> On Jul 25, 2009, at 4:20 PM, Michael Smith wrote:
>
> > What may be confusing Carrol, and is certainly confusing me, is
> > this: what does "morality" mean to you if not "abstract universal
> > principles"?
> I think it's wrong that some people have three houses while some are
> homeless. Imperial war disgusts me. These are visceral feelings that
> I've embellished with a lot of mental work, but the moral/visceral
> reaction is the basis of it.
Presumably we all have the same visceral reactions or we wouldn't be here. So