tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705190583378659608.post1737635909531632723..comments2023-11-13T03:52:13.643-05:00Comments on Pragmatism Refreshed: Pluralism and the Big ExperimentChristopherhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17755575167245729981noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705190583378659608.post-47717000809291939702010-09-05T09:19:37.767-04:002010-09-05T09:19:37.767-04:00Christopher,
Your latest reply is well-taken, and...Christopher,<br /><br />Your latest reply is well-taken, and I will not dispute it. I will say only that a god who would rid the world of eugenics by allowing the Holocaust would be a stupid god, because it would take eons for the enforcement of eugenics laws (as in Buck v. Bell) to equal the harm that the Nazis did.<br /><br />Paul Krugman wrote that some people advocate cutting back Social Security benefits because, if we don't, then some time in the future, we might have to cut back Social Security benefits. The god who would allow the Holocaust in order to save the world from eugenics would be even more foolish than these advocates of cutting back Social Security benefits. This god's "solution" would not be the same as the evil that it is intended to prevent, as in Krugman's example; it would be even worse.Henryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10646656656732971583noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705190583378659608.post-19634674265016231262010-09-05T08:37:50.572-04:002010-09-05T08:37:50.572-04:00"Even if they were motivated by lust, satisfy..."Even if they were motivated by lust, satisfying lust in consensual relationships is a good thing."<br /><br />That's a rather hotly contested point. Many would argue, for example, that however consensual, the spread of free-love ideas undermines child-raising arrangements, clogs the courts with property-splitting disputes, etc. <br /><br />"Nazis are to other political groups as rapists are to free-love advocates."<br /><br />I assure you I'm not soft on Nazism. I do believe, though, that taking a long view of the turmoil caused by its rise and fall, one can plausibly see it as part of a historical process that represents progress. That is not at all a matter of consolation for its victims. Nor should it be. The good it has quite accidentally done is something like the good a boil does you when it comes to a head so it can be lanced. <br /><br />The Jamesian progressive view of history is akin to theodicy, although it is a theodicy that works on behalf of a God admittedly only a limited struggling sort of Being Himself. A God within a pluralistic universe, not an absolute Monarch, might have thought that the best available way to get the world, or the western chunk of it, past a certain combination of Hegelianism and eugenics was to let such ideas have their way, and have the flagship regime thereof end ignominously and claustrophobically in a bunker.Christopherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17755575167245729981noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705190583378659608.post-91625472369975958662010-09-05T08:14:00.675-04:002010-09-05T08:14:00.675-04:00To conclude my above comments, Nazis are to other ...To conclude my above comments, Nazis are to other political groups as rapists are to free-love advocates.Henryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10646656656732971583noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4705190583378659608.post-47392549590431472702010-09-05T08:00:18.055-04:002010-09-05T08:00:18.055-04:00Christopher,
Free-love advocates would not forbid...Christopher,<br /><br />Free-love advocates would not forbid monogamous relationships among those who desire them; they merely seek the freedom to engage in conduct that does not harm others. Even if they were motivated by lust, satisfying lust in consensual relationships is a good thing.<br /><br />Nazis, by contrast, sought to achieve good for themselves (lebensraum) at the expense of others. In plain English, they murdered others in order to steal their property. The fact that some Nazis were miserable in the Weimar Republic and stood to benefit from such murders does not make Naziism an attempt to achieve the maximum amount of good in this world. To attempt to achieve good for oneself by doing evil is not an attempt to achieve the maximum amount of good in this world.Henryhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10646656656732971583noreply@blogger.com