[lbo-talk] Blue Dogs cashing in

[Matthias Wasser]

I think part of the confusion might be that Carrol is using "moral" in a
more specific sense than the rest of us. To many people, if you see someone
getting beaten on the street, get angry, and do something to help, that's
"morality," even if you understand that your desire not to see people suffer
is an irrational product of culture/evolution/whatever. Carrol seems to
think it requires moral realism; that for an objection to be moral it would
have to be grounded in reference to a transhistorical True ideal. Carrol
sees people say "moral" and thinks they're engaging in metaphysics. Doug (or
whoever) sees Carrol say "moral" and thinks she's claiming not to care about
things.

There's an empirical component here, of course ("what do X leaders in the
Democratic Party think they're trying to accomplish?") but that seems to
be comparatively clear.