My apologies, but what does any of this discussion have to do with scheme? People have different views on licensing. We know this. What does all this philosophy/sophistry have to do with anything? -elf On 12 June 2020 20:27:26 GMT+03:00, Lassi Kortela <xxxxxx@lassi.io> wrote: >>>> Without a universal point of view, "semper et ubique et ab omnibus" ethics seems >>>> to be unachievable. > >>> In practice, a universal point of view means silencing the opposition. > >> I wouldn't say "silencing" but "assuming that the opposition is wrong". >> >> This sounds less bad than it actually is. Relativism can be very dangerous. > >It's instructive to think about morality like biodiversity, subject to >evolutionary (i.e. context-sensitive, economic) forces. For example: > >- There currently exist a variety of (changing) moral stances that have >succeeded in navigating a complex world over a long period of time. >Perhaps another set of stances could navigate the same world? We can't >know since we can't reprogram the people's minds to have different >morals, and even if we did it would no longer be the same world. > >- Since the current moral stances prevail there must be something that >works about them, just as some plants thrive in many regions of the >world. This is where one would look for universals. However, this in >itself does not prove that they are optimal for any given environment, >and the findings may be disappointing: complex creations tend to adapt >to their environment in some way. It may simply be that two things that >grew in the same environment have adapted to each other with limited >relevance to other environments. And what is humanity ultimately? Often >we define it by our most exceptional works and people. It may be >possible to arrive at a morality that produces the rule but cuts out the >exceptions (both the best and the worst, perhaps). It may then turn out >that the rule's long-term thriving depended on the exceptions. > >- Transplanting a new moral stance into a community is like >transplanting a foreign species. Perhaps it will wither; perhaps it will >find a niche or even thrive; perhaps it will overtake the native moral >stance and become the new normal. Whether it is good for people, will >vary. It tends to be unavoidable that there are winners and losers in >such situations. > >- If one really wants a particular stance to prevail, that can always in >principle be done with sufficient force, just as one can remove native >species from an environment and plant new ones. However, humans are >difficult to control in large groups and for long periods of time. Our >views are prone to divergence. In practice, homogeneity may only be >possible in environments so simple that we don't want to live in them. > >As for relativism, the opposite poles of moral objectivity (other people >won't take our advice for long) and nihilism (we won't even take our own >advice) are not stable so we live in between. One can go rogue and make >one's own rules, but morality mainly matters in relation to other people >and they won't tolerate large deviations from their norms so some kind >of compromise has to be struck. A society full of people making these >compromises and we get politics. Historical events tend to shake things >up so that conservative or liberal views are in vogue at any given time, >but those views arose as reactions in their particular environment and a >society may have a pattern of cycling between them.