Comment on The Amazing Virgin Pregnancy

Sat, 30 Apr 2011 12:16:58 GMT

The person I was contending with is a moral realist, who would say that the function which represents those rules, the rules under which we play chess now, is the correct set of rules, and that this correctness is objective and independent of the minds of chess players.

I explained the point I was making and that wasn't it: The point was what obligation/compulsion means. It doesn't mean it is physically impossible to do what is morally forbidden. It doesn't mean it is an edict you will be punished for disobeying. It does mean that it is logically impossible to be moral (or rational or a chess player) after having significantly departed from the rules.

This person would, I presume, argue that if suddenly every chess player in the world at the same time agreed to eliminate en passant from the game of chess, that they would then be playing the game "wrong".

They would be playing a different game..chess 2.0 or chess++. Plainly, you can't have one player using the revised rules and her opponent the old ones.

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