I suppose this should be the subjest of a blog-of-my-own but we'll make do as a mere comment for now.
A lot of these defense of the indefensible I believe are the product of the complete inability for moral reasoning.
It's easy to know one is himself lacking in scientific literacy [do i know if the electron is positively or negatively charged? do i know it is charged? It's easy to discover somebody is geographically ignorant [What country has beaches on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans?]. But it's not so simple to observe somebody lack the ability for moral reasoning, and it certainly isnt the kind of things people will cheerfully admit as they might with something like "I've never read any Shakespeare".
Another recent example of this was this "In Defense of Barry Bonds" column by this dullard Ken Garcia (Examiner Sports columnist?).
He makes the point [sic] that Babe Ruth and Kobe Byrant were not great people but seems to miss the obvious point that thier conduct was not related to the rules of the game ... boozing is not the same as "juicing".
To take a highbrow example [see Bernard Williams: Moral Luck, or google(bernard williams paul gauguin)], the revelation Gauguin abandoned his wife and kids to go frolick in the South Seas perhaps does not need to be factored into an artistic assessment of PG, but if it turned out that he copied some obscure native artist even though painterly plagerism might be a lesser moral offense than condemning your kids to penury, it is more relevant in the art crit context.
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A lot of these defense of the indefensible I believe are the product of the complete inability for moral reasoning.
It's easy to know one is himself lacking in scientific literacy [do i know if the electron is positively or negatively charged? do i know it
is charged? It's easy to discover somebody is geographically ignorant [What country has beaches on the Atlantic and Indian Oceans?].
But it's not so simple to observe somebody lack the ability for moral reasoning, and it certainly isnt the kind of things people will cheerfully admit as they might with something like "I've never read any Shakespeare".
Another recent example of this was this
"In Defense of Barry Bonds" column
by this dullard Ken Garcia (Examiner
Sports columnist?).
He makes the point [sic] that Babe Ruth and Kobe Byrant were not great people but seems to miss the obvious point that thier conduct was not related to the rules of the game ...
boozing is not the same as "juicing".
To take a highbrow example [see Bernard Williams: Moral Luck, or
google(bernard williams paul gauguin)], the revelation Gauguin abandoned his wife and kids to go frolick in the South Seas perhaps does not need to be factored into an artistic assessment of PG, but if it turned out that he copied some obscure native artist even though painterly plagerism might be a lesser moral offense than condemning your kids to penury, it is more relevant in the art crit context.
--psb