Polar Concepts :: essays research papers

<a href="http//www.geocities.com/vaksam/">Sam Vaknins Psychology, Philosophy, Economics and Foreign Affairs Web SitesThe British philosopher Ryle attacked the sceptical point of view regarding right and wrong (=being in error). He give tongue to that if the concept of error is made use of surely, there must be times that we are right. To him, it was impossible to conceive of the one without the other. He regarded right and wrong as polar concepts. One could not be understood without dread the other. As it were, Ryle barked up the wrong sceptic tree. All the sceptics said was that one cannot know (or prove) that one is in the right or when one is in the right. They, largely, did not dispute the very existence of right and erroneous decisions, acts and facts. plainly this disputation ignored a more basic question. Can we really not understand or know the right without as intimately understanding and knowing the wrong? To know a good object must we contrast it with an evil one? Is the action of contrasting essential to our understanding and, if it is, how? speculate a mutant newborn. While in possession of a mastery of all lingual faculties the baby will have no experience whatever and will have received no ethical or moral guidelines from his adult environment. If such a newborn were to be offered food, a smile, a snuggling hand, attention would he not have identified them as good, even if these constituted his whole universe of experience? Moreover, if he were to witness war, death, personnel and abuse would he have not recoiled and judged them to be bad? Many would hurl at me the biblical adage about the intrinsic evilness of humans. notwithstanding this is beside the point. Whether this infants world of values and value judgement will conform to societys is an irrelevant question to us. We ask would such an infant consistently think of certain acts and objects as good (desired, beneficial) even if he were never to come across anothe r set of acts and objects which he could contrast with the graduation exercise and call bad or evil. I think so. Imagine that the infant is confined to the basic functions eating and playing. Is there any possibility that he would judge them to be bad? Never. Not even if he were never to do anything else but eat and play.