by popular request :D
Lai bērniem izceltu svarīgās vietas, kuras konspektēt no Luisa esejas, kuru it kā bērni esot lasījuši (lai gan skaidrs, ka nav), šeit palīgmateriāls palīgskolnieku klasei par īpaši svarīgajām vietām + tl;dr versijas no manis, pazemīgā:

He usually has at the back of his mind the notion that if he throws over traditional judgement of value, he will find something else, something more "real" or "solid" on which to base a new scheme of values. He will say, for example, "We must abandon irrational taboos and base our values on the good of the community" - as if the maxim "Thou shalt promote the good of the community' were anything more than a polysyllabic variant of 'Do as you would be done by' which has itself no other basis than the old universal value judgement that he claims to be rejecting. Or he will endeavor to base his values on biology and tell us that we must act thus and thus for the preservation of our species. Apparently he does not anticipate the question, 'Why should the species be preserved?' He takes it for granted that it should, because he is really relying on traditional judgements of value. If he were starting, as he pretends, with a clean slate, he could never reach this principle. Sometimes he tries to do so by falling back on "instinct." "We have an instinct to preserve our species", he may say. But have we? And if we have, who told us that we must obey our instincts? And why should we obey this instinct in the teeth of many others which conflict with the preservation of the species? The reformer knows that some instincts are to be obeyed more than others only because he is judging instincts by a standard, and the standard is, once more, the traditional morality which he claims to be superseding. The instincts themselves obviously cannot furnish us with grounds for grading the instincts in a hierarchy. If you do not bring a knowledge of their comparative respectability to your study of them, you can never derive it from them.

Tu savus filozofiskos uzskatus, lai kādi tie būtu, vienmēr stādi uz aksiomas. Pat relatīvisms, lai cik tas neizklausītos paradoksāli, ir dogmatisks. Attiecībā uz visādiem humāmnismiem un utilitārismiem moderno Rietumu cilvēku variācijā vienmēr parādās aksiomas, kas jau bija sen zināmas, bet tiek pasniegtas kā kaut kas jauns un ar 'alternatīvu metodi sasniegts'.

The second proposition will bear a little illustration. Ordinary morality tells us to honour our parents and cherish our children. By taking the second precept alone you construct a Futurist Ethic in which the claim of "posterity" are the sole criterion. Ordinary morality tells us to keep promises and also to feed the hungry. By taking the second precept alone you get a Communist Ethic in which "production," and distribution of the products to the people, are the sole criteria. Ordinary morality tells us, ceteris paribus, to love our kindred and fellow citizens more than strangers. By isolating this precept you can get either an Aristocratic Ethic with the claims of our class as sole criterion, or a Racialist Ethic where no claims but those of blood are acknowledged. These monomaniac systems are then used as a ground from which to attack traditional morality; but absurdly, since it is from traditional morality alone that they derive such semblance of validity as they possess. Starting from scratch, with no assumptions about value, we could reach none of them. If reverence for parents or promises is a mere subjective by-product of physical nature, so is reverence for race or posterity. The trunk to whose root the reformer would lay the axe is the only support of the particular branch he wishes to retain.


Tu vari izraut no vienas mašīnas detālu un mēģināt iebnāzt to citā, vai vēl sliktāk, kā tas notiek mūslaikos, censties zobratu izmantot kā pielūgsmes objektu pašu par sevi. Kā t.s. cargo kulti. Tas ir tas pats, kas mēģināt ar kuvaldu iehujārīt apaļo kluci kvadrātainajā caurumiņā. Var, bet lieta būz salauzta paļubomu.