> I don't understand why you need a moral foundation or where you get it
> if you claim to have that mysterious entity.
The mystery comes in with the word "foundation".
Nearly everybody -- even you and I, Carrol -- has morals and moral responses. There are things neither of us would do, even if there were some advantage to us in doing them, because at the end of the day we consider them wicked things to do.
But there's nothing fundamental or "foundational" about these impulses and reflexes. This is not to denigrate or belittle them, simply to relieve them of a burden they can't carry. Our morality is the product of history -- like our language and the categories we use to parse the world.
The existing social order always claims to have a moral "foundation". To expose the falsity of that claim is one of the tasks of any critical thought worthy of the name. And it's not only useful (for agitational purposes) but truthful, to show that the existing order violates all the actual moral impulses that its subjects feel.
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Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org