Posted by
Andrews on Monday, June 29, 2009 5:07:33 PM
My experience with having a larger, and more mixed, audience has taught me something I did not know, that points I thought clear are far from it, at least among general readers.
The point in question is what "value" means. When I wrote about the idea of "absolute values" being the source of many problems, and the tendency of those on the left to ascribe "health" with absolute value status, I never expected the responses I received. Those on the left crowed about the right giving up "moral absolutism" and those on the right denounced me for turning against G-d.
The problem is, I did nothing of the kind. Ethics and economics are different beasts. Ethics tells us what we should value, economics is about putting those valuations (and others) into practice.
Which means my post had nothing to do with ethical relativism. Nor does it mean I deny absolute moral values. Well, to be fair, there is a bit of bleed-over, but only if one is far too rigid in their ethical absolutism. If you say "life is worth any cost", then logically you would spend every waking moment preserving your life to the exclusion of all else, every thought and deed would be focused on the one goal of extending your life.
That is not what most people when they speak of moral absolutes. They mean things such as "unjustified killing is always wrong" or "theft is always wrong', which is a fine rule. And both can be implemented without causing havoc with economics.
So, to make this brief. Many on the left have moral relativism and economic absolutism. They have no clear cut values, but once they latch onto something, for the time they hold it valuable, they tend to say it si worth any cost. To criticize this is neither to deny moral absolutes nor to engage in ethical relativism.
My post, in short, espoused nothing concerning ethics, and argued only for relative valuations in economics.
Is that clear now?