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since this blog is supposed to help me improve my writing, i thought i'd rest that cryptic style i'd been hiding behind for the last few posts and really settle in ...

its 3'am and my situation is really terrible. i have sooo many things to do and time is beginning to run out. the biggest indication of this is that it is sunday, the work day for the slacker. and i have a head start at 3'am (or a lagging finish, since i started all my work last friday!).

the most challenging item on my to-do list currently is to write a paper juxtaposing Ayer and Mackie and their views on ethical (non-)cognitivism. i like Ayer but find that Mackie's style of arguing isn't as straightforward. what's difficult is that the two articles (one from each) i have to read are defending different points.

see:

my excerpt from Ayer has a thesis of ethical concepts are pseudo concepts, because making value judgements in ethics is the equivalent of expressing non-cognitive emotion.

my excerpt from Mackie has a thesis that objective moral values do not exist, but society has a deeply ingrained belief that they do.

my excerpt from Ayer matches the subject of my paper, but as you can see, i'm going to have to do a lot of twisting (use a lot of mind energy to stretch the relevance) for Mackie's arguments to fit the subject. As far as i can tell, Mackie's viewpoint on (non-)cognitivism is that moral judgements have cognitive meaning, but are false. why does he believe they have meaning? because they have more than communicative function (as opposed to Ayer's 'evincing emotions' fxn)? because they are full-bodied, fully developed concepts with only the flaw of being false (like unicorns)?

oh i forgot to mention the most prevalent thing in light of all this.

i have a pounding headache!!

going to refresh my tea with hot water, cook up some toast, and start anew.

p.s. since i got into UCLA, thought i'd treat myself to a super gorgeously luxuriously utterly impractical bag. (get to know me and you'll soon learn this is the type of thing i love the most. super gorgeously luxuriously utterly impractical things, i.e. cream lambskin leather. i should come up with a more succinct title for this category, or an acronym or something, but i can't be bothered at the moment. hello didn't i just tell you i'm a v. serious philosophy student who juxtaposes viewpoints on non-cognitivism?) what should i get? currently in contention are balenciaga work (maybe city if i'm too poor), vintage chanel (less ostentatious than current styles), some chloe or tod's...

p.p.s. oh god just realized excessive usage of parentheses. do i speak in footnotes? how do i ever get to any of my points? also, i'm enjoying the way i managed to discuss both something very scholarly and very materialistic in the same post. go me!