(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

[oxfordhacker.livejournal.com]

As ever, Daily Dinosaur Comics (http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=96) has covered this question (and cultural universals (http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=1507) in general), apparently with rather more consideration that the author of that paper.

[tinyjo.livejournal.com]

Ah, Daily Dinosaur Comics. How I wish I could cite thee in my essay.

[jinty]

I woulda made a comment but actually it's all covered in DDC.