Ought Implies Can

It's beautiful here. Sunny and quite warm. And the hot tub has been working well in the evenings.

I'm also really tired because I'm baptism by fire-ing my way back into running. That's ok though. I also like thinking again. Like, thinking about school, and the stuff that I studied and in general and I just miss thinking. I like thinking, arguably much more so than doing. Which, if you ask me, thinking IS doing. It's quite active. And so is speech. But, that's not something I really feel needs to be discussed right now.

I've had a couple conversations with friends recently about practicality vs. idealism. And, they are really difficult to reconcile. And, I think, my current thought is somewhere along the lines, well let me define terms (for this post and undertaking, obv.)

idealism--slow, takes time, endeavors to be responsible (can we use the word justified? or is that too loaded?), is stereotyped as overlooking possibilities of concrete tangible change.

pragmatism--head buried in 'real' world, endeavors to employ solutions, often works quickly, attempts to alleviate concrete tangible problems, measures success by numbers (traditionally)

so, you can see my bias in my definitions. But, really, I guess the way I've attempted to reconcile the two are to take the bits of pragmatism that I like and subsume them into idealism. The parts of pragmatism I don't like, I argue against and try to simply throw away, or at least minimize their influence.

i guess it boils down to responsibility. which, i sometimes get lost with, because I think you as an agent should be responsible for everything. This gets metaphysically sticky, but I think, if you run enough circles around with it, you can still settle on "be responsible for everything". But sometimes I get lost when I try to find whence the responsibility comes.

So there's two things. And I sort of addressed them in my thesis, but. This is why I like the difference between ethics and ethical theory, because, the two things are:

What should you do? and What is should?

I don't want to go overboard with What is Should? but a thought came to me just now that I want to get down. I was reminded of Morality and Religion, a course I took sophomore year I believe from a senile old professor. I hated the course. But one motto that was hammered into my head was 'ought implies can'. Ought, obviously, being the same as should. Well, I would like to disagree. I think that's bullshit. You can definitely OUGHT to have done something even if you COULDN"T have done it. Logically and coherently, it doesn't make sense. But I don't care. i think we normally displace the responsibility to an irresponsible and non-agency possessing entity, like the world, the way things works, the universe, God, or some other third party, by saying in situations when you SHOULD of done something but COULDN'T, if things were different I COULD have done this, the this being, what you SHOULD have done.

Don't know where I really want to go with that, but I think you can have the burden of responsibility regardless of whether you have power. Yes, that's where I want to go. Responsibility and Power are NOT necessarily strolling hand in hand in the garden of Western Myth. Can we say Spiderman? With great power comes great responsibility, I mean, maybe, but great responsibility is upon those with or without power. We are all responsible. and for everything.

So perhaps at the moment, I haven't found whence this responsibility comes, but I find it everywhere and always. and I find myself called to obey. but that brings up the whole question of obedience. Must I always be obedient? Well, i suppose you could say, that at the same time that I find myself always held responsible, I am never responsible. And this supports my previous point. I CANNOT be responsible, absolutely cannot. and YET, I AM (under the burden to be) responsible. So, I always disobey.

This leaves the question whether I SHOULD strive to obey. because I can still always disobey and never try to obey, I can neuter the call of responsibility by simply not addressing it. But I suppose this is what ethics is. Ethics is striving to obey the call of responsibility.

Ok, let me get back on track. I've been through that circle a million times. but this is why I remain in favor of idealism. Because, striving to obey is ethical, that is what it means to be ethical and so, pragmatism, as I see it, is less- or in- ethical because it sacrifices the responsibility in order to implement solutions. This I think is what bothers me about pragmatism (not in a philosophical sense, but in the activist, stop talking start doing! type sense).

I realize what this means, and I am ok with it. And I realize why I'm ok with it and I'm ok with that. At least I'm pretty sure.