Dennis, Peter.
I had to look this up, Categorical Imperative. Found in my "The American
Colege Dictionary":
1. Ethics, the rule of Immanuel Kant that one must only do what he can
will that all others should do under similar circumstances.
2. The unconditional command of conscience.
Those circumstances include all a person's mental makeup as developed
from genes and the influences of home, family, playmates, schools,
acquaintances, media.
Ran into a striking example many years ago. Nepotism is frowned upon in
western society, but in at least one other society it is considered
highly unscrupulous not to offer a job to one's relatives first.
This said, we can manage our way through life on a fairly common,
operational understandings of what is right and wrong, what doesn't or
does harm others.
My wandering thoughts of last Monday's post in this thread were much the
result of trying to come to terms of one of the books I bought about
markup languages. Besides the author, the publisher (Que, a division of
Macmillan) lists the names of 16 people on their staff, all involved in
making the book. These include an acquisitions editor, a development
editor, a managing editor, a project editor, a copy editor, two
indexers, two proofreaders, three technical editors, a team cordinator,
two designers, and a production person. Yet just about everything that
can be wrong with a book is wrong with this one. Erroneous and
contradictoray information, captions separated from the corresponding
graphics by lines of text, poior typography, poor examples, badly
written explanations, poor grammar (what are all those editors doing
there, anyway?). A real drag.
The cover quotes a member of the W3C: "... an excellent foundation for
using this critical technology and also explains the advanced
capabilities of XHTML that anyone can understand...." Well, anyone but
me. (Assuming the author is an expert on the topic, I am still trying to
learn from the book. Foolhardy?)
The book invites readers, "Tell Us What You Think!" I emailed a couple
of examples of what is seriously wrong with the book. The publisher did
not bother to respond to them. What else is new?
Aggravationssuch as these are commonplace. They use up time and energy.
I consider it a form of theft. But then again, others may feel this is
perfectly acceptable. Afterall, has it not been said from time
immemorial: Let the buyer beware.
Henry
"Dennis E. Hamilton" wrote
> Thanks for this. I am often too slow in being suspicious of theses
> that aren't based on recognition and ownership of (and compassion for)
> the prospect that we are all alike. The Categorical Imperative is a
> great place to stand in reviewing my own arguments! Etc.
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