Newsgroups: bit.listserv.ethics-l
Date:         Tue, 7 Apr 1992 19:19:24 EDT
From:         Ed Nilges <EGNILGES@PUCC.BITNET>
Subject:      Re: Foundations
              7 Apr 1992 12:03:15 EDT from <tweaver@HOBBES.KZOO.EDU>

On Tue, 7 Apr 1992 12:03:15 EDT Tim Weaver said:
>>
>My goodness.  If I remember correctly, he didn't refer specifically to
>you Ed.

He implied that he was by saying he agreed with Jim Downey in a dialogue
that in recent days has only involved Jim and myself.

> What William Hugh is saying is true, and we could all benefit
>from stepping back and thinking about our replies before we post and
>removing stuff such as unsubstantiated generalities and personal attacks.

It is also true that "the sun will rise tomorrow or the moon is made of
green cheese".  Whether or not such pieties should be posted is a
separate issue.  He was indirectly referring to the material I posted
as unsubstantiated (when it was substantiated) and personal
attacks (when it questioned CORPORATE behavior.)  Now, if he did
not mean to do so he can post a retraction or a clarification.

>It also helps the discussion if you can back up your statements with
>references.  I am as guilty as anyone of this sort of behaviour.

Indeed.  As I've said, the material I posted was the only material
to have such references.

I regard Mr. Murray's post as a broadband incoming piety with its
goal as making ETHICS-L a forum that will discuss individual issues
to the exclusion of social issues.  I am enough of a "monstrum
horrendum" of the French and deconstructionist persuasion to detach
Mr. Murray's intentions from his words, and to READ in them something
something that he may subconsciously intend, or that he may be saying
as a result of social structures.  He may not have had Ed Nilges,
monstrum horrendum, in mind.  But (while I would not censor it) his
post, with its bland pieties about "style" and "personal attacks",
is corrosive of high-quality dialogue, if the vigor of a position
is to be attenuated by a great deal of attention to a bland style.

The neoconservative Nozick takes the position (Ref. 1) that philosoph-
ical ASSERTION is by nature bad behavior, one would suppose like
farting in the elevator.  Mr. Murray's critique, with its evasion
of issues and bland focus on style and "personal attacks" (as if
to disagree is to ALWAYS engage in ad hominem), reminds me greatly
of Nozick's critique, which sounds liberating but upon digestion is
realized to be quite the opposite.  That is, not only is Nozick
self-contradictory in his book Philosophical Explanations (for he
asserts that philosophical assertion is bad behavior, committs
himself to Being A Nice Person, and then proceeds to write a
thick book full of assertion and (one would fancy Mr. Murray would
say) argumentative passages and personal attacks on those who would
(for example) disagree with Nozick's very strange ethical contentions
(one of which is the absurd claim that people could be ranked,
ethically, on a one-dimensional scale, in the manner of a fraternity
rush, a Princetonian Bicker, or whatever strange rites obtain at
Nozick's Harvard.)

But, of course, Nozick (and Murray) would put the onus of good
behavior on the other in the dialogue, for it is difficult to DO
ethics or philosophy without, to a certain extent, breaking a
few metaphorical heads.  I do hope that we hear no more of such
appeals to style and absurd restraint from folks who are ready
to violate their own strictures as it suits them.  Mr. Murray, I
admit, is quite polite but this is because of the low informational
content of his views.  This is not a criticism of Mr. Murray, only
an observation of the fact that his views do not depart from
the mainstream by a great deal.


REFERENCES

1.  Nozick, Robert: PHILOSOPHICAL EXPLANATIONS.  Cambridge 1983:
Harvard University Press.

2.  Dijkstra, Edsger: "How do we tell truths that might hurt?",
reprinted in SELECTED WRITINGS ON COMPUTING: A Personal Perspective.
New York, 1982: Springer-Verlag.
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