[lbo-talk] Catholicism, was Re: blacks about as morally conservative as Republicans

[andie nachgeborenen]

OK, so you believe in moral relativism and scientific realism.  That's a respectable view, although as a pragmatist I reject the fact-value divide that is the usual underpinning for it. I think that science and ethics are on the same footing. It's not as if scientific belief floats free of social context or lacks a social basis in a mode of production. It's actually quite difficult to explain why we should treat science as objective if you regard morality to be relative for the reasons you do.

There are more sophisticated variants which allow us to say, without invoking a fact value divide, that slavery is not wicked regardless of social circumstances. Rawls, for example, thinks that justice only applies in relative rich societies; his later views are even more relativized than that. 

Btw my intuitive counterexample  to utilitarianism is not refuted by invoking your Marx style moral relativism. I need not be committed to an ahistorical meta-ethics under which slavery is never justified under any circumstances. If utilitarianism allows for slavery under modern circumstances, and I think it does, or explains what's wrong with it in the wrong terms, then the objection stands even if slavery is acceptable outside what Rawls calls the circumstances of justice.

I published a paper related to this long ago, send it to you if you like.

--- On Sun, 12/14/08, Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com> wrote:


> From: Shane Mage <shmage at pipeline.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Catholicism, was Re: blacks about as morally conservative as Republicans
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Sunday, December 14, 2008, 8:12 AM
> On Dec 13, 2008, at 11:59 PM, andie nachgeborenen wrote:
> 
> > Of course intuitions, beliefs and values are social
> products of various modes of production. Your point is?
> 
> 
> That they cannot legitimately be used to make any judgments
> transcending the peculiar epoch of historical development in
> which they flourish, such as "slavery is wicked,
> period."  What does transcend peculiar epochs of
> historical development are the rational structures of the
> sciences, including philosophy, because they sum up the
> development of objective human reason from its inception
> through whatever time happens to be the "present."
> 
> Shane Mage
> 
> > This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it
> > always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire,
> > kindling in measures and going out in measures."
> > 
> > Herakleitos of Ephesos
> 
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