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Old 09-15-2009, 02:44 AM   #11
smoothmoniker
to live and die in LA
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Los Angeles
Posts: 2,090
Sorry man, I don't have the time or the inclination to spew undergrad intro to philosophy notes back and forth.

Singer and others of his ilk get the question wrong. They want to drag a modernist theory of knowledge along with them into a post-modern world, and it just won't work. Ethics isn't rationally derivable from first principles.

Consequentialist Ethics are concerned with an abstract calculus that can be applied universally to all possible acts-of-a-kind. The world doesn't actually work like that, which is why Singer and others don't bother actually trying to LIVE the extreme positions they argue for. What is called for instead is moral wisdom, or virtue.

Put down the Singer (unless, of course, you need to study up for the midterm) and pick up some Alasdair MacIntyre instead. You'll find it a much better reflection of how human beings actually live and move and breathe as moral beings.
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