tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948420587779787298.post7349722884896143952..comments2023-06-16T05:25:55.741-07:00Comments on Elliptica: Have I succumbed to relativism? Nope.Lynethttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06357023675142716573noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948420587779787298.post-61462192382575406102007-04-18T15:42:00.000-07:002007-04-18T15:42:00.000-07:00[P]ostulates made for the sake of sanity generally...<I>[P]ostulates made for the sake of sanity generally have negative consequences in any case....For example, take "I can really trust that person." If I delude myself and tell myself that about someone who I shouldn't trust, I'll generally get hurt when she breaks my trust.</I><BR/><BR/>I guess one good reason for distingushing between something you believe because you have good evidence and something you believe in order to make life easier is that you can choose when to make <I>decisions</I> based on the latter!<BR/><BR/>Doing so when the consequences of being wrong are potentially damaging to yourself is a matter of balancing the good done to you by the belief and the risk involved. For example, you might choose to trust that your lover is not cheating on you on grounds that worrying about that sort of thing will stop you from enjoying a potentially beautiful relationship. That amounts to taking a risk in the hope that you will gain thereby. I'm not saying it would always be justified, or that I would make that choice myself, but it's understandable and possibly even reasonable in some circumstances, depending on your personality.<BR/><BR/>On the other hand, choosing to take action that could hurt someone else based on a postulate-for-the-sake-of-comfort strikes me as morally reprehensible. Stopping homosexual couples from marrying because it comforts you to rationalise your dislike for gay people by saying that what they do is immoral isn't a choice that anyone has a right to make.Lynethttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06357023675142716573noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1948420587779787298.post-38519753300220806432007-04-18T12:11:00.000-07:002007-04-18T12:11:00.000-07:00I suppose that religious postulates are still pret...I suppose that religious postulates are still pretty important for the sake of sanity... but nobody is going to think in those terms because it won't make any religion look good ("I'm an Orthodox Jew because for the sake of sanity I need people to tell me what to eat").<BR/><BR/>On the other hand, postulates made for the sake of sanity generally have negative consequences in any case. The exceptions are mostly postulates that are irrelevant to your daily life, whose political analogy is an issue that nobody or hardly anybody cares about.<BR/><BR/>For example, take "I can really trust that person." If I delude myself and tell myself that about someone who I shouldn't trust, I'll generally get hurt when she breaks my trust. The same applies to "She really loves me," or "I'm going to succeed in this no matter what," or "He's basically a good person."Alon Levyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12195377309045184452noreply@blogger.com