Dr. Davis,

First off, please let me say:  You're totally right.  I didn't read your first article as thouroughly as I could have.  It's a poor practice and uncharitable.  My apologies.

Also, yes, I did have an emotional reaction - the very reason that I didn't read it through a second time before I began typing.  I maintain however, that my indignity is merely at the way the rhetoric played out and not by the actual claims that you were making.  Well, except for the one about the war being about global warming, you really did lose me there.

I would submit to you, however, that even though my point of view might be crative, it is no more creative than any other - and perhps less than most.  As Wittgenstein said in relation to Moore's "Proof of the External World:" "If you do know that here is one hand, we'll grant you all the rest."  That is, all beliefs are necessarily nested.  This doesn’t mean that belief structures can’t be internally consistent though.  To this end, I think it’s very important to apply the same standards and expectations to everyone.  So, maybe I am a little hyper-rational in regards to situations like this (at least when it comes to assigning blame or responsibility).  That doesn’t necessarily make it a defense mechanism against feelings of guilt or horror or anxiety.  To be honest, I am a very anxious person (I am assuming that we’re using the Sartrian definition).

I think, upon more careful reading or both of these articles that my main objection to your argument is that it hinges on moral luck.  It may be a bit antiquated, but I am rather tied to a notion of morality or ethics which doesn’t hold the agent responsible for circumstances beyond their control.  That is, I couldn’t help but be born in the United States.  There was a system of consumerism and valuing going on before I was born, just as for someone in Iraq there was great poverty and disenfranchisement.  I have a serious aversion to thinking that these various states of affairs have moral content in themselves, but that the moral content of a life is derived from the way one interacts with the state of affairs that they find themselves in.  Or, by way of example, it would be unacceptable for me to kill someone because I was frustrated about living in a country that was poor and subjugated, especially if that person was only tangentially related to my situation.  Obviously that doesn’t mean that I might not do so, but I would still have to consider it morally wrong.  I feel that there is much to be said here about the relation of fundamentalist Islam to being poor and what that has to do with jealousy and false justification – but that hasn’t anything to do with the arguments you’ve put forward, so I’ll leave this for now.

As for the nature of knowledge to responsibility, I feel that what an agent actually knows doesn’t change his or her responsibility.   The essential question is what should one be expected to know or what is feasible for one to know.  The degree to which an agent is aware of whatever state of affairs are in question only impacts their ability to make judgments about a situation, not what the right action is.  I realize this might be a contentious point, but you raised the question and I’d feel remiss if I didn’t try to explain the point of view I’m arguing from.

I still feel strongly that you should, for both your purposes and the readers’, explicate your notions of harm and violence.  It still seems very much to me that you’re conflating these two terms.  Of course, I’m not nearly as educated and my background isn’t in English, so this could totally be my problem.

I love the fact that you used the phrase (word?) ‘ab-so-fucking-lutely.’  It’s expressive, not stodgy and really funny.  It gives me great hope that you don’t take this too personally either.

One minor note (that doesn’t really have to do with your argument):  I feel that it’s a misrepresentation of what’s going on in The Myth of Sisyphus to exchange ‘suicide’ for ‘violence.’  Camus was trying to talk about the nature of non-being and justification for life.  What’s more, given the historical context he was coming from, violence was more one of the motivation factors in his asking the question in the first place.  I’ll totally submit to the fact that I’m only making this point out of an emotional reaction.

I thought about posting all this, but I didn’t want to seem argumentative or ungrateful for the opportunity to have this little dialogue, so I leave it up to you to either post or not post any of the above as you so desire.

Lastly, and really, don’t post this:  My brother is a geologist.  One who really cares about the environment and people being good to one another and all… but he really isn’t up to the task of having a serious argument – especially one where feelings aren’t involved.  So, if he keeps posting or whatever, could you take it easy on him?

Thanks, it’s been a pleasure.
Andrew Partsch

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