Hi Terence

Thanks for these additional remarks – which all seem very sensible to me.

Just an added thought on the reason/emotion point. Suppose that we were able to demonstrate to amoralist, Mr A, that moral system X was not only rationally justifiable but in fact the only system that is, or could ever be, rationally justifiable. And let’s even suppose that amoralist Mr A agrees 100% with this conclusion and can find no fault whatsoever in our reasoning.

But then let’s suppose that, despite all this, Mr A informs us that he is not going to adopt moral system X but remain what he is – an amoralist. And when we ask him why, he simply says: “What has reason got to do with morality?” And he even gets a little bolshie and accuses us of making a “fetish” out of reason.

What do we do with Mr A? He's got us over a barrel, hasn't he?

(Please don’t feel you need to reply. I note that you mention you may have to leave the discussion.)

DA

PS. Glad you enjoyed my “Is aesthetics based on a mistake?” paper. One day I hope to develop the argument more fully – because I do think modern aesthetics is based on a mistake, or rather several…