Ian Murray wrote:
>
> ----- Original Message -----
>
> > Moral truth is irrelevant to legal obligation.
> =================
>
> This itself is a moral claim. Ok, metaethical if you want to get technical.
No it's not. It's a political claim established by political power. Unless you want to claim a theological basis, there is no way of arriving at any "moral claim" not itself grounded in political power.
My point is is if that
> claim is itself adjudicated via majoritarian methods
"Majoritarian methods" is a somewhat weasel-worded claim to ground right in political power. The original claim to ground "right" in "might" was an expression of the power of the Athenian Demos, and Socrates rejection of the equation of strength with justice was a rejection of democracy.
It is a historical fact not a moral claim that a demos will almost always accept and attempt to implement social principles deriving from earlier social relations -- hence the illusion, for example, that the prohibition of murder is grounded in some ruling ethic rather than in social practice. Any attempt to ground "ethics" in a realm outside political power sets up an infinite regress that always ends with god.
> And if no majority even prevails in what can count as democratic procedures? Peter Suber has been
> all over this problem for years on the paradoxes of majoritarianism and objectivity; you're coming
> up against deep issues of transitivity and undecideability. When you solve them take me with you to
> Sweden when you go to pick up your prize.
They aren't paradoxes -- they are merely facts of social relations.
Carrol