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Part 3. The Woman and the Man
Continuation from #2:
(SG)
Next comes the man whose crime is incoherency.
(desertrat)
Incoherency a crime? You mean, whose only VICE is incoherency, a vice you too
seem to possess, that is, if we can both agree that incoherency is a vice. (see
Re #2)
(SG)
That is, he has not taken the time or trouble to construct a coherent and
rational system of ethics and morals for himself.
(desertrat)
Says you! I bet that without reading into it, the best you can say is that his
values are different from yours and therefore his reasoning and coherency
cannot be said to be better or worse than your own. But putting that aside and
actually reading stuff into it as you have, I bet I can explain his actions as
being derived from a coherent system of moral values.
(SG)
He is like most people in this respect. He does not know what he believes in,
or why.
(desertrat)
Or like most "intellectuals" who "know" what they believe is "right."
(SG)
He claims to 'love' the woman, but does not know what this means.
(desertrat)
And, presumably, you do.
(SG)
If something goes wrong, then he just jerks in response and ditches her. His
crime is ignorance and laziness.
(desertrat)
Easy for you to say from your moral high horse. Who says he hasn't taken the
trouble to read about morals and ethics. It's possible he talks to his priest
at length at least once a week. He may believe very strongly that a woman
should be faithful to a man and visa versa. He may even believe that she should
be hanged or burned but realizing that this would be a crime, he refrains. Who
are you to say he doesn't know what love means? His response may be very
premeditated and deliberate. It may be that he's been afraid of this kind of
thing for some time and breaks off the relationship very reluctantly. He has
committed no crime, at worst his vice is ignorance and since it's been said
that ignorance is bliss, we can't objectively say that ignorance isn't a
virtue. At best there are those who would consider his actions virtuous.
Again, the only rational determination we can make without betraying any
prejudice is that he is the moral equal of the stranger and the boatman.
Personally, and I'm being subjective myself betraying my own moral system of
values, I'd think the guy would be flattered that the woman wanted to be with
him so much that she had sex with the stranger to pay for the fare, which I
would assume she wouldn't have done otherwise.
Furthermore, I would think the guy would be pleased that the woman wasn't
missing out on sex, which I regard as a highly pleasurable and valuable
experience, in his absence. Who knows, maybe she could learn something from
this stranger that would make the reunion all the more pleasant.
(SG)
There is actually a missing piece of information in the puzzle, I feel. I need
to know if the woman is acting rationally when she sleeps with the stranger. I
have assumed that she is. We need to know this in order to determine the man's
morality.
(desertrat)
Incoherency alert! Are we now going to attempt to judge the morals of the man
based upon the morals of the woman?
(SG)
Imagine, for example, that...
(desertrat)
Read: "Read into the story, for example, that..."
(SG)
...the man had said just last week to the lady: "Darling, I love you and I want
us always to be together. However, I am a strictly monogamous person and expect
you to be also. If you are ever unfaithful, then it will be the end of the
relationship. Sorry, but that's the way I am. That is what I believe. I want
you to know this, in advance. "Well then, the man would soar straight to the
number one 'completely guiltless' spot because he is acting exactly in
accordance with his previously stated ethics.
(desertrat)
But since this must be assumed, we can also assume that all of the other
characters are acting according to their previously stated ethics. If we can
assume he did not say this, we can assume that none of the other characters
made any previous statements about ethics. They are all morally equal, though
subjectively we can easily determine whose morals are closest to our own and
rank them relative to ourselves.
(SG)
If this were the case, the woman would be acting irrationally in sleeping with
the stranger.
(desertrat)
Unless, of course, she had said that she had no intention of trying to be
monogamous and the two had parted to opposite sides of the river each hoping
that the other would somehow examine their moral values deeper and change for
the benefit of the love which might supposedly be more valuable.
(SG)
She would be sleeping with him knowing that it would almost certainly end the
relationship with the man. So, we assume they never had such a conversation and
that the woman is acting rationally in the belief that even if the man found
out, his love would be strong enough to win through this difficulty.
Ignorance is always a less serious crime...
(desertrat)
Please, ignorance is not a crime. We don't have jails big enough for that.
(SG)
...than willful evasion or compromise of your ethics,...
(desertrat)
Ignorance and especially willful ignorance can be thought of as a vice, though,
as I said earlier, some hold that ignorance is bliss and they may well be
right.
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"For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth
sorrow."
-- The Preacher.
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But let me say a word about the virtue of changing one's ethics, which you
evidently consider to be a vice. Would you not, under different circumstances
such as when a man hates the members of another race, consider it a virtue if
he "compromised" his ethics and came to like the other man? This is because
from your subjective point of view, it appears to be virtuous when a man whose
ethics are at variance with yours compromises them to be more like your own
just as it would be a vice in your opinion if someone with whom you shared
similar moral values "compromised" his ethics and began engaging in an activity
you consider to be vicious.
