Quote:
Originally Posted by skaltezon
Sure. I meant, is that 'moral gray area' a natural tendency that you've come to recognize in yourself or have you been influenced by some philosopher? I'm having trouble understanding why you'd prefer steak and a lack of clarity.
That's an odd pairing.  |
Oh, definitely a natural tendency of mine. I've studied a certain amount of philosophy, but never found one that agrees entirely with me. I'm a bit of an odd mix: I'm a Maths Undergrad with serious leanings towards logical argument and reasoning, but I relish the idea of uncertainty.
Why I prefer it... I think this is going to be hard to explain. Largely because I haven't thought much about why I feel this way, due to the fact that it's an inherent part of who I am. I think to a certain extent the simple fact that the grey area is.. well, grey, appeals to me, that how we choose to act in those grey areas defines very much who we are. If we rid ourselves of the grey areas, it automates our responses. Hell, you could feasibly program a computer to be moral, if it were the case. That, personally, is something I find quite scary.
I guess when it comes down to it, I trust myself to act in a way that I consider moral under all circumstances that might arise (bit of a tautology, I know), and that my actions would never incur more than moral displeasure from someone else, unless their beliefs were extreme. And in that case, the chances are I would incur the same response regardless of my beliefs unless I agreed entirely with that person, as such is generally the case with extremist views.
Given the above, given a choice between being able to sit down with someone and say "this is an exact outline of what I believe, under all circumstances possible" and being able to sit down with someone and have a good steak, I prefer having the steak, and only having my concept of morality truly understood by myself.
Does that make more sense?