[MD] Natural Law

[skutvik at online.no]

Hi Steve 

27 July you wrote:

> Immanuel Kant wanted morality to be subject to Reason rather than the
> passions. He thought that Reason demands of us that we treat others as
> ends in themselves and never as a means to an end--that human beings
> have intrinsic value that ought to always trump any perceived
> instrumental value. 

Have you read something again Steve? Kant tried to rescue moral 
FROM reason's a-morality. The empiricists had found that there was 
no qualities, values (and consequently) morals "out there", all such 
were only  in our subjective minds and thus not real. Finding a  base 
for morals from SOM's (intellect's) premises is futile.    

> John Dewey saw Kant's categorical imperative as no more than at
> commending of our practice of considering generalizability in our moral
> deliberation. 

Dewey was as much a SOMist as Kant and  the empiricists who had 
carried the premises of Descartes to its ultimate conclusions. And D. 
was the one who had shunted SOM into its final mind/matter form. 
This is what ZAMM presentes as the abolishing of morals, so - again - 
all efforts to find a ground for moral from SOM's premises are in wain    

> Does the MOQ have the same problem as Natural Law theory in its
> utility for moral deliberation?

No , the MOQ does not have any problems with morals which is its 
very fundament. And not only regarding Natural Law, but regarding the 
whole SOM which was the disappearance of morals. This MOQ puts 
right by making its 4th. intellectual level and now we see the whole 
scenario: Morals only disappeared theoretically, intellect was still a 
moral level - underpinned by the lower moral hierarchy - it was just 
plagued by there not being a reason why mankind was moral, why 
conscience plagued an intellectual as much as a religious one. Do you 
need to bring these reams of silly questions Steve? 

Bodvar