(July 22, 2012 at 10:40 am)genkaus Wrote: A simple example would be S&M community where pleasure and pain are not antithetical. Its not hard to imagine other communities or species to which the principle doesn't apply either.
I see your point, however, I wonder whether the assertion does not allow for such things, for example, the masochistic example may not argue that pain and suffering are still bad but rather that they produce in the individual greater pleasure, even if by way of pain, than they do pain itself.
This left me wondering whether that was a hole in the actual theory itself or in my own appraisal of it. What I was, more specifically wondering, was whether or not this was an issue of whether or not it is not absolute or whether or not it is not appropriate for all situations. I shall explain below:
(July 22, 2012 at 10:40 am)genkaus Wrote: Ergo, we can conclude that even though it may seem absolutist, since it is based on a premise that is not always true (and can be shown to be so), it is very much contextual.
This seems to me to be a confusing issue, just because it is not universally true does this mean that I was wrong or that there is a fundamental issue in the absolute itself? For example, the S&M community may have been an iceberg issue for my evaluation or rather an issue that was overlooked by the utilitarians in supposing that the two 'sovereign masters' were binary opposites.
Religion is an attempt to answer the philosophical questions of the unphilosophical man.
