http://athenian-abroad.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] athenian-abroad.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] qos 2007-09-30 07:38 pm (UTC)

This reminds me a bit of the position of the Unitarian Universalists (UUs).

As it's been explained to me (by a UU member), when the "merger" between the Unitarians and the Universalists was arranged, the decision was made to retain only the dogma and doctrine common to both denominations. And as it turned out, there wasn't any. Which means that, officially, the UU's have no official beliefs, only official values. Any beliefs consistent with those values are welcome.

I've always been fascinated with the idea of taking values as logically prior to beliefs -- reasoning from what we take to be good to what we take to be true -- partly because it's the opposite of the "standard" direction (i.e. it's susceptible to the charge of being rationalization rather than rationale), but also because I suspect that it's more in line with how human moral reasoning really works (regardless of how we say it works).


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