From: John Clark (jonkc@worldnet.att.net)
Date: Tue Nov 27 2001 - 22:48:45 MST
Mark Walker <mdwalker@quickclic.net> Wrote:
> Let us suppose that John's claim [ medical ethicist] about their
> level of virtue is correct.
Let's be clear as to what I said, I didn't say they were low down dirty dogs just
one notch above pond scum, and if you ask me if I thought it I'll take the fifth.
I did said the evidence that medical ethicist were significantly more moral than
me was less than compelling. Prove me wrong, sing to me of their heroic rectitude
or of my diabolical vice.
>How does this provide evidential support for believing that everything they say
> can be put into one of either two categories?
Prove me wrong, show me something a medical ethicist said that was not wrong
or bloody obvious.
>Suppose it turns out that both Aristotle and Kant were a couple of dog-kicking
> baby-punching immoral pricks in practice. Would this in itself constitute a
>refutation of their theoretical writings on ethics?
Yes, because it would show to the world that their ethics were not useful, nobody
can live by them, not ever the person who made it. The only standard to judge good ethics
from bad is that one will make a happier world and one will not, impractical ethics will not.
Of course a medical ethicist would not agree with me, he would sneer and call it utilitarian,
as if something that works is bad.
Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se> Wrote:
>I find it rather hard to believe that medical ethicists see as their aim to increase
>death and suffering.
I agree, and I'm sure Attila The Hun thought himself to be a very nice person too,
but I'm not interested in motivations or self assessments I'm interested in results.
John K Clark jonkc@att.net
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