Knygatin, I'll be interested to see what others have to say in response to your eloquent invitation to discussion. I don't intend to say much, if anything, beyond what I say here, since I've done so elsewhere more than once.
You wrote, "I don't believe the imagination can soar daringly if our thinking is shackled down and limited by conventional moralistic thinking." But you seem to me to beg the question here.
1.Must moral thinking be "conventional"? Some of the world's great moral thinkers, such as Socrates, were socially "un-conventional" for all their moral focus. (And look where that got him with the citizens of Athens.)
2.Moreover, must "moral thinking" shackle and limit our thinking? I could list for you various scientists, artists, philosophers, statesmen, and so on who clearly placed a high value on
moral thinking but were obviously outstanding thinkers. My favorite example is Blaise Pascal.
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en.wikipedia.org]
3.
Must[i] moral thought have a deleterious effect on imagination? I think the idea that it must would be impossible to prove. Conversely, it would be easy to prove that moral thinking may be combined with very great imaginative powers. Take the art of Bosch, Bruegel, and Dürer for example, or George MacDonald's novel [i]Lilith, surely one of the great, sustained imaginative works of literature of all time.
Knygatin, you also wrote of a "cosmic perspective in which Man is merely an inconsequential detail." I have to question that word "inconsequential." It seems likely to me that it implies something about the infinitesimal tininess of human beings compared to the vast age and distances of the universe. But there is a problem with this idea (so beloved by H. G. Wells and H. P. Lovecraft). The problem is that it commits a basic category error. It's like comparing algebra and Chanel No. 5. The vast age of the universe=many years. The vast size of the universe=many miles. We are talking about
quantity in both of these cases. But no one ever said that what makes human beings important, or of consequence, is how large they are or how long they live. If we
did say that, then a 110-year-old man who is 6 feet 2 inches tall is "objectively," and for that reason, more "consequential" than a woman who is 24 years old and 5 feet 4 inches tall. But does anyone really want to spend time discussing
that? We're confusing a matter of quantity and a matter of quality; this confusion is made possible because we use the same word, "consequence," for different things.
Or let me get at the fallacy in a different way. Let's suppose that all that exists is one star with one life-populated planet circling it. Would we be quick to say that this "earth" is "inconsequential"? Probably we would hesitate to do so! Okay, now let's suppose that this universe is big enough to contain
two stars. The second star has no planets. Is the solar system with one planet now a bit
less consequential? If you say Yes, I will ask
why. Okay, now let's suppose that the universe contains one trillion stars. You think that now the solar system with the inhabited planets is less consequential? Then I will ask what was the magic threshold -- at what point did the star we started out with, with its planet, cease to be "consequential" and become somehow inconsequential. Was it when we went from having 99 stars to 100?
You see my point, I suppose. Whatever it is that would make the planet earth, its inhabitants, and its star "consequential," it must not be a matter of size (or age).
So, then, on what basis
do we decide whether the earth & its inhabitants are consequential or inconsequential?
Well, I would say the mere fact that human beings can and do think about such things suggests that they are "consequential" -- whether they got this way through nothing but random evolution or through divine design or some other way.
Having said all that: I think you are getting at an important
feeling, but it's one that is often "disguised" as a
metaphysical outlook. Many people do
feel a sense of awe if they contemplate the vastness of space. The most famous expression of that feeling was, in fact, written by Pascal: everyone has heard or read of his remark about how "the eternal silence of those infinite distances frightens me." "
Le silence eternel des ces espaces infinis m'effraie." When I think of that remakr, it is impossible for me to believe that a concern with moral matters somehow adversely affects the imagination. Pascal was concerned with moral matters (hence his severe attack on the Jesuits), and at the same time was one of the great rhetoricians of the imagination.
Those silent, infinite spaces frighten him with an awe emerging from within himself. Presumably a duck happening to look up at the night sky feels no such awe -- though a duck is not a contemptible thing. But I'll turn to Pascal when I need my thoughts and imaginings refreshed.
Also: do you, Knygatin, and do you, Sawfish, think the CAS Protagonists thread is the right thread for this discussion?