QUOTE(wikiwhistle @ Sun 18th January 2009, 9:13pm)
QUOTE(Moulton @ Sun 18th January 2009, 8:41pm)
Disgust is undoubtably a motivating factor when classical moralists declare some practice to be "an abomination in the eyes of God."
But ethical reasoning is considerably more sophisticated than a preachy rationalization of a moral war on disgust.
Ethical reasoning involves an insightful reckoning of long-term consequences, and eschews practices that will send those poor young animals into tearful years of adult therapy.
Disgust and ethical considerations are often one and the same. Think of one's reactions to hearing of rape, incest etc. Not saying they're necessarily the same in this case. When disgust is not aligned to ethics, it often is more akin to the feeling of something that's physically a turn-off or a feeling of being disturbed/ creeped out, perhaps.
Not quite. Children often do things that are quite disgusting. So do mentally disturbed people. So do old people, actually. A nurse told me that old men in a ward would often masturbate in front of her.
But you don't blame them for it, at least (in the case of children) you don't blame them in a deep-down sense.
On the other side, there are things that are not disgusting in any visceral sense that people deeply disapprove of regard as deeply wrong.
Cleary Giano felt it was deeply wrong of me to send that email to FT2 December 2007. But he didn't find it disgusting in a visceral or 'yukky' kind of way.
Our sense of right and wrong is closely tied to that of responsibility and freedom of choice.
QUOTE
But if there is a certain order of causes according to which everything happens which does happen, then by fate, says he, all things happen which do happen. But if this be so, then is there nothing in our own power, and there is no such thing as freedom of will; and if we grant that, says he, the whole economy of human life is subverted. In vain are laws enacted. In vain are reproaches, praises, chidings, exhortations had recourse to; and there is no justice whatever in the appointment of rewards for the good, and punishments for the wicked.
Augustine,
City of God V . 14
This post has been edited by Peter Damian: