{"id":41,"date":"2005-03-05T22:40:52","date_gmt":"2005-03-05T22:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/phlogma.com\/?p=41"},"modified":"2006-02-25T14:09:31","modified_gmt":"2006-02-25T22:09:31","slug":"bad-bad-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/general\/bad-bad-thing-41","title":{"rendered":"Bad, bad thing…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Revulsion is not an argument; and some of yesterday’s repugnances are today calmly accepted\t\u2014though, one must add, not always for the better. In crucial cases, however, repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power fully to articulate it. Can anyone really give an argument fully adequate to the horror which is father-daughter incest (even with consent), or having sex with animals, or mutilating a corpse, or eating human flesh, or even just (just!) raping or murdering another human being?<\/p>\n

[Leon R. Kass, &#8220The Wisdom of Repugnance”<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I am deeply revolted\t\u2014more so than by any <\/em>of these things\t\u2014by stupidity in conjunction with political power<\/em>. Words fail me to describe the depth of my disgust at this phenomenon. It is not just the pain and sadness of the things Kass lists\t\u2014rape, murder, etc. That too, but there is, over and above, a sickly feeling that robs hope of all foundation forever and ever. I simply cannot fathom how it is most people don\u2019t share with me the depth of my repugnance with stupidity. One of the more insidious forms stupidity takes is, ironically, the notion of collective<\/em> repugnance: the idea that masses of people can feel<\/em> in unison. I have the sneaking suspicion that even if vast numbers shared <\/em>my aversion to stupidity I would be no less repulsed <\/em>by that!<\/p>\n

And to think Kass made these remarks only to show how appalled we must all be at human cloning. I guess I am appalled, too. As if the normal method of reproducing stupidity had shown itself inadequate. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Revulsion is not an argument; and some of yesterday’s repugnances are today calmly accepted \u2014though, one must add, not always for the better. In crucial cases, however, repugnance is the emotional expression of deep wisdom, beyond reason’s power fully to articulate it. Can anyone really give an argument fully adequate to the horror which is … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Bad, bad thing…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,13,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-moral-feeling","category-moral-theory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aporia.net\/phlogma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}