(SG)
...and this is what makes the woman slightly worse than the man.
(desertrat)
Go figure. Again, they are morally equal unless viewed subjectively.
(SG)
Again we have to make a small assumption. We must assume that she didn't want
to sleep with the stranger, and does not make a habit of just sleeping with
anyone who offers $100. Incidentally, why would this be 'bad' for a woman or a
prostitute for that matter?
(desertrat)
And now you're going to tell all of us?
(SG)
Because sex is a very intimate thing, closely allied to the finest human
emotion of love.
(desertrat)
Crazy Belief alert!
(SG)
It should not be given away or sold
(desertrat)
But I suppose purchasing it is entirely different. Why else would you place the
woman near the bottom and the stranger on the top?
(SG)
because the loss of that intimate part of you (your body and a part of your
mind) cannot be compensated for by receiving $100, or even $1,000 for that
matter.
(desertrat)
I would think that's for the individual to decide based on his or her crazy
beliefs and not necessarily your own.
(SG)
Prostitutes, like alcoholics, drug addicts, etc., can only continue because
they have deliberately numbed themselves to these realities. This is known as
evasion.
(desertrat)
And what of the prostitutes customers? What of the man who sells alcohol or
drugs? Do these people have to numb themselves to the realities that, for
example, they are contributing to the deprivation of the prostitute or they
could be selling a drug that another person might be "misusing?" Is this also
evasion?
Did you know, before the white man corrupted the native hawaiians it used to be
customary for male visitors to sleep with one of the wives or daughters of the
head of the household. What about the geishas of Japan? Many american indian
tribes used to encourage young men and women to experiment sexually. It was
customary in ancient greece for older men to have young male lovers/students.
They didn't have to numb themselves, they just had to be born in ancient greece
or prehistoric hawaii. It was not a vice and certainly not a crime.
By the way, does the man have to numb himself to pay $100 for sex? Why did you
rank the stranger so high and the woman so low if you were trying to be
coherent? What if it had been a man who wanted to cross the river to be with
the girlfriend he loved and to earn the fare he had sex for $100 with a
stranger, male OR female? If its the reasonableness of monogamy that your using
to judge the woman so harshly then shouldn't you also rank the stranger very
low, in fact, lower since he knew this woman was spoken for before he made the
offer?
I'm curious as to how you can reason any coherency out of this without
introducing "crazy" beliefs or any kind of beliefs, for that matter.
Furthermore, why must we assume that the woman doesn't just go around sleeping
with other men especially when offered money? Does it make her any worse of a
human being to sleep with other men just because she likes it as opposed to
sleeping with other men only because of some higher value, viz., being reunited
with her boyfriend?
(SG)
So the woman is worse than the man because she deliberately sacrifices a value.
She willingly destroys or ignores her own ethics.
(desertrat)
Subject, of course, to her moral values being the same as yours. You are
judging her subjectively. You may be coherent according to your own system of
moral values, though I don't believe you have thought all the matters through
as thoroughly as you believe, but the best you can really say objectively is
that you and she and all the rest of the characters and everyone in the world,
for that matter, are on equal moral ground so long as no one trespasses the
limitations of legal duty and obligation.
She only "sacrifices" for a lower value in your opinion.
(SG)
For what? Certainly not some 'higher' ethic or value.
(desertrat)
Again, disregarding all of the assumptions that have so far been woven into
this story, the only thing that can be deduced is that the woman weighed the
cost of crossing the river against the value of being reunited with her
boyfriend and decided that on the whole, it was worth more to her to sleep with
the stranger and be reunited with her boyfriend than not sleep with the
stranger and not be reunited with her boyfriend.
And who knows but that she enjoys having sex with strangers. She got to cross
the river and be reunited with her boyfriend and had sex with a stranger to
boot. The only thing she might regret is that the boatman "cheated" her out of
the profits she made by having sex with the stranger.
(SG)
She did not do this to save her drowning infant son. This would have been
acceptable.
(desertrat)
Not acceptable if done for any reasons inconsistent with your moral values in
your opinion.
(SG)
If forced, it is acceptable to sacrifice a lower ethic to a higher, but not the
other way around.
(desertrat)
Bullshit alert!
Forced?! How can you be forced to sacrifice a lower ethic to a higher? Do you
mean something like the proverbial choice between two evils? Why should this be
any different between a proverbial choice between to "goods?" You weigh all of
your options. You choose the one which promises to bring the greatest amount of
happiness or at least minimize the unhappiness. Where is this force coming
from? For that matter, what is a "higher ethic" and a "lower ethic?"
If "higher ethic" means greater value and "lower ethic" means lesser value,
then you're saying it is acceptible to "sacrifice" a lesser value for a greater
value.
Duh.
And this only if you are "forced?"
Please clarify. I'm curious. I must have missed something.
(SG)
Finally comes the 'friend'.
Part 4. The Friend
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