Thats a bad example twice over. In the first place, it is not a particularly realistic or fleshman example of something
pomos say. For another, its somewhat defensible scientifically.
Any scientific theory is subject to refutation, hence the not necessarily. In particular, gravity is less of an independent entity in relativity than it is in Newtonian physics.
OK, serious response: if you don’t want to admit the existence of facts, then the whole conversation is pointless—morality comes down to personal preference. That’s fine as a conclusion—but then I don’t want to see anyone who holds it calling other people immoral.
I didn’t say anything amounting to “there are no facts”...and furthermore I wasnt even citing my own views, but those of postmodernists...and furthermore wasn’t attributing wholesale rejection of facts to them either. You seem to have rounded off my comment to “yay pomo”. Please read more carefully in the future.
First, you wrote “Every question of major concern contains some element of evaluation, and therefore cannot be settled as a matter of objective fact”—if this does not mean to say “there are no facts”, I am not sure what it is trying to say.
Second, this whole this is pertaining to the second criterion. My point is that rejecting this criterion, for whatever reason, is saying that you are willing to admit arbitrary principles—but these are by definition subjective, random, not grounded in anything. So you are then saying that it’s okay for a moral theory to be based on what is, at the end of the day, personal preference.
Third, if this isn’t your view, why bring it up? I don’t think it’s conductive to a discussion to say “well, I don’t think so, but some people say...” If we all agree that this position is not valid, why bother with it? If you do think it’s valid, then saying “it’s not my view” is confusing.
First, you wrote “Every question of major concern contains some element of evaluation, and therefore cannot be settled as a matter of objective fact”—if this does not mean to say “there are no facts”, I am not sure what it is trying to say.
It starts “Every question of major concern” so,straight off, it allows facts of minor concern. But concern to whom? Postmodernists do not, I contend, deny the existence of basic physical facts as regard them as rather uninteresting. When Derrida is sitting in a rive gauche cafe stirring his coffee, he does not dispute the existence of the coffee, the cafe or the spoon, but he is not going to write a book about them either.
Postmodernists are, I think, more interested in questions of wide societal and political concern.
(perhaps you are, if your comment “everything else pertains to politics, and is kind of pointless if not;” i anything to go by). And those complex questions have evaluative components (in the sense of the fact/value divide). Which is compatible with the existence of factual components as well, whcih is another wayin which I am not denying the existence of facts.
But what I am proposing is a kind of on drop rule by which a question that is partly evaluative cannot be solved
on a straightforward factual basis. For instance, there are facts to the efect that a fetus that is so many weeks old is capable of independent existence, but they don’t tetll you whether abortion is right or wrong by themselves.
Thats a bad example twice over. In the first place, it is not a particularly realistic or fleshman example of something pomos say. For another, its somewhat defensible scientifically.
Any scientific theory is subject to refutation, hence the not necessarily. In particular, gravity is less of an independent entity in relativity than it is in Newtonian physics.
ETA
How about responding to my strongman?
OK, serious response: if you don’t want to admit the existence of facts, then the whole conversation is pointless—morality comes down to personal preference. That’s fine as a conclusion—but then I don’t want to see anyone who holds it calling other people immoral.
I didn’t say anything amounting to “there are no facts”...and furthermore I wasnt even citing my own views, but those of postmodernists...and furthermore wasn’t attributing wholesale rejection of facts to them either. You seem to have rounded off my comment to “yay pomo”. Please read more carefully in the future.
First, you wrote “Every question of major concern contains some element of evaluation, and therefore cannot be settled as a matter of objective fact”—if this does not mean to say “there are no facts”, I am not sure what it is trying to say.
Second, this whole this is pertaining to the second criterion. My point is that rejecting this criterion, for whatever reason, is saying that you are willing to admit arbitrary principles—but these are by definition subjective, random, not grounded in anything. So you are then saying that it’s okay for a moral theory to be based on what is, at the end of the day, personal preference.
Third, if this isn’t your view, why bring it up? I don’t think it’s conductive to a discussion to say “well, I don’t think so, but some people say...” If we all agree that this position is not valid, why bother with it? If you do think it’s valid, then saying “it’s not my view” is confusing.
It starts “Every question of major concern” so,straight off, it allows facts of minor concern. But concern to whom? Postmodernists do not, I contend, deny the existence of basic physical facts as regard them as rather uninteresting. When Derrida is sitting in a rive gauche cafe stirring his coffee, he does not dispute the existence of the coffee, the cafe or the spoon, but he is not going to write a book about them either.
Postmodernists are, I think, more interested in questions of wide societal and political concern. (perhaps you are, if your comment “everything else pertains to politics, and is kind of pointless if not;” i anything to go by). And those complex questions have evaluative components (in the sense of the fact/value divide). Which is compatible with the existence of factual components as well, whcih is another wayin which I am not denying the existence of facts.
But what I am proposing is a kind of on drop rule by which a question that is partly evaluative cannot be solved on a straightforward factual basis. For instance, there are facts to the efect that a fetus that is so many weeks old is capable of independent existence, but they don’t tetll you whether abortion is right or wrong by themselves.