Comments on: Transvaluation of Values Watch

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 05:06:27 +0000

Thanks for the list, Patrick, and to Mike for isolating some of the issues here. I think 1 and 2 are big problems–though libertarians would likely say (re 2) that if exclusion isn’t done on the basis of appearance, it might just be done on some other grounds.

The main worry I have is over a “ratchet” effect of new technologies of appearance-enhancement, which essentially dictate their use. Even something as seemingly harmless as high-heels can have many unintended health consequences:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/

wp-dyn/content/graphic/2007/05/07/GR2007050700484.html

By: Mike O'Shea

Mike O'Shea — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 02:42:45 +0000

As I think about it, using the traditional seven, problem (1) would go more to the sin of lust (occasioning of lust?), while (2) is more centrally to do with pride (with accompanying risks of envy and wrath).

By: Mike O'Shea

Mike O'Shea — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 01:34:51 +0000

Dropping long lists of names is also a potential source of spiritual fulfillment!

As for vanity and young girls: there are two issues, right? (1) the sexualization of girls’ appearance at younger and younger ages. (2) the role that fashionable cosmetics and clothes play in in-group exclusiveness among girls (and sometimes boys).

While the refrains about how strikingly secular and morally pluralistic “we’ve” all become tend to be overplayed (roll through a red state suburb on Sunday sometime), it is true that contemporary Americans might see (1) as a problem but not (2), or vice versa, or neither.

Though a non-parent myself, my sense from peers with kids is that most of them worry about both (1) and (2).

By: Patrick S. O'Donnell

Patrick S. O'Donnell — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 00:27:57 +0000

Although a secular age, we have unprecedented access to spiritual classics from the world’s major religious traditions (without implying a penchant for New Age narcissism nor the desire to be ‘comparatively religious’), with folks like Huston Smith, Karl Potter, Ninian Smart, Roger Ames, Henry Rosemont, Jr., Oliver Leaman, and Annemarie Schimmel (among others), to guide us.

And, fortunately, we have recourse to ethically and/or spiritually oriented works with philosophical integrity by the likes of Martha Nussbaum, Peter Goldie, Joel Kupperman, John Cottingham, Michael McGhee, Richard Sorabji, Pierre Hadot, Herbert Fingarette, Iris Murdoch, David Velleman, Jonathan Lear, Rosalind Hursthouse, Julia Annas, John Haldane, and Onora O’Neill (again, among others).

Or we could read some poetry by Kenneth Rexroth, or Gary Snyder, or translations by Red Pine, or….