Sunday, November 20, 2011

Religious right or P.C. left? Quotes 32 and 33

In this series of blog posts, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to read each quote and guess, before doing a Web search, whether someone in the religious right or the politically correct left said it.

32.
This ethic [referring to the Mill harm principle], increasingly pervasive in culture and popular with Libertarians in particular (the intellectual children of Mill) has well documented flaws. Essentially utilitarian as opposed to deontological, it thus has strong appeal from those who do not wish to be "burdened" with "restrictions." An unfortunate result is that it is an ethic does not call us to higher personal or communal goods or goals.... It also levels all human relationships to that of human contracts mutually entered into by participating parties, leaving little in the way of thought of community good and charity for the poor and disabled.
33.
[In response to someone bringing up the Mill harm principle] jonathanan, what a lovely explanation of the beginner’s understanding of human rights: everything you want to do is fine as long as you’re not “hurting” anyone. Perhaps when you grow up a bit you’ll realize how shallow and insipid that idea is. Until then, do consider from time to time that there are people who know far, far more about how the world works and that if you spend some time reading and thinking, rather than displaying your ignorance for all to see, you might be further along in your understanding some day.

Or stay shallow and ignorant, that’s an option too.

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