From: jrk@information-systems.east-anglia.ac.uk (Richard Kennaway)
Newsgroups: sci.philosophy.meta
Subject: Re: What is Love? _The Story of O_
Date: 14 Sep 92 16:54:08 GMT

holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:
>I firmly
>maintain that there is moral truth -- without maintaining that I know
>what it is!).  I think that our position in ethics is like
>pre-scientific knowledge of the world of material objects
...
>Just as in mathematics and science, the attempt to get "infallible
>knowledge" of the foundations is likely to be unproductive;

A point of agreement (which I mention because we appear to agree on
little else).  Neither ultimate foundations nor infallible knowledge are
to be had in ethics or any other field.

>it is
>better to start out with what we firmly believe, build systems, see
>where they fail, and use this to revise our systems, possibly
>eventually abandoning some of our initial firm beliefs.

A fine-sounding goal.  What progress has been made?  What progress can be
made?  What would for you count as evidence of a system of ethics failing?
Since the goal is to test these initial firmly held beliefs and improve
them, the evidence against a particular system of ethics cannot be simply
the fact that, like the situation of O, it disagrees with these initial
beliefs.

holmes@opal.idbsu.edu (Randall Holmes) writes:
>I am saying that there
>is a moral standard which is true; I do NOT know what it is (as a
>whole); certain things impress me as being very far from what it could
>reasonably be.

Fine; one must start from somewhere.  But how do you continue?

>In my pre-scientific understanding of the world, I can
>assert that there is a true physics, I don't know what it is (say,
>whether the sun goes around the earth or vice versa), but the sun WILL
>rise tomorrow morning.  Analogously, I flatly assert, without caring
>in the least whether I offend anyone, that I will NOT, and you will
>NOT, find moral enlightenment on alt.sex.bondage.

anson@netcom.com (Anson Kennedy) writes:
>Just for the record, I did not refer anyone to alt.sex.bondage.

Just for the record, it was I who did that.  In response, cash@convex.com
(Peter Cash) commented:

>You have an odd notion of moral education.

I was suggesting alt.sex.bondage not as a source directly of moral
enlightenment, but as a source of facts, accounts of personal experiences,
exposure to other people's ideas, and so on.  Such is the raw data which
any system of ethics must confront.  The responses of Peter Cash and
Randall Holmes suggest that they believe that "moral education" or "moral
enlightenment" can only come from reading moral injunctions handed down
from some higher authority.  I am not putting forward a.s.b as any such
authority; in my view no such authority exists.  (However, I would concur
100% with Russell Turpin's remarks in this thread on the nature of that
newsgroup.)

To pursue Randall Holmes' analogy a little further: we now know that one
can equally accurately speak of the horizon dropping below the sun as the
sun rising above the horizon; the former may sometimes be a more
convenient description.  We also know, on the other hand, that the belief
that the Earth is flat has very limited validity.  Similarly, if you
actually listen to people who with fully informed and rational consent
participate in activities along the lines of "The Story of O" (though
usually less extreme -- it is fiction, after all), you may find that it is
more complex than your abrupt dismissal suggests you believe it is.

An ethical system is not tested by doggedly sticking to it through thick
and thin regardless of the consequences, by closing one's eyes and ears to
any experience which might shake one's certainties, and by shouting
"RELATIVIST!!" at anyone asking awkward questions.

Earlier in the previously quoted message, Randall Holmes wrote:
>I put "empirically testable" in quotes,
>because I don't know exactly what this would mean in ethics;

If you know *anything at all* about what this would mean, tell us.

>there is
>a well-known notion of "empirical testing" in science, and a carefully
>concealed notion of "empirical testing" (which is somewhat hidden from
>view) in mathematics, which is rather different; the ethical analogue
>would presumably also be different.  But I do suspect that systematic
>ethics, analogous to mathematics and natural science, is possible.

So, you are saying that a science of ethics is possible, but that as yet
it is only at the stamp-collecting stage: we have various ideas about
what might be right, but different people have different ideas, and there
is as yet no known way to go about empirically testing competing views,
or even any idea of what would constitute a test.  Yes?

In such a state of affairs, it seems to me that the only thing one can do
to advance the study is to collect any data that might be relevant.  And
this is why I suggested reading alt.sex.bondage.  The more averse the name
makes you to reading it (you've never actually read it, have you?) the
more useful the exercise is likely to be, if you set aside your blinkers
for long enough.  (It's only words on a screen -- your reaction to them,
should you choose to read them, is your responsibility.)

cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes:
>What does consent have to do with [the morality of O]?
>Some people are self-destructive, and
>consent in--or even initiate--all sorts of activities that damage them.
>Does that make it right for me to assist them in their own destruction?

Your labelling "self-destructive" suggests you have in mind a consent
that is not rationally given.  Perhaps I spoke too briefly, but by
consent I mean informed and rational consent.  Now you may consider the
extremity of O's treatment to imply that her consent was ipso facto
irrational, but fiction is inadequate to pursuing that question further.
There is nothing to O other than the words on the page; neither she nor
the author (of whom next to nothing is known) is available to be
interviewed further.  We are all free to extrapolate from those words
according to our own prejudices, but it does not advance the argument.
(I have been guilty of this myself in describing the events of O as
consensual, and therefore not involving wrongdoing; I should instead have
said that if they are consensual then there is no wrongdoing.)

Finally, cash@convex.com (Peter Cash) writes of O:
>I believe she's
>tortured to death in the end--or at least this is implied

Not quite.  The first book has two endings.  In one she dies, in the other
she lives.  There is a second book, at the end of which O (still alive,
obviously) is free to go or to stay.  (The epigraph to the second book,
however, suggests a more complex relationship between the two parts of the
story.)  If one is going to discuss the story at all, one should first
familiarise oneself with it.

--
Richard Kennaway     SYS, University of East Anglia, Norwich NR4 7TJ, U.K.
Internet:  jrk@sys.uea.ac.uk               uucp:  ...mcsun!ukc!uea-sys!jrk