>...Moral relativity. Is this supposedly my take, or is it yours? I don't think
>anybody here is a moral relativist, not if he or she takes politics and
>culture seriously....
On the contrary. Everyone, anywhere, who emits a moral judgment is a moral relativist, because the only actions subject to such judgments involve social relations, which can only be evaluated relative to their real or supposed social environment. The essential philosophical difference is that between moral rationalists (like Kant and most of us on this list) who hold that moral judgments are subject to the decisive standard of rationality, and moral irrationalists (like the Pope or DP) who hold that something--anything-- other than rational argument can validate a moral judgment.
>...At some point in the argument you throw down your props
>and speak from the heart. In messy exchanges where the heart is exposed,
>some truth seeps through. We are only so evolved. But it is a mess, and this
>drives The Rational crazy.
"the heart" here is a euphemism for the gut. And when the gut speaks, as here, we all know what orifice it speaks through.
Shane Mage
"immortals mortals, mortals immortals, living their deaths, dying their lives"
Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 62