Oh just to suggest that my knowledge and experience is incredibly limited to that of your good self on this subject Well, thank you for the compliment, but I too know only a fraction of this vast subject and anyway I don't think it's such a big deal - both of us have gaps in our knowledge and exchanging ideas can help bridge them.
All I have read suggests that it an ordering principle that covers the moral and physical world As I said before - that is someone's particular way of describing Rta which is a very cursory one and tells us precious little about what Rta actually is. The concept nowhere implies that the physical and the moral is the same; If that is your interpretation then it is a patently incorrect one - as a study of the subject would show you and as I have demonstrated to you conceptually and through examples. I haven't seen an objection from you to my examples so far. It seems to me that you are reading more into that statement than is intended and insist upon connecting the dots where no connection is apparent.
I don't think that such a principle is possible because facts and norms are incommensurable. Facts are facts and norms are norms. Just as the physical is the physical and the moral is the moral. I don't see how this has any implications for the existence of the principle of Rta. The commonality or "unity" you can see is only that there in an order to the universe - which results in moral laws relating to human conduct just as it results in physical laws relating to the empirical world. Hinduism sees an underlying single source in these types of laws and sees it as indicative of a united, coherent and consistent order to the universe, just as it sees a unity in all existence and ascribes that to a single existence called Brahman. To say that Rta can't exist because physical and moral laws are of different kinds is as superficial as saying that Brahman can't exist because cats and dogs are different kinds of animals.
I'm not suggesting that at all But you did assert that the concept of Rta may lead to the naturalistic fallacy. If you are not suggesting what you have quoted then there is no naturalistic fallacy. As you agree, Rta does not deny free agency - people can make choices, and the principle of Rta firmly states that some choices are better than others - even though any of those choices can be made. People "ought to" make the better choices - regardless what choices they typically do typically make or feel inclined to make. See, no is-ought equivalence.
But dharma does attempt to ground varna which confers certain social advantages which could be described as harmful to those excluded. I don't know what this has to do with what we have been discussing. Since you bring it up, Varna is in no way a cut and dried inviolable implication that follows from the concept of Rta. It was a system that was considered dharmic to have and follow at one time. The system outgrew its utility and became twisted, exploitative and adharmic. It would be dharmic in the present age to discard it. It will dharmic to discard it because to discard it will be in our spiritual and material interest. That we are able to reach this correct conclusion about what is in our interest indicates that we are more in touch with the principle of Rta than than we (Indian society) have been for a long time in the past. Building ones moral faculty in various ways brings one towards greater awareness of this principle, and enables one to more readily act in ways that are good.
no subject
Well, thank you for the compliment, but I too know only a fraction of this vast subject and anyway I don't think it's such a big deal - both of us have gaps in our knowledge and exchanging ideas can help bridge them.
All I have read suggests that it an ordering principle that covers the moral and physical world
As I said before - that is someone's particular way of describing Rta which is a very cursory one and tells us precious little about what Rta actually is. The concept nowhere implies that the physical and the moral is the same; If that is your interpretation then it is a patently incorrect one - as a study of the subject would show you and as I have demonstrated to you conceptually and through examples. I haven't seen an objection from you to my examples so far. It seems to me that you are reading more into that statement than is intended and insist upon connecting the dots where no connection is apparent.
I don't think that such a principle is possible because facts and norms are incommensurable.
Facts are facts and norms are norms. Just as the physical is the physical and the moral is the moral. I don't see how this has any implications for the existence of the principle of Rta. The commonality or "unity" you can see is only that there in an order to the universe - which results in moral laws relating to human conduct just as it results in physical laws relating to the empirical world. Hinduism sees an underlying single source in these types of laws and sees it as indicative of a united, coherent and consistent order to the universe, just as it sees a unity in all existence and ascribes that to a single existence called Brahman. To say that Rta can't exist because physical and moral laws are of different kinds is as superficial as saying that Brahman can't exist because cats and dogs are different kinds of animals.
I'm not suggesting that at all
But you did assert that the concept of Rta may lead to the naturalistic fallacy. If you are not suggesting what you have quoted then there is no naturalistic fallacy. As you agree, Rta does not deny free agency - people can make choices, and the principle of Rta firmly states that some choices are better than others - even though any of those choices can be made. People "ought to" make the better choices - regardless what choices they typically do typically make or feel inclined to make. See, no is-ought equivalence.
But dharma does attempt to ground varna which confers certain social advantages which could be described as harmful to those excluded.
I don't know what this has to do with what we have been discussing. Since you bring it up, Varna is in no way a cut and dried inviolable implication that follows from the concept of Rta. It was a system that was considered dharmic to have and follow at one time. The system outgrew its utility and became twisted, exploitative and adharmic. It would be dharmic in the present age to discard it. It will dharmic to discard it because to discard it will be in our spiritual and material interest. That we are able to reach this correct conclusion about what is in our interest indicates that we are more in touch with the principle of Rta than than we (Indian society) have been for a long time in the past. Building ones moral faculty in various ways brings one towards greater awareness of this principle, and enables one to more readily act in ways that are good.