virus: Normativity

KMO (kmo@amazon.com)
Mon, 30 Jun 1997 10:25:01 -0700


In my experience, the toughest job in constructing or justifying any
ehtical system is establishing the moral value of your basic
principles. It seems you must accept SOMETHING without justification,
and then you can build and justify your entire ethical framework on that
foundation. (Any Kantians on the list will disagree. That's fine. I
think Kant's catagorical imperative provides a pretty vague moral
compass(the formulation of it that really does rest on nothing but the
dictates of pure reason), but YMMV.).

I have accepted consciousness, compassion, and creativity (really
'novelty' but I want something that starts with 'c') as having moral
value. I take these things to be good in and of themselves. I cannot
justify this position. It is something I accept "on faith" if you will.

My long-term project is the propagation of the C Memetic-Complex. It's
a blend of the philosophy of mind articulated by writers like Dennett
and Fodor, Buddism, Memetics (and a generally Darwinian approach to
cultural) and comics. Images are as important as words to the C-plex.
Like the CoV it's an evolving structure. In the near term, my
propagation strategy involves comics. When I do get back into this list
in earnist, you'll hear a lot more about it. You can find the incipient
manifestation of the C-Plex http://www.c-realm.com . I suspect most of
you have seen what little is there. There will be more. Take care.
-KMO