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RE: The Rise of Philosophy
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I think it is rather negative to simply label ethics as not being capable of
being properly debated. Indeed I had a discussion with one of my friends
only last week - I placing the "relativist" argument and he placed the
"evolutionary" argument which Dennett promotes. The consequence - he now
sees ethical values as being entirely arbritrary and I see that they have
foundation in evolving cultures. Both of us benefit from the debate, expand
our understanding, and have new research paths to follow. Never accept that
any subject is not worthy of debate.
With regard to the rise in the study of phiolosophy, I recall many months
ago making the comment in this forum that such a development was both
dangerous and to be applauded. Educating children to think? Where will it
end?
Bernie Doeser
Sandiway, Cheshire, UK
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com
[mailto:owner-bups-dis@purplepancake.com]On Behalf Of Nick Dippie
Sent: 04 May 2006 16:25
To: bups-dis@bups.org
Subject: Re: The Rise of Philosophy
To reply to this message or start a new topic please email:
BUPS-DIS@bups.org
not sure i've got an opinion on the general rise of philosophy, but i
thought i'd join in the criticisms of ethics in general.its rubbish.at the
end of the day you're either going to be a relativist or not, and thats all
it comes down to. i know there are far finer gradations of it than that, but
that seems to me the basic distinction. and people tend to be firmly
entrenched in either position before they start the discussion.in all the
many ethics discussions i've had, both at A level and degree level, and
just with non-philosophers, i've never known one to get anywhere, except
when people just haven't thought about it beforehand. it strikes me as a
particularly pointless area of philosophy.
nick
Quoting kate whitaker <katewhitaker@gmail.com>:
> I've always had problems with Ethics lessons/tutorials. You get a lot of
> people who are very rooted in their ideas thrashing it out over applied
> ethics such as vegetarianism, without touching on meta-ethics or thinking
> about the bases for their ideas. This isn't philosophy it's just arguing;
> a
> lot of the time people aren't prepared to criticise their own ideas,
> which,
> surely, is the whole point of philosophy.
> At my college they offered philosophy A level, but also an AS level in
> critical thinking - this taught argument skills, spotting fallacies that
> sort of thing. Critical thinking is definately the sort of thing kids in
> schools should be learning, and that's the place to argue about George
> Bush.
> As for philosophy, I think the woman referenced the article is right -
> philosophy sounds cool and that's why a lot of people take it (similar to
> the recent boom in psychology). It's only when they get to university
> that
> they realise it's not just about having opinions, and that you have to
> read,
> write essays and generally work!
>
>
>
> On 5/4/06, Matthew Hodgetts <matthew.hodgetts@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Just found this in the Independent:
> >
> > http://education.independent.co.uk/schools/article361684.ece
> >
> > Apparently more people are now studying philosophy for A-level and
> > highers. It just made one thing: in their classes they discuss George
> Bush.
> > This got me thinking, is saying on the one hand he's good because *x*
> and
> > on the other bad because *y* really philosophy? I'm not really sure.
> I'm
> > fairly sceptical about ethics as philosophical study anyway as it seems
> that
> > all we do is trade competing intuitions. (If you think that's all
> ethics
> > ought to be, fine, but you need to argue for that first). Maybe I'm
> being
> > too narrow minded in suggesting that all we can do is to try to look at
> the
> > meaning of ethical langauge ( e.g. Hare, Blackburn et al, and Mackie).
> It
> > just seems to be that only once we have a firm grasp on what ethics is
> and
> > what "immoral" means can we even begin to worry about abortion or any
> other
> > applied topic. One of my examiners' reports once criticised an answer
> to an
> > applied ethics exam question (I think it was stem cells or something)
> for
> > being "journalistic." I guess my point is that at the moment, anyone
> can
> > give a journalistic answer to whether Bush is a good or a bad
> president, but
> > being able to do so isn't particularly amazing or philosophical. What
> do you
> > guys think?
> >
> > Also I wasn't very impressed by the last paragraph claiming that
> > philosophers don't have a lot of work to do. Try revising for finals!
> >
> > M.
> >
>
>
>
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