Thank you for this response! (I have a few more books to add to my reading list.) Your post from 13 years ago is a very good explanation, too.
Ironically, though:
Here’s an experiment for everyone to try: think it good to eat babies. Don’t merely imagine thinking that: actually think it.
I have heard of an indigenous Australian tradition in which children were carefully, reverently turned into a blood-soup and consumed by the community (read in a book years ago, but there’s this online). And I do try to imagine what it’s like to live in this way. (I don’t think they considered it a normal, everyday thing to eat babies, but that the emotional shock had a power that could perhaps be used as a kind of magic.)
But I get your point; it’s like what I’ve been calling “degree of undeniableness.” (Budziszewki compares it to 2 + 2 = 4 and you compare it to observing that a red thing is red: logical deduction and physical observation can be denied, but it’s difficult to do so.) It’s very hard for me to agree that it’s good to eat babies. Even in the above-mentioned culture, I think it might have been a struggle, an aspect of society that was tossed as soon as they saw other ways of living. Maybe it’s not so much about what human attitudes exist—which covers a lot of extremes—as what’s easy to maintain and what gets tossed as soon as it’s recognized as not necessary.
(It’s not lost on me that the previous paragraph applies to all attitudes, not just ethics, but also smiling universes.)
Thank you for this response! (I have a few more books to add to my reading list.) Your post from 13 years ago is a very good explanation, too.
Ironically, though:
I have heard of an indigenous Australian tradition in which children were carefully, reverently turned into a blood-soup and consumed by the community (read in a book years ago, but there’s this online). And I do try to imagine what it’s like to live in this way. (I don’t think they considered it a normal, everyday thing to eat babies, but that the emotional shock had a power that could perhaps be used as a kind of magic.)
But I get your point; it’s like what I’ve been calling “degree of undeniableness.” (Budziszewki compares it to 2 + 2 = 4 and you compare it to observing that a red thing is red: logical deduction and physical observation can be denied, but it’s difficult to do so.) It’s very hard for me to agree that it’s good to eat babies. Even in the above-mentioned culture, I think it might have been a struggle, an aspect of society that was tossed as soon as they saw other ways of living. Maybe it’s not so much about what human attitudes exist—which covers a lot of extremes—as what’s easy to maintain and what gets tossed as soon as it’s recognized as not necessary.
(It’s not lost on me that the previous paragraph applies to all attitudes, not just ethics, but also smiling universes.)