Quote Originally Posted by a completely inoffensive name View Post
What basic premises do you use to create a system of "right" and "wrong" from which you can make judgements on actions? Why is this action by so and so bad or good ultimately comes from our personal moral premises that we hold to be truth. You criticized my use of empathy to construct said truths, that I make my judgements on. I am asking you where yours comes from.
Why would you want a system of right and wrong? Why would you start with something an then construct? It's an inherently bad idea.


But this is different from what I am talking about. I don't compare two people about two different things. I am not going to compare Washington's slave owning with Napoleon's tyrannical domestic policy. When I am deciding between two candidates I am comparing the two on the same things. Foreign policy, domestic policy etc...

There is a difference between picking someone for a specific role/job and making a blanket comparison like "Who was most evilest dictator?!?"


No, I believe I said I was disgusted with him about that specific aspect of his life. I distinctly remember saying my overall impression of him as a man is mediocre to good. I can have an overall judgement of a person, I just don't take that overall judgement and make silly comparisons with it.

How is me saying, "I really don't like that he enslaved people." a superstitious thought? Like what?


I gotta explain what I mean about these overall comparisons better. When you say "their quality as a person, their overall excellence" what do you even mean? What is a quality of a person or overall excellence? It's vague generic notions that are not talking about specific roles or jobs. When you present a question of "Which president exhibited the most overall excellence?" It's absolutely garbage. Because there were presidents good at their job and terrible in their public life and vice versa. You are trying to make comparisons of completely different aspects grouped together which ultimately creates an answer that makes no sense. When you ask the question, "Which presidential candidate will you vote for?" That provides common ground for comparisons because you are talking about a specific job/role. You can say, well I like candidate X because he is stronger in most aspects of what this job entails him to make decisions about than candidate Y. There you can make a solid comparison.

End of the day: I look at Washington's individual aspects of his life. There are bad (slavery) and good (leadership) aspects of his life. You ask me what my general view of him is, I will say: pretty good. You ask me if I am better than him, I will say: On what specific issue? You ask me if his quality as a person is better than someone elses, I will say: On some specific aspects sure, on others no. I am not going to say Washington >>>>> Other person Because he led this country to independence and was a great man overall in my eyes. Does this make sense?
I don't think you can feel disgust about someone in a specific area and not have it color your whole view of them. You would at best dispassionately admit to some merit. If you are critiquing someone on specific issues, that's what should be dispassionate about, while your whole view should have the emotional tint.

Anyway, why are you disgusted with him for owning slaves? That's the second issue. We got off track from our main talk by going into the secondary issue above. I admit I don't find it comprehensible. "People shouldn't own slaves" makes perfect sense, but where does the harsh emotional reaction come from? You said yourself that you have extra disgust for him because of the ideals of the movement he was a part of. So you would say that a different reaction is appropriate based on the context of the time. So I'm not sure we are really arguing about whether we can judge based on context or not so much as you thinking the context of Washington's life is a reason to condemn him.

I can't imagine having waves of disgust for practically every human being that's ever lived.

You ask me if I am better than him, I will say: On what specific issue?
You should say "no".

What? If the criticisms are valid, they are valid. If they are not, ignore the silly "feminist history". If they are trying to declare a philosopher's work as invalid because he was sexist then that is silly provided that his work is not related to notions about social structure.
Don't you think there's something inherently silly in picking out philosophers from 100's of years ago and bothering about whether they were misogynist? A valid criticism in one sense is something that's factually correct, but you still have to justify making it.