I get hot when GG get's all Kantian on our ass.
For some reason it became hip to be pragmatic. And I'm pretty sure it's not because Americans have decided to start reading Dewey and James (or Hume, for that matter). I'm also pretty sure it's not because we've become a scientific nation. Empiricism tends to lead us down the path of scepticism - right for the natural world into the moral one. And, I'm most certain that it's not because we have rejected the possibility of universal moral laws. There isn't anarchy on the streets; nor has any sort of religious pluralism taken hold.
I suspect our contemporary American pragmatism simply the result of laziness: Why stop at practical skepticism when you can shoot down the whole game? (Global warming, stem cells, cloning, etc.) Moreover, why conform to moral laws when you've got fine moral sentiments thank-you-very-much?
After all, wasn't morality supposed to be easy?
But I don't think I want to stop here. I'm not a distopian. It's not the American people that have gotten lazy; it's our academics and elites. And they've dragged the country down with them.
Presumably, there are instances where a proposed war might be very pragmatically beneficial in promoting our national self-interest, but is still something that we ought not to do. Why? Because as a matter of principle -- of ideology -- we believe that it is not just to do it, no matter how many benefits we might reap, no matter how much it might advance our "national self-interest" (just as we don't break into our neighbor's home and steal from them even if they have really valuable things to take and we're pretty sure we won't get caught).
For some reason it became hip to be pragmatic. And I'm pretty sure it's not because Americans have decided to start reading Dewey and James (or Hume, for that matter). I'm also pretty sure it's not because we've become a scientific nation. Empiricism tends to lead us down the path of scepticism - right for the natural world into the moral one. And, I'm most certain that it's not because we have rejected the possibility of universal moral laws. There isn't anarchy on the streets; nor has any sort of religious pluralism taken hold.
I suspect our contemporary American pragmatism simply the result of laziness: Why stop at practical skepticism when you can shoot down the whole game? (Global warming, stem cells, cloning, etc.) Moreover, why conform to moral laws when you've got fine moral sentiments thank-you-very-much?
After all, wasn't morality supposed to be easy?
But I don't think I want to stop here. I'm not a distopian. It's not the American people that have gotten lazy; it's our academics and elites. And they've dragged the country down with them.
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