I called my oldest, most revered brother (the one who still adores me) yesterday to wish him a Happy New Year. He immediately turned our talk toward toward dinner table discussion he had had the evening before with his family. They discussed moral philosophical matters. My brother is well-read--from Plato to Habermas and Rorty. I recounted for him the tight spot Rorty put himself in with pragmatism (or that pragmatism put him in) on the issue of slavery. Time and again Rorty would point to the history of every civilization, to the "good books" of every religion and ask rhetorically and unanswerably "How can slavery be condemned as universally morally wrong?" He said that once too often and other philosophers took note and took exception and Rorty came under withering fire. Finally, he was able to get this out: that slavery was always and for all time "wrong" and that a pragmatist can make that abolutist statement as long as there is no reference to a justifying meta-truth or godhead. I thought that was pretty good (although not erasing his prior breezy non-absolutisms). 

I told all this to my big brother and said that all we can do as individual human beings in the discharge of our moral responsibilities to other individuals and to our species wholly is to take the teachings of our parents, our teachers, our societies, our religions--and think critically about them!--and every day look ourselves in the mirror and pledge to do right as we are given the light to see right. I thought that was pretty good too (and my brother agreed).

But just now, I recalled something Nikki Giovanni has often said, that if a Martian were to ask her what she was she would not answer with "woman" or "American" or "Black" since those would not be utilitarian notions to a Martian (very pragmatic). Professor Giovanni would answer, "earthling." Pretty good. I wasn't completely sold since I am a species-ist, I do discriminate against cows and cockroaches. I think they're "inferior". So clearly what would be more satisfactory to me would be the answer, "homo sapiens" (or whatever the hell the state of the art taxonomic term is). Description is not prescription however. Both Giovanni's and my own more exclusive description put human beings behind what John Rawls called a "veil of ignorance". But why? Because if we didn't know if we were male or female or Black or white we would construct an ethical system that hedged our bets--"No slavery, nah-ah! I may be Black!" Once I got on Rawls I knew I was going down a bottomless rabbit hole. 

And then I thought, "Why do we even have to be having dinner conversation or phone calls about such questions?" Isn't this the "bottom line"? "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." There may be some question of moral philosophy that the Golden Rule does not answer but I'll be a dumb bunny if I know what it is.