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OK, in alphabetical order:
Bitman: I wasn't trying to throw out a red herring, just wanted to make sure that juju wasn't looking for an inapporpriate aparatus to test the existence of Universals. On looking for the nature of a universal moral principle, they exist as seperate from the individual acts. An example would be, "Human life has inherent value". From that universal principle, moral laws can be construed, such as laws against murder and torture. From these moral laws, ethical guidelines are constructed for individual activities, such as "In this situation, I should not kill this person".
Juju: Sorry for the over-weighted language. A lot of the terms used are used because they are precise ways of saying what would otherwise take a paragraph or two to say. The connection between Redness and Morals is this - if they are both universals, then they exist apart from individual objects that have them as properties. You can then say that a particular thing, like an apple or a person's action, either adheres to the universal, or does not adhere to the universal.
Whit: You can have universals and still say that cultural standards change. If the universal is that "human life has value", then societies understanding of how to best act out that principle may change, but the principle they are attempting to adhere to does not change. One society enforces this principle by enacting the death penalty for those who violate the principle. Another society refuses to use the death penalty, so as to not violate the principle. Both are attempting to adhere to the same universal. RE the language, it's hard to discuss computers without using some of the technical terms. Same with philosophy. It's really not an attempt to huff and puff and blow the house down, it's my attempt to be as precise with language as we are all trying to be with our thinking.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoG'dayBruce: By definition, no one needs to experience a universal for it to exist. "Gravity" would still exist even if there were no objects for it to act upon. The principle stands.
... whew. finals, papers, MATRIX2 and a studio session before Saturday. I may not be too speedy on this thread till after that.
-sm
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