better" or "more just" articulation of the standards that ought to guide moral behaviour, it would be foolish for them to deny that different cultures possess different standards of moral behaviour and that in any such situation, it is true that a given set of behaviours is morally permissable or encouraged. In this sense, such a moral code and the contextual moral "truths" that it contains for a given set of people are correspondently true in that they do exist; however, the contents of the specific code are, arguably, not true for all people equally (This is where the correspondence analytics start to get antsy).

When discussing issues of morality, it is impossible to identify any one correspondently true set of beliefs since morality is, itself (at least in part), a constructed artifact. What is popularly held to be a moral "truth" in fundamentalist Pakistan may not be so in suburban America.

You seem to take issue with my position that what is held to be morally "true" in one context is not so in another. I don't see this as problematic.

What might be problematic is my claim that no particular set of moral claims is or could be justifiably said to be the single, absolute, correspondently true set - not in this world where so many people hold such radically different beliefs. With that being said, one might be able to reason that certain types of moral reasoning are superior to others. However, at the very least, even if there is a "true set", how could we positively distinguish it so as to claim with justifiable confidence that it is correspondently true to those who believe otherwise? On what basis would we do so? Perhaps you have an answer?

[wakim]

You seem to take issue with my position that what is held to be morally "true" in one context is not so in another....

What might be problematic is my claim that no particular set of moral claims is or could be justifiably said to be the single, absolute, correspondently true set - not in this world where so many people hold such radically different beliefs.... However, at the very least, even if there is a "true set", how could we positively distinguish it so as to claim with justifiable confidence that it is correspondently true to those who believe otherwise?  On what basis would we do so?  Perhaps you have an answer?
[right][snapback]98252[/snapback][/right]

I do not know, since my linguistic knowledge is limited, whether distinction is necessary between ethics and morals, when discussing standards of behavior that are upheld by different groups of people. I would, however, contest whether truth, moral or otherwise, may be dependent upon popular consensus - for then how is "truth" more than "popular opinion"? Should this ever become the case I imagine there would be the sudden death of all fields of knowledge and study; the opinion pollster only would survive to poll people and tell them that what they think is true is true, and what they think is right is right - this would seem to be naught but solipsism magnified to monstrous proportion.

What defines correct behavior if one rests it upon a societal standard demands one answer what is a society? Is it a certain number of people? 100,000? 10,000? 1000? 100? 10? 1? If the answer is 1 then what is moral "truth" - correct behavior - is no more than what I say it is. Or, perhaps there is a certain threshold number of like-minded people needed before truth may be discerned?

I am not suggesting that context for action is to be disregarded - someone striking a match had best know if his context is that he is standing in a puddle of gasoline - but I would suggest that consensus - the number of people who cheer while the man standing in gasoline strikes the match - has no bearing upon the rightness, or moral truth of an action.