Don't cross a Bellicose Woman...

Kathy Kinsley has a great blog and forum which I visit regularly. Yesterday a post of hers caught my eye and I responded below. Now she has, uh, responded.

There's no question that you can't really explore other world views without putting yourself in someone else's theoretical shoes. Different core beliefs lead to different conclusions. The theory of relativity had to wait for somebody like Einstein, who was willing to consider the speed of light as constant and then explore the ramifications.

When I horned in yesterday KK was trying on some new core beliefs. I explored the consequences of a lack of a certain core belief, perhaps gracelessly and certainly with some of my extreme examples. I don't believe I imputed approval of any of these consequences to KK or anyone else, and surely you could argue with my reasoning.

But she wrote

Thing is, that even if I were to argue that we are nothing more than a mass of animal instincts, I would not be arguing in favor of bestiality or child molesting.

I guess I wouldn't be thrilled if I thought someone were accusing me of something like that. But in essence my point is that if we are only a mass of animal instincts, you couldn't argue against the above either.

I am curious to know if KK believes that animals refrain from the above behaviors (if they do) because of some sort of morality as opposed to instinct. After all, Darwin has no use for nonprocreative sex, and immature animals lack pheromones. (and animals lack porn - hmm).

But I'm going to drop it and let Kevin Holtsberry take it from here.