 
                         20060624.01

               Notes on various ethical issues

> It is a great puzzle to me how and why
> ANYbody can get along with anybody else.

     I think its because of assimilation.  The Greeks called
it homoiosis.  Individuals proximate to one another tend to
assume each others characteristics, language, facial
expression, behavior. And when they have become sufficiently
alike, they identify one with another, and once they identify
with each other, then it's almost unavoidable that they love
their neighbors as themselves.

> Don't forget--the next Big Topic is Sin. Or Evil, if you like.

     The threshold issue is whether whether any person's
actions are consequence of what he "wills", or whether, as
seems more plausible, the endorsement of voluntariness is
applied in retrospect if the action fits into an expected
pattern, but involuntariness if the pattern is unexpected.

     When I do what I will, I act according to a plan,
according to a habit.  Playing music is a useful and
persuasive example. I can really "do what I will."  I don't
know about you, but as for myself, I can't control my
thoughts, not to speak of controlling my actions. The
thoughts and actions appear, by themselves. When I approve, I
say to myself, "O.K. just what wanted to do." when I
disapprove I say: "Oops, sorry about that, didn't mean to do
it. It was a mistake. I did it involuntarily." So if I sin, I
do it involuntarily, not because I want to, but because of
the sort of person that I am. There's no way I can will my
way out of my predicament.  So now comes Dr Martin Luther
whom you met at Wittenberg and says, I told you so. There's
no way out except faith. Your sins are "forgiven" on account
of your faith. My problem with Luther is that he implies that
faith is a matter of choice. But if I have to choose faith,
how is that different from "willing" to have faith, from
"deciding" "to accept" Jesus; different from all the other
logical paraphernalia of do-it-yourself salvation?

von Hofmannsthal,  aristocrat and snob that he was, asserted
that you can't pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. He
claimed: "Es bleibt ein jeder der er ist." Everyone remains
the person he was to begin with. Spinoza said you don't blame
a "bad" person for being bad; you dont blame W for being
George Bush, any more than you blame a horse for not being a
man. What you do under given circumstances is determined in
large part by who you are.  It is determined also by the
situation in which you find yourself.  If I don't buy the
whisky, I won't get drunk; if I don't go to the liquor store,
I won't buy whisky; if I talk to my friend at AA, I won't go
to the liquor store, ... the chain of causes never ends.  It
is determined by my "nature" and by accident. Never by my
"will".  Turns out, I'm a behaviorist, a disciple of B.F.
Skinner after all, but only in a very limited perspective
that requires to be defined.

You'll agree that for one letter, this amount of "screed"
will suffice.  More's on the way.

> And how DOES the outsider describe a relationship, > any
relationship, after all?

It's a matter of literary technique, just as the painter
develops techniques for depicting moods or "atmosphere". I
doubt you would find it worth your while, but if ever you
were bored and ambitious and interested, I would be glad to
walk with you through one or more of the relevant chapters of
my novel Die Andere, where I tried, how successfully I can't
judge, to describe the relationship between an academic type
and his "significant other."

                      * * * * *
Copyright 2006, Ernst Jochen Meyer
