In deciding how much trust to put in a gut reaction, be it individual, or the group one a custom like this represents, motivation does matter.

Those who feel otherwise have a knack for buying swampland in Florida, or gold chains from street vendors downtown, and we feel no need to study the wisdom of fools in greater depth. Those who do, are invited to be elsewhere. Openness is what is sought, and openness is what is crushed by this ethic. As, equally, it is crushed by the ethic on the opposite extreme, that holds it proper to respond to a reasoned argument (as opposed to the offering of a gut reaction) with commentary about hidden motivations, in lieu of coherent counterargument.

To say that some license to question motivation is good, does not imply that more must be better. Oddly enough, one now will encounter many who will argue that "either something is right, or it isn't", meaning that they reject any conception of a middle ground, as if it were logically untenable. A standard excuse, is that there is no rigorous way to tell where the ideal middle ground is, if one accepts this notion. But what, aside from wishful thinking, makes them so sure that there is a rigorous, and certain way of finding the ideal set of rules or judgments?

How amusingly bizarre, that extremism has come to be seen as a necessary condition for reasonability, in so many social circles. This will not be one of them. We will accept fallibility, as an inescapable reality of life, and common sense as a fallible tool, that we examine, and improve over time - but know we can't get by without.

This seems a contradiction, only if one expects one's ultimate position on an issue to be found reliably on first examination, rather than something that merely exists in potential, approached through a series of intermediate positions, each formed through reflection upon the successes and failures of the last. None of these being expected to reflect that final and comprehensive truth that lies beyond our grasp, but merely a closer approximation to it.

Whether we like the notion that final truth is unattainable, is beside the point. To know the ideal code of behavior, in perfect detail, with absolute certainty, would call for a complete understanding of the natures of all in one's presence, including oneself, and even the latter is impossible. To discern one's own entire nature, would take a great length of time. During this time, one will have a reaction to each insight one gains about oneself, and that reaction will become part of one. The observation changes the observer, who is the subject of observation. This means that not only is any picture one has of oneself obsolete, by the time one has it, but it can not even be a snapshot as one was, at a particular time. It is a collage of details about one's nature, at a number of different times which, taken together, describe a you that, precisely speaking, never was.

With others, the question is, just how much information do you need to completely describe another? How long would it take to gather that information, at the rate external observation is capable of making it available to you? How much is the one observed changing during this time, and reacting to one's reactions to him? And, even if one has an encyclopedic description of another's psyche, could one even assimilate all of that information, much less analyse it?

I think, that on examination, you'll have to agree that the answer is "no", and given this, the ambition of achieving that perfect system, that some think of as the acceptance of reason, is a futile one. Fallibility is an inescapable consequence of the limitations of our vantage points.

Some will react to this, and say, "OK, you never know if you're right. So, why not respect that you have your opinion, and the other guy has his, and that one is as valid as another?" In effect, if we look at the course of behavior required, to win approval under this point of view, we are asked why we don't embrace an "anything goes" system. But not to decide, is to decide, as the saying goes. You can not help but adopt a course of action, even if that course consists of you doing nothing, and you can have no more certainty that inaction will be the right course, than you did that a particular series of actions was.

So, why is inaction not being held to the same standard that action was? In claiming to deeply embrace the reality of our own inescapable fallibility, ironically, the questioner is trying to escape it, and construct a course of action that he can be certain, will be the right one - namely, that of utter passivity. But, as we've seen, to seek such certainty, is to chase a mirage.

We will choose to make our fallible judgements, because no other options exist.

Continuing on to other points, now ...