{"id":4216,"date":"2018-09-22T13:42:20","date_gmt":"2018-09-22T13:42:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/09\/22\/more-grist-for-the-moral-mill\/"},"modified":"2018-09-22T13:42:20","modified_gmt":"2018-09-22T13:42:20","slug":"more-grist-for-the-moral-mill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2018\/09\/22\/more-grist-for-the-moral-mill\/","title":{"rendered":"More Grist for the Moral Mill"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you tell one lie, are you a liar? I should think not. A liar is one who habitually lies. Otherwise, we would all be liars and the term 'liar' would perish from lack of contrast.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you have been seriously drunk a time or two, are you a drunkard? I should think not. A drunkard is one who habitually gets drunk. Otherwise we would damn near all be drunkards, and the term 'drunkard' would perish from lack of contrast.<\/span><\/p>\n

This rumination is iterable across thief<\/em>, lecher<\/em>, glutton<\/em> and other terms of moral disapprobation.<\/span><\/p>\n

But if a man commits murder just one time, we call him a murderer and we feel justified in so doing. We would find it ridiculous were he to complain, "I shot man in Reno<\/a> just to watch him die, but I am no murderer; a murderer is  one who regularly and habitually does the deed."<\/span><\/p>\n

How about rape? Does one rape a rapist make?  I think we would say yes.<\/span><\/p>\n

So what is the difference between murder and rape and the other cases? The gravity of the crimes would seem to be one factor and the relative rarity another.<\/span><\/p>\n

More grist for the mill.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is not easy to think clearly and deeply about moral questions. Few even try.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you tell one lie, are you a liar? I should think not. A liar is one who habitually lies. Otherwise, we would all be liars and the term 'liar' would perish from lack of contrast. If you have been seriously drunk a time or two, are you a drunkard? I should think not. A … Continue reading “More Grist for the Moral Mill”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,60,6,247],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-contrast-arguments","category-ethics","category-language-matters","category-questions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}