(no subject)

[tinyjo]

"Although it is generally true that people say what they mean and mean what they say"

Are you allowed to put a sweeping general statement like that in the middle of a paper on medical ethics?! I keep being derailed from my reading by stuff like this. There's also

The common morality contains moral norms that bind all persons in all places; no norms are more basic in the moral life … [it] comprises all and only those norms that all morally serious persons accept as authoritative.

I can't decide whether this is so restrictive as to encompass nothing or merely a circular definition which basically boils down to norms that I and people who agree with me (and are therefore morally serious) accept. Thoughts?

Comments

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Interesting. I read it as almost more of a cultural assumption (I think - I'm not quite sure how I would word it) than a language related one, but I guess that's probably different ways of wording the same basic thing. I would definitely have had a lot less problem with it if it had been presented as an assumption at the start rather than pitchforked in in a cavalier "everyone knows" sort of way. On the other hand, my default philosophical approach is to be nitpicky about assumptions :)