Talk:Ethics/Archive 2

This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Let us not pretend that just because two books have the same word somewhere in the title that they must be about the same subject! That certainly is not so. RK

Of course not. But that is not the case here. Some of this literature is about ethics, some not. Crick's political virtues do not claim they are a work of ethics, but clearly they are. One has to know the actual material. Likewise Michel Foucault did sociology but much of his work was on ethics, utimately. Notably the morality of excluding the body from the discourse, etc.

This article should certainly not discuss these topics in any detail; rather, it should have links to articles on these often unrelated topics. RK

They're not "unrelated", and giving them two lines each is simply fair. If one isn't fair in the ethics article, one isn't going to be seen as fair in any other article.

I agree. Listing specific examples of applied ethics, and summarizing them in one or two lines, is fair in this top-level article. I never had a problem with that. Rather, I had a problem with the longer discourses that were becoming very off-topic. RK

Where do you draw the line? Why not shove in Business ethics and bioethics as well? because these are separate topics. RK 04:34, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

No, business ethics and bioethics belong with about two lines each, because they are important to the survey and resolve practical questions - indeed global questions these days. Although, they got left out probably because they are about decisions only a few people seem to make - like other professional decisions - whereas, *everyone* makes spiritual decisions, and almost everyone makes purchasing and lifestyle decisions that affect the whole planet. And, since we give science special status around here, the social science views like psychology and other descriptive ethics based work also needs full status.

I draw the line on things that are only about ethics in clearly public situations where violence can be invoked (that's politics), and systems to manage that (civics), and in the other direction, don't want to step on the philosopher's turf of epistemology, ontology, metaphysics and such questions as truth. But I also draw the line at things that attempt to put ethics in a box that only Judeo-Christian-tradition-with-mathematics-and-science-from-the-19th-century-POV are permitted to interpret, as the earlier articles here did. That was clearly wrong, and very biased, for instance, a very minor movement in ethics, the Mussar Movement, and one ethicist, Henry Hazlitt, were the only ones mentioned on this page. The present article is fair to both, and doesn't challenge any of the categories from analytic philosophy, but, it doesn't grant that group of POV specialists any special status either.

And, if Queers and Marxists and Feminists and Greens and Buddhists and Taoists start to seriously challenge what is called "epistemology", as lately the Greens and Buddhists have started to do, that will be mentioned there. If the cognitive scientists crack open ontology (there is much work on cognitive ontology for instance, go Google that), likewise, they will get space there. Just because one philosophy teacher who wrote an early article here didn't know about this stuff or "get" it, isn't a "precedent" you can quote to keep the article stuck in a narrow POV later. If we are pushing to 1.0 around here, the really serious deficiencies in the philosophy sections here have to be fixed, and brought past say 1950.

I draw the line on things that are only about ethics in clearly public situations where violence can be invoked (that's politics), and systems to manage that (civics), and in the other direction, don't want to step on the philosopher's turf of epistemology, ontology, metaphysics and such questions as truth. But I also draw the line at things that attempt to put ethics in a box that only Judeo-Christian-tradition-with-mathematics-and-science-from-the-19th-century-POV are permitted to interpret, as the earlier articles here did. That was clearly wrong, and very biased, for instance, a very minor movement in ethics, the Mussar Movement, and one ethicist, Henry Hazlitt, were the only ones mentioned on this page. The present article is fair to both, and doesn't challenge any of the categories from analytic philosophy, but, it doesn't grant that group of POV specialists any special status either.

And, if Queers and Marxists and Feminists and Greens and Buddhists and Taoists start to seriously challenge what is called "epistemology", as lately the Greens and Buddhists have started to do, that will be mentioned there. If the cognitive scientists crack open ontology (there is much work on cognitive ontology for instance, go Google that), likewise, they will get space there. Just because one philosophy teacher who wrote an early article here didn't know about this stuff or "get" it, isn't a "precedent" you can quote to keep the article stuck in a narrow POV later. If we are pushing to 1.0 around here, the really serious deficiencies in the philosophy sections here have to be fixed, and brought past say 1950.

Your transparent attempt to censor this article by first defining it as a concern only of Western academic philosophers, then coming back for the rest, is noted, and repelled. The four major and one minor view of ethics reflected in this article are now noted explicitly up front as a dispute of definition. If this proves to be too long, as one article, the answer is to move the "ethics in religion" section to a new article (better titled) Ethical traditions. This could complement one on Ethical relationships, taking a more modern and social science focus, and Global ethics, about the constraint-oriented postmodern views.

This would at least segment the concerns. EofT

But by no means does this mean reducing ethics itself to the Western analytic view, unless you are willing to shove that into ethics (philosophy) and make simple view of ethics and morals the main article.

This is a bald-faced lie. I never made this definition; rather, that is what this article has always been about, and I certainly didn't create this article. It seems this anonymous person is just ranting. So sad. RK

You have added section titles like "Ethic in THE religion", shown willingness to add whole chunks from an utterly POV source like "The Jewish Encyclopedia", and made comments like "sets of truths that need to be described and applied, and (in theory) should equally be true for all humans.... is a very different subject from what one finds in books and articles on "Global Ethics", "Feminist ethics", "Marxist ethics" and "Queer ethics"". I think this admits a POV bias.

Uh, this simply never happened. It looks to me like I made a tiny typo, (adding the word "the')...and from this you have created a screed against me based on your imagination alone. BTW, you also lied about what I wrote. If people take the time to look at the article, they will see that I did no such thing; rather, I said that I only began the article with a few exceprts from that public domain encyclopedia, I myself stated that it was out of date, and I asked for others to help contribute and bring it up to date, and include Christian views. And I also asked others to incorporate points of views from other religions. So let us be clear - Entmoots of Trolls and I do not have a mere difference of opinion; he is writing bald-faced lies about my contributions, and screaming about things I never did. RK 17:38, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

It may be that you just don't care what other people deeply believe, nor believe that what they have based their life on is in any way worthy of respect. I think there are lots of people like you in the world, but, I don't think they should be editing the ethics article. Take that as you will, my friend.

Folks, we now know that this anonymous troll is "EntmootsOfTrolls", who has been following me from article to article, harassing me, and telling Jombo Wales to go fuck himself when he was asked to stop the harassment. As such, I don't feel the need to take these pseudo-anonymous statements seriously any longer. I will simply revert his changes. RK 17:43, 29 Aug 2003 (UTC)

A review of the Page history will show who is following who. I believe you have asked Mr. Wales to make a choice, to wit, to ban me and leave you alone, or, to simply let you leave as you claim you will do if I don't go. If you care to withdraw that request, we may get much done. Anyone who wishes to read my rsponse to Wales can go to User_talk:EntmootsOfTrolls. I deny that any of what I say is harassment by any sane definition. That's all I have to say.EofT