I'm not sure that it's simply just the one example where my objections are applicable. The idea of going against one-self could be rationed away in almost any apparent immoralty by applying an element of selfishness to the underlying motive. The rapist is against rape happening to him, but not to others. The torturer is against being tortured, but not turturing others, and you see where I'm going with this.prof wrote:I appreciate that you took the time to do some reading. You focused in on a weak argument, and you found something wrong. The idea that a murderer is 'a living contradiction' did not resonate with you. My point is that one who murders has incongruous values. You don't believe so. Okay. Thank you for the suggestion as to how I can improve the theory by omitting this line of arguing.
Was anything right about the effort behind the manuscript? Did you gain anything of value by reading it?
Is there a way - in contrast with fault-finding - to read a paper constructively?
It definitely exposed me to some ideas that I've never heard before, which made me really think about, which is good.
I am probably over-critical of ethical theories having followed a specific form of utilitarianism. I still do in a more intuitive, and personal sense. But I realize that out of pretty much all philosophical discussions, people have the most emotional bias to morality. They deeply want their moral sense to be correct, and you'll rarely ever see someone arguing for a ethical theory they don't want to be true, like negative utilitarianism. Sounds a little too convenient if you ask me. I think it's pretty easy to poke holes into things that people clearly have such an emotional connection to, most of the time.