To: "homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org" <homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [Homestead] On Bullshit
Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 08:02:48 -0700
These are the final graphs of the review, which I feel are pertinent to our
time:
For Mr. Frankfurt, who says it has always been his ambition to move
philosophy "back to what most people think of as philosophy, which is a
concern with the problems of life and with understanding the world," the
book might be considered a successful achievement. But he finds he is still
trying to get to the bottom of things, and hasn't arrived.
"When I reread it recently," he said at home, "I was sort of disappointed.
It wasn't as good as I'd thought it was. It was a fairly superficial and
incomplete treatment of the subject."
"Why," he wondered, "do we respond to [bull] in such a different way than
we respond to lies? When we find somebody lying, we get angry, we feel
we've been betrayed or violated or insulted in some way, and the liar is
regarded as deceptive, deficient, morally at fault."
Why we are more tolerant of [bull] than lying is something Mr. Frankfurt
believes would be worth considering.
"Why is lying regarded almost as a criminal act?" he asked, while bull "is
sort of cuddly and warm? It's outside the realm of serious moral criticism.
Why is that?"