Diderot and the Encyclopædists (Vol. 1 of 2)Morley, John
History
Diderot and the Encyclopædists (Vol. 1 of 2)
Morley, John
Diderot, Denis, 1713-1784; Encyclopedists
But the artificiality of a moral acquisition is obviously no test of
its worth, nor of the reasons for preserving it. Diderot exclaims, "Ah,
madam, how different is the morality of a blind man from ours; and how
the morality of the deaf would differ from that of the blind; and if a
being should have a sense more than we have, how wofully imperfect would
he find our morality!" This is plainly a crude and erroneous way of
illustrating the important truth of the strict relativity of ethical
standards and maxims. Diderot speaks as if they were relative simply and
solely to our five wits, and would vary with them only. Everybody now
has learnt that morality depends not merely on the five wits, but on the
mental constitution within, and on the social conditions without. It is
to these rather than to the number of our senses, that moral ideas are
relative.
Passing over various other remarks, we come to those pages in the Letter
which apply the principle of relativity to the master-conception of God.
Diderot's argument on this point naturally drew keener attention than
the more disinterestedly scientific parts of his contribution. People
were not strongly agitated by the question whether a blind man who had
learned to distinguish a sphere from a cube by touch, would instantly
identify each of them if he received sight.[67]
The question whether a blind man has as good reasons for believing in
the existence of a God as a man with sight can find, was of more vivid
interest. As a matter of fact, Diderot's treatment of the narrower
question (pp. 324, etc.) is more closely coherent than his treatment of
the wider one, for the simple reason that the special limitation of
experience in the born-blind cannot fairly be made to yield any decisive
evidence on the great, the insoluble enigma.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account