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> [moral relativism is] not that a difficult idea Eg Aristotle (ca 300BC): Some people think that all rules of justice are merely conventional, because whereas

> [moral relativism is] not that a difficult idea Eg Aristotle (ca 300BC): Some people think that all rules of justice are merely conventional, because whereas a law of nature is immutable and has the same validity everywhere, as fire burns both here and in Persia, rules of justice are seen to vary. I'd guess it was common over the last 10k years for educated and/or travelled people to be aware that their neighbours had different* dogmas, and in pre-colonial times (when it was far more likely that these neighbours were similarly located on the tech tree) the parochialism of colonialists ("Whatever happens, we have got / The Maxim gun, and they have not.") would not have been as facile. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0054%3Abekker%20page%3D1134b http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%... * Tacitus seems to have written De origine et situ Germanorum partly as an objective description of germans, and partly as a subjective reproach of his Roman compatriots; during the XIX (which established many of the tropes we've inherited as "common knowledge") the germans flipped this around: germans and french were in superpower conflict, and as the french —with a significant advantage in language— had laid claim to inheriting the (centralised) Roman tradition, the germans retorted by digging up all the old arguments the (decentralised) greeks had made along the lines of "maybe the Romans have all the money, but we've got all the culture". (cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Johst#Schlageter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Johst#Schlageter ; τὰ πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει )

js8 2y ago
> > [moral relativism is] not that a difficult idea Actually I mean moral universalism here, but thanks for your comment.
- 082349872349872 2y ago
  My bad. For moral universalism, how about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism#Non-violence_(ahimsa) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism#Non-violence_(ahimsa) for an older example? (although their protected class is a bit wider than humanity) Looks like it goes back a ways, either infinitely (if you ask the Jains) or at least thousands of years (if you ask current historians), but both agree to further back than the Age of Pisces covered by Brin's essay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parshvanatha#Historicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parshvanatha#Historicity
  - kragen 2y ago
    my lagniappe for you today is 兼愛 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mohism/#inclusive https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mohism/#inclusive which probably you are familiar with but have forgotten
    - 082349872349872 2y ago
      thanks for the anamnemetic reminder! according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gods_in_the_Investiture_of_the_Gods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gods_in_the_Investitur... the list of gods (姜太公封神——漏了自己) came via working group from the 3 (three) religions, which doesn't seem to leave much room for Mohism, but on the other hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gods_in_the_Investiture_of_the_Gods#The_missing_names_in_the_list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gods_in_the_Investitur... suggests that as we can't be sure the list itself hasn't been tampered with, we certainly oughtn't be confident of its provenance. confirmed: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/封神榜三百六十五位正神#封神榜缺失问题 https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/封神榜三百六十五位正神#封神榜缺失问题 (but unless I'm missing something, no ecumenical wg mentioned in the zh. article)
      - kragen 2y ago
        happy to help! 封神演義 is from the 大明 though, 2000 years after 秦始皇 supposedly performed the 焚書坑儒 and did in fact exterminate 墨家; even if 許仲琳 was concerned with strict historical accuracy, he had no mohists to consult, and even 墨子 himself, if he existed, would have postdated the god-making event of the book anyway by nearly an entire dynasty
        082349872349872 2y ago
        TIL; good thing I'm not around in the times of 李斯 or I'd have to give up bad habits like using history to criticise the present, and stick to allusions related to agriculture and forestry instead? [divination sounds like a good out: in actually technical subjects, there'd always be a tension involved in keeping the cover reading halfway coherent, but divination books sound like they'd be amenable to running at nearly full channel capacity: that which is bright rises twice.] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mohism/#historical https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mohism/#historical makes it sound very much like they were out and out geeks: > The philosophy of language, epistemology, metaphysics, and science of the later Mohist Canons were recorded in difficult, dense texts that would have been nearly unintelligible to most readers ... The Mohists helped to articulate much of the framework of classical Chinese philosophical discourse while advocating a way of life so at odds with most people’s conception of the good life that it stood little chance of ever inspiring a wide following.

js8 2y ago

> > [moral relativism is] not that a difficult idea Actually I mean moral universalism here, but thanks for your comment.

082349872349872 2y ago
My bad. For moral universalism, how about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism#Non-violence_(ahimsa) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jainism#Non-violence_(ahimsa) for an older example? (although their protected class is a bit wider than humanity) Looks like it goes back a ways, either infinitely (if you ask the Jains) or at least thousands of years (if you ask current historians), but both agree to further back than the Age of Pisces covered by Brin's essay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parshvanatha#Historicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parshvanatha#Historicity
- kragen 2y ago
  my lagniappe for you today is 兼愛 https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mohism/#inclusive https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mohism/#inclusive which probably you are familiar with but have forgotten
  - 082349872349872 2y ago
    thanks for the anamnemetic reminder! according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gods_in_the_Investiture_of_the_Gods https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gods_in_the_Investitur... the list of gods (姜太公封神——漏了自己) came via working group from the 3 (three) religions, which doesn't seem to leave much room for Mohism, but on the other hand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gods_in_the_Investiture_of_the_Gods#The_missing_names_in_the_list https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_gods_in_the_Investitur... suggests that as we can't be sure the list itself hasn't been tampered with, we certainly oughtn't be confident of its provenance. confirmed: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/封神榜三百六十五位正神#封神榜缺失问题 https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/封神榜三百六十五位正神#封神榜缺失问题 (but unless I'm missing something, no ecumenical wg mentioned in the zh. article)
    - kragen 2y ago
      happy to help! 封神演義 is from the 大明 though, 2000 years after 秦始皇 supposedly performed the 焚書坑儒 and did in fact exterminate 墨家; even if 許仲琳 was concerned with strict historical accuracy, he had no mohists to consult, and even 墨子 himself, if he existed, would have postdated the god-making event of the book anyway by nearly an entire dynasty
      - 082349872349872 2y ago
        TIL; good thing I'm not around in the times of 李斯 or I'd have to give up bad habits like using history to criticise the present, and stick to allusions related to agriculture and forestry instead? [divination sounds like a good out: in actually technical subjects, there'd always be a tension involved in keeping the cover reading halfway coherent, but divination books sound like they'd be amenable to running at nearly full channel capacity: that which is bright rises twice.] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mohism/#historical https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mohism/#historical makes it sound very much like they were out and out geeks: > The philosophy of language, epistemology, metaphysics, and science of the later Mohist Canons were recorded in difficult, dense texts that would have been nearly unintelligible to most readers ... The Mohists helped to articulate much of the framework of classical Chinese philosophical discourse while advocating a way of life so at odds with most people’s conception of the good life that it stood little chance of ever inspiring a wide following.