Oct 21, 2016 09:24 PM
Being moral means you can never do enough
https://aeon.co/ideas/being-moral-means-...-do-enough
EXCERPT: ‘I didn’t do enough.’ This is a conclusion we all hope to avoid, especially as our lives close. It is, perhaps, the ultimate regret. In the final scene of the movie Schindler’s List (1993), this regret is Oskar Schindler’s. Looking into the faces of the hundreds of Jews he saved from the Nazi concentration camps, he cannot help but see the faces of those he did not, but could have. If he had sold more of his possessions or made more money, he could have bought the freedom of more.
‘I didn’t do enough,’ he says. Is he right? Could morality really require that this hero do more? According to consequentialism, it’s true: he didn’t do enough. Consequentialism is the moral theory that we are obligated to do whatever would have the best consequences. If that entails great sacrifice, then great sacrifice is what consequentialism demands we undertake. Since Schindler could have done more, he should have. Many will argue that this can’t be the case....
Can liberal values be absolute? Or is that a contradiction?
https://aeon.co/ideas/can-liberal-values...tradiction
EXCERPT: Is liberalism an idea fit only for the contemporary West, proper to this particular historical, social and geographical context? Or is liberalism right for everyone, for all peoples and ages and cultures? That is to say, should liberal values be seen as relative or absolute? In fact, the answer is neither. It is possible to steer between localist relativism on the one hand and ahistorical absolutism on the other....
https://aeon.co/ideas/being-moral-means-...-do-enough
EXCERPT: ‘I didn’t do enough.’ This is a conclusion we all hope to avoid, especially as our lives close. It is, perhaps, the ultimate regret. In the final scene of the movie Schindler’s List (1993), this regret is Oskar Schindler’s. Looking into the faces of the hundreds of Jews he saved from the Nazi concentration camps, he cannot help but see the faces of those he did not, but could have. If he had sold more of his possessions or made more money, he could have bought the freedom of more.
‘I didn’t do enough,’ he says. Is he right? Could morality really require that this hero do more? According to consequentialism, it’s true: he didn’t do enough. Consequentialism is the moral theory that we are obligated to do whatever would have the best consequences. If that entails great sacrifice, then great sacrifice is what consequentialism demands we undertake. Since Schindler could have done more, he should have. Many will argue that this can’t be the case....
Can liberal values be absolute? Or is that a contradiction?
https://aeon.co/ideas/can-liberal-values...tradiction
EXCERPT: Is liberalism an idea fit only for the contemporary West, proper to this particular historical, social and geographical context? Or is liberalism right for everyone, for all peoples and ages and cultures? That is to say, should liberal values be seen as relative or absolute? In fact, the answer is neither. It is possible to steer between localist relativism on the one hand and ahistorical absolutism on the other....