Is it Friday yet ?

[venta]

Oh look, it's Elizabeth trying to sneak enormous philosophical issues into a scratty little cut...

I'm currently reading Antonia Fraser's biography of Mary, Queen of Scots. Which has so far been interesting, although it has consistently unsettled me with its strange word-order within sentences. Owing to my unsociable habit of reading while eating, it's also rather more splattered with miso soup than any book on Scottish history should rightfully be.

However, in talking about the behaviour of the Scottish nobility around the time Mary returned to Scotland, it says:

"there is a basic code of human decency, which should not be violated even in times of insecurity" (quote approximate, as I don't have the book with me).

Which struck me as rather a sweeping assumption to just drop into the middle of a pargraph. I'm not even sure I agree with it. I'm wondering if it's the hypothetical should of someone who knows it isn't them whose going to be suffering the insecurity...

Discuss :)

Today's slightly less in-depth question: why, when placing multi-volume books on shelves, do the volumes always seem to go right to left ? It seems an odd convention, in view of the left-to-right nature of our society. I'm hoping addedentry might know the answer to this one.

I'm tired. My neck hurts.

On the plus side, a colleague brought me a CD this morning of what he describes as "home-brew chilled dance/ambient with celtic crossovery things going on" which he made, as is traditional, in his bedroom.

I'm quite liking it so far.

Comments

Discuss

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Well, like many such discussion it all comes down to the world "should".

Take this as 'should in the opinion of the writer' and the statement is presumably true in a fairly uncontroversial way.

If meant in a kind of wider morally absolute sense it seems pretty clearly wrong. Or at least, as wrong as prescriptive absolute morality usually is, about which views differ muchly.

Re: Discuss

[venta.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I was more wondering about the idea of a basic code of human decency - and whether one existed.

I don't think you could say anything totally universal, but I was wondering to what extent it's feasible to say things like "most cultures think murdering your father or sleeping with your sister is a Bad Thing".

Re: Discuss

[uitlander]

Claiming universals is always a dodgy line of argument. Much anthropology up to the late 70's is full of them. And then a whole generation of hungry-grad students discovered deconstruction, and so the world changed...

Nonetheless, there are a few very broad themes that seem to be commonplace in many societies - the two you list are the main ones. Often such taboos are dressed up within a religious framework, but not always.

Re: Discuss

[ex-kharin447.livejournal.com]

Hmm. Rather difficult to say, if only because the exceptions tend to be rather more dramatic than the rule. Murder is certainly generally proscribed but the exceptions tend to be dramatic; the Thuggees for example or the Nizari Ismaili Order. Ancient Iceland also had rather idiosyncratic attitudes, distinguishing between killing and secret killing (the latter was far worse, the system of morality being based on codes of honour).

Re: Discuss

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Give or take a bit, I think I agree with the assertion. I believe that individual rights are the best chance we have to build a fair and functionally ethical society. As such, respecting those rights (whatever they may be - this is subject both to opinion and to variation) can constitute the "decency" in question. But again, it's about what "should" means - without specifying a basis for morality it's difficult to say what we "should" or "shouldn't" do.

Is it possible that the writer is asserting "should in the prevailing opinion of the society under discussion"? In that case it is not clear whether the assertion is true or false.