Relativism and Rorty (Was Re: [lbo-talk] Democracy and Constitutional Rights)

Chris Doss lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
Sat Aug 14 07:52:50 PDT 2004


--- andie nachgeborenen <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com> wrote: OK, I am little puzzled here and need some clarification. There are apparently things about which other cultures can be demonstrably wrong, just not moral things? So the Nazis can be wrong that the Jews are "inferior" in some nonmoral sense, or maybe that the Jews were a powerful group that was plotting to get them, or that there are races, or something like that. But they were not demonstrably wrong that it is wicked to gather up large numbers of people and machine gum them into ditches or gas them in extermination camps?

--- They are wrong in different ways. The first is that they were factually in error, and their actions proceded from those errors. The second is moral wrongness, which is a whole different kettle of fish.

I have no problem with calling them wicked. But I do not claim that my assessment of their acts as wicked has the force of a universal law handed down from on high. I am not God.

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