(no subject)
The relative painlessness of getting up at 8am this (first weekday of daylight savings) morning makes me wonder why I haven't been getting up at 7am and having an extra productive hour of the day for the past weeks.
Today I have: done some revisions to my joint paper for Wednesday's AHRC seminar, and then spent all afternoon engaged in Basic Research of the (almost) most navel-gazing sort, and yesterday I read a paper on the ethics of homosexuality which inspired me to write critical comments all over the margins. Of course really what I ought to be doing is writing the other papers which I have on the boil and don't require quite so much intensive thought and hence aren't as much fun any more... I resolved with respect to the homosexuality paper that I'd finish my other work first, but then what I was doing today was suggested by my boss, so I feel sort of (guiltily) justified in it.
And this evening I went to a charity art exhibition at which I ended up buying a second-hand Ikea print (don't ask) and out to dinner at Fuzion :-9 All in all not a bad day.
I concluded recently that I ought to get a cat, except that I am not around often enough to take proper care of it. Rationale: I sometimes think it would be nice to have a live-in boy/girlfriend, for cuddles and company; but the idea of going out and attempting to recruit someone specifically for this purpose is highly unappealing -- in the first place it would be unfairly instrumentalising, and secondly I'd be likely to end up with someone whom I'd enjoy seeing about 10% of the time and who got on my nerves the other 90%. A cat would very rarely get on my nerves, and if it did, then I could yell at it, it would look supremely unfussed and possibly wash itself while I was yelling; and then when I decided I wanted cuddles again it would probably come sit on my lap and purr. I don't think that's instrumentalisation... or at least, not of a morally unacceptable sort. (At least with a cat we'd be using each other equally...)
What do others think? Is this using a cat as a mere means rather than an end in itself, and would I be wrong to do so? (I know Kant thought the categorical imperative only applied to humans and I don't care. What do you think?)
Today I have: done some revisions to my joint paper for Wednesday's AHRC seminar, and then spent all afternoon engaged in Basic Research of the (almost) most navel-gazing sort, and yesterday I read a paper on the ethics of homosexuality which inspired me to write critical comments all over the margins. Of course really what I ought to be doing is writing the other papers which I have on the boil and don't require quite so much intensive thought and hence aren't as much fun any more... I resolved with respect to the homosexuality paper that I'd finish my other work first, but then what I was doing today was suggested by my boss, so I feel sort of (guiltily) justified in it.
And this evening I went to a charity art exhibition at which I ended up buying a second-hand Ikea print (don't ask) and out to dinner at Fuzion :-9 All in all not a bad day.
I concluded recently that I ought to get a cat, except that I am not around often enough to take proper care of it. Rationale: I sometimes think it would be nice to have a live-in boy/girlfriend, for cuddles and company; but the idea of going out and attempting to recruit someone specifically for this purpose is highly unappealing -- in the first place it would be unfairly instrumentalising, and secondly I'd be likely to end up with someone whom I'd enjoy seeing about 10% of the time and who got on my nerves the other 90%. A cat would very rarely get on my nerves, and if it did, then I could yell at it, it would look supremely unfussed and possibly wash itself while I was yelling; and then when I decided I wanted cuddles again it would probably come sit on my lap and purr. I don't think that's instrumentalisation... or at least, not of a morally unacceptable sort. (At least with a cat we'd be using each other equally...)
What do others think? Is this using a cat as a mere means rather than an end in itself, and would I be wrong to do so? (I know Kant thought the categorical imperative only applied to humans and I don't care. What do you think?)