Cheap Morality, was Re: anti-zionism

Luke Weiger lweiger at umich.edu
Sat May 11 14:33:46 PDT 2002


Carrol wrote:
> Are "moral positions" being confused with attitudes of approval or
> condemnation? And is it assumed (and if so on what basis) that any act
> of approval or disapproval is (tautologically) a moral judgment?

Ethics is concerned with assessments of value. An agent's approval or disapproval for any given act, person, or thing relies upon some sort of judgment (or, if, Carrol prefers, disposition) to regard the act, person, or thing as being valuable or lacking in value.


> In fact, are moral judgments _possible_ for anyone? Has anyone ever made
> a moral judgment (except as a rationalization after the fact)? Ollman
> thinks not.

Who cares? Ollman's wrong. One cannot claim that principles aren't ethical in nature because they were not arrived at through an ideal deliberative process. Many ethical theories presuppose no such process.

-- Luke



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