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Re: [ontolog-forum] {Disarmed} Reality and Truth

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Gary Berg-Cross" <gary.berg-cross@xxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 5 May 2007 00:16:51 -0400
Message-id: <330E3C69AFABAE45BD91B28F80BE32C9BF3BDD@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Adrian,    (01)

Or perhaps it still belongs here is we consider aesthetic judgments are like 
moral judgment.  In Moral Minds Marc Hauser argues that all human beings 
possess the same inborn moral faculty that generates our basic moral decisions 
and actions. The basis of moral reasoning is analogous to what Chomsky proposes 
for our language faculty - it generates the full range of human languages.     (02)

Here is a summary in Hauser's words, put together from the "Prologue" and 
"Epilogue".    (03)

"The central idea of this book is simple: we evolved a moral instinct, a 
capacity that natural grows within each child, designed to generate rapid 
judgments about what is morally right or wrong based on an unconscious grammar 
of action. Part of this machinery was designed by the blind hand of Darwinian 
selection millions of years before our species evolved; other parts were added 
or upgraded over the evolutionary history of our species, and  are unique to 
humans and to our moral psychology. These ideas draw on insights from another 
instinct: language. (P. xviii.)    (04)

"Our expressed languages differ, but we generate each one on the basis of a 
universal set of principles. Our artistic expressions vary wildly, but the 
biology that underpins our aesthetics generates universal preferences for 
symmetry in the visual arts and consonance in music. The idea I have ... is 
that we should think of morality in the same way. Underlying the extensive 
cross-cultural variation we observe in our expressed social norms is a 
universal moral grammar that enables each child to grow a narrow range of 
possible moral systems. When we judge an action as morally right or wrong, we 
do so instinctively, tapping a system of unconsciously operative and 
inaccessible moral knowledge." (Pp. 419-420.)    (05)

And so perhaps we tap some roots that interact with experience to give us some 
appealing ontological concepts too.    (06)

Gary Berg-Cross    (07)

________________________________    (08)

From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx on behalf of Adrian Walker
Sent: Fri 5/4/2007 6:25 PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] {Disarmed} Reality and Truth    (09)


John et al ---    (010)

Perhaps this discussion should move to another list before it gives ontological 
research a wackier reputation than it deserves?    (011)

                                                    Cheers,   -- Adrian    (012)

Internet Business Logic (R)
A Wiki for Executable Open Vocabulary English
Online at www.reengineeringllc.com <http://www.reengineeringllc.com/>     
Shared use is free    (013)

Adrian Walker
Reengineering    (014)


On 5/4/07, John F. Sowa <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:     (015)

        Chris,    (016)

        Ethics is ultimately based on aesthetics:    (017)

        > Yeah, yeah, but I'll bet we all agree that it's a bad idea,
        > e.g., to stick pins in babies just to here them scream.    (018)

        Of course, because it is aesthetically intolerable.     (019)

        > If we go down the relativist sink hole you seem to be defending
        > we'll end up with no grounds for, say, fighting terrorism beyond
        > our own survival.    (020)

        No.  God is watching all the alternatives.  And at the last judgment, 
        he punishes those with bad taste.  Blowing people up just to get
        72 virgins is yucky.    (021)

        John    (022)

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