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To: SeekAndFind

This is joke post, right?

Please tell me how one might argue with Marquis DeSade, “Whatever is, is right”?


3 posted on 03/19/2010 1:14:51 PM PDT by Dutchboy88
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To: Dutchboy88
This is joke post, right?

This is MOST DEFINITELY NOT a joke post. Michael Ruse ( the author of the article ) is a British Philosopher of Science and founder and editor of the Journal Biology and Philosophy.

He took his undergraduate degree at the University of Bristol (1962), his master's degree at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario (1964), and Ph.D. at the University of Bristol (1970). Ruse taught at the University of Guelph Canada for 35 years. Since his retirement from Guelph, he has taught at Florida State University and is the Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy (2000-present)
7 posted on 03/19/2010 1:19:06 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: Dutchboy88; xzins; fmonkey; betty boop; Alamo-Girl; Joe 6-pack
Please tell me how one might argue with Marquis DeSade, “Whatever is, is right”?

First shot goes in his crotch.

Then aim for his head, while demanding why you shouldn't kill him.

"Existence is its own justification."

cf. Professor Frost's climatic speech to Mark Studdock in C.S. Lewis's That Hideous Strength:

Mark...saw clearly that th emotives on which most men act, and which they dignify by the names of patriotism or duty to humanity, were mere products of the animal organism, varying according to the behaviour pattern of different communities. But he did not yet see what was to be substituted for these irrational motives. On what ground henceforward were actions to be justified or condemned?
"If one insists on putting the question in those terms," said Frost, "I think Waddington has given the best answer. Existence is its own justification. The tendency to developmental change which we call Evolution is justified by the fact that it is a general characteristic of biological entities. The present establishment of contact between the highest biological entities and the Macrobes is justified by the fact that it is occurring, and it ought to be increased because an increase is taking place."
"You think, then," said Mark, "that there would be no sense in asking whether the general tendency of the universe might be in the direction we should call Bad?"
"There could be no sense at all," said Frost. "The judgment you are trying to make turns out on inspection to be simply an expression of emotion. Huxley himself, could only express it by using emotive terms such as "gladiatorial" or "ruthless." I am referring to the famous Romanes lecture. When the so-called struggle for existence is seen simply as an actuarial theorem, we have, in Waddington's words, "a concept as unemotional as a definite integral" and the emotion disappears. With it disappears that preposterous idea of an external standard of value which the emotion produced."
"And the actual tendency of events," said Mark, would still be self-justified and in that sense 'good' when it was working for the extinction of all organic life, as it presently will?"
"Of course," replied Frost, "if you insist on formulating the problem in those terms. In reality the question is meaningless. It presupposes a means-and-end pattern of thought which descends from Aristotle, who in his turn was merely hypostatisizing elements in the experience of an iron-age agricultural community. Motives are not the causes of action but its by-products. You are merely wasting your time by considering them. When you have attained real objectivity you will recognize, not some motives, but all motives, as merely animal, subjective epiphenomena. You will then have no motives and you will find that you do not need them. Their place will be supplied by something else which you will presently understand better than you do now. So far from being impoverished your action will become much more efficient."

Cheers!

228 posted on 05/01/2010 11:26:21 PM PDT by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.http://www.free)
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