[lbo-talk] Re: Rise of anti-democratic liberalism

C. G. Estabrook galliher at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
Fri Jun 18 12:16:15 PDT 2004


Come on, Carrol: there are obviously things that should be done and things that should not be done. And some are more important than others.

Obviously one can be deluded or make mistakes on such matters. (I was just reading a column that observed, "Reagan had absolutely no moral sense about truth or falsity.")

Those things are probably ordered by a universal grammar of human behavior -- like language, subject to quite remarkable regional variations (the province of literature). --CGE

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, Carrol Cox wrote:


> "C. G. Estabrook" wrote:
> >
> > So it's more important to believe in the absence of of moral hierarchies
> > than to believe in some other things. And it's the right thing to do...
> >
> > Uh, isn't that a moral hierarchy? --CGE
>
> No, it is a historical (and intellectual) judgment. It does not ascribe
> moral turpitude to those who reject it nor moral high ground to those
> who affirm it. It can be argued in ways in which the assertion of moral
> hierarchies (and in particular the application of any particular moral
> hierarchy) can't be.
>



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