Friday, May 1, 2009

Semi-Literary Interlude

I was so taken with The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency that I've quickly read the next four books in the series. So there I am enjoying my Friday afternoon with the sun shining all around me, feet up, when I come across this musing by Precious Ramotswe:

Most morality, thought Mma Ramotswe, was about doing the right thing
because it had been identified as such by a long process of acceptance and
observance. You simply could not create your own morality because your
experience would never be enough to do do. What gives you the right to say
that you know better than your ancestors? Morality is for everybody and
this means that the views of more than one person are needed to create it.
That was what made the modern morality with its emphasis on individuals and the
working out of an individual position, so weak. If you gave people the
chance to work out their morality, then they would work out the version which
was easiest for them and which allowed them to do what suited them for as much
of the time as possible. That, in Mma Ramotswe's view, was simple
selfishness, whatever grand name one gave to it.

from Morality For Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith

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