[Mitch Muncy 02/23 02:15 PM]Here’s another question: Why can’t a moral challenge be brought without someone whining about people “trying to dictate personal decisions”, etc., etc.?
First of all, there is simply no such thing as a “personal decision without a moral component”. Acts considered in themselves can be morally neutral (Should men live in NYC or Greenville, Texas?), but a person always has reasons for committing a certain act, otherwise he would not be moved to commit it. The moral coherence of those reasons can be evaluated (I’m moving to NYC to be with my sick mother; I’m moving to NYC to get away from my sick mother).
I don’t like it when people critique my choices, and maybe in any particular instance it’s none of their business, but if you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen.
In any case, Rod has said about fifty times on this blog alone that he’s proposing the cultivation of a certain sensibility, not a political or religious program. No one has said anything, for instance, about passing laws to make anyone do anything. And as I implied earlier, it is, as one of my acquaintances has put it, “operationally self-contradictory” to assert that challenging certain conduct or ways of thinking is in itself evidence of a lack of respect for others’ freedom, at whatever “level”.
