KANT!

I had a very enjoyable conversation with a nice young man yesterday about socialism and that drifted into philosophy. Regrettably, I allowed the conversation to carry for too long and my fault might have cost me a long and quiet summer. All I really wanted was to be made into a liquid Nitrogen ice cube and be placed on a beach with a tank of margaritas intravenously attached to me, hoping to be woken up when September ends.

The conversation of course reminded me of the sad state of ethics modules in university today. From my conversations with friends who had to take brief modules on ethics  regarding their specific areas of study, eg law, business, and my sad experience with medical ethics, I seen to have stumbled upon a pattern. These introductory courses, firstly never seem to teach critical thinking, and secondly, only teach Kant and Bentham. Apparently, no other philosophy is applicable to ethics, or maybe no one has heard of them. Though, in fairness, my lecturer did briefly mention Alasdair McIntyre in a one short sentence and mumbled something about his study of virtue ethics before proceeding to lovingly stuff Principlism down out throats with as much love as Charlotte had for Marat.

Of course, one then wonders, how on earth can these poor naïve students actually foster a sense of morality in their decisions when they are presented with the choice between living their live solely in pleasureless duty or to seek the greatest pleasure regardless of duty? It's not surprising then, how everyone who discusses economics, business or moral issues with me seems to limit the extent of their choices to demarcation of the fence of the law. If it's legal, it's fair game. No wonder socialism is still creeping into every nook and cranny that it can squeeze its slimy relativistic spine through.

It's also no wonder that no one thinks religious input into welfare within a country is necessary. Clearly, what the Church can do, the state can do just as well, of course, assuming that all its citizen will behave ideally. Ah, the cunning seductive sell of socialism. A perfect topic for digression in the near future, when we're all sitting at the feeding stations plotting to overthrow the oppressive middle aged nurses who control the IV foods. Well, those of us who haven't been euthanised yet, anyway. Funny, I don't hear the laughter of children anywhere in that tale. I suppose they're all to far away in state camps, being milked for whatever youth they have. It's a conspiracy I tell you!

Sadly, the conversation we had while thoroughly enjoyable was a bit circular, because the poor fellow was a bit of a skeptic on everything. Though I did give him some food for thought regarding natural law. Please say a prayer for him.