X-VMS-To: in%"ethics-l@polygraf.bitnet"
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ethics-l
Date:         Sun, 12 Apr 1992 09:57:00 EST
From:         JIM DOWNEY <JDOWNEY@RCNVMS.RCN.MASS.EDU>
Subject:      Second response to Nilges on Ethic Positions (Part I)
Comments: To: ethics-l%polygraf.bitnet@MITVMA.MIT.EDU

Ed Nilges quoted and said:

>>Now how can a reference to Aquinas and Aristotle be Platonism when we
>>know that it was Augustine that was the Platonist?  Although Aristotle
>>was certainly a disciple of Plato, and many ideas are shared, there
>>are some fundamental differences...  Some that are often misunderstood
>>and  mis-stated... Such is the case within your challenge...

> Both Aristotle and Plato developed their thought in a slave-based
> society.  Both Aquinas and Augustine worked in a feudal matrix.  I
> suggest that if we treat either of these poles as exhaustive, we
> will recreate in some measure the slave or feudal aspects of their
> society.  Whereas Kant was informed by the Enlightenment.  I know it
> is the fashion to decry the Enlightenment and point to the slaughters
> of the French Revolution, as if slaughter was invented by Voltaire
> and as if humans looked to intellectuals for excuses for bloodletting.
> I reject this fashion.

But rejecting Aristotle and Plato merely on cultural context is unwar-
ranted... And if you think I buy the idea that Immanuel Kant was somehow
more informed because of his social context, you're mistaken...  The
time period was called the Enlightenment because it brought about the re-
surfacing of scholastic inquiry into the open world and the formation of
the academy...  Look to the text of these thinkers...  Don't battle me
with wooden swords made of history, but give me the real test of metal...
the actual texts...

> Aristotle was servant/slave of Philip of Macedon, was he not?  We can

No he was not...  Aristotle served as teacher and philosopher to Philip's
son, Alexander, but he was never enslaved nor placed in involuntary
servitude...  Infact, he was a physician of rather well developed skill,
having learned it from his father, Nicomachus, a reknowned physician to
the court of King Amyntas II of Macedonia...  He was free to leave the
service of the court at anytime and, in fact, did so after the death of
Plato...

> therefore view his thought as Platonism with a human face; Platonism
> from the point of view of the house slave.

I think not... Plato was a born aristocrat...  Socrates was a "man of the
people" but none of the three were ever enslaved...

> As to Aquinas, his Scholasticism is of equal relevance to computer
> ethics as the Platonism of Augustine.

Why... Because you say so? (usual arguments inserted here)

Aquinas relied upon the Philosophy of Aristotle to resolve a Theological
problem...  But in so doing he exposed the world to further thought on the
issues of God-given rights, natural law, and indivdual choices...

Augustine, like Plato, took the view that men were so imperfect (and
Auggie carried it to an extreme) that they were unable to perceive reality
because it was outside of the human being...  Only reflected good could be
harnassed and used in the processes of society... The forms of plato were
described in the TEXT as being absolutes...

Aristotle rejected the negative view of men, of experience and the rigidity
of forms...  Instead, he offered the concept of seeking to avoid all extremes
based on a "golden mean."  Within this "moderation of all things" lie justice,
truth, beauty, rights, etc.

> By Platonism I mean ANY system that is based, not on radical democracy,
> but instead on some sort of class structure.  I claim that Plato's
> genius was such that systems that attempt to depart from his within
> a class structure COLLAPSE into Platonism.  Yes, Aristotle recommended
> empirical study as contrasted with Plato's navel-gazing.  But such
> was Aristotle's authority as transmitted via the Moslem world to the
> European middle ages that references to his texts were substituted
> for empirical research by an intellectual class of priests and clerks.

Absolutely...  Records of Plato's and Aristotle's works are seen throughout
traditional middle-eastern philosophy...  In fact, there is some evidence
that Plato and Aristotle may have been influenced by several Persian and
other Middle-Eastern philosophers...

But going back to your definition of Platonism...  It was your words and
ideas that offered a class structure based on beliefs and gain...  All of
what I have offered has been about equality through rights and natural laws
that offer the freedom of individual choice...  When and where did my words
convey an advocacy for a class structure?  Point to with a quote...

I can demonstrate--no, make that I have demonstrated--how your words have
advocated a elite group based on your beliefs and attitudes... and the
beliefs/attitudes of those whom you approve...  And, in response to my
claim that you were taking such a stance (cultural relativism), you
acknowledge it (See Below!)

>>> Looking at the social/cultural matrix before devising a non-
>>> situational ethical code is not "determining what we will do and
>>> then calling it moral."  It is simply the recognition of two
>>> propositions:
>>
>> It is cultural relativism...
>
> That's cool with me.

I rest my case on that issue...
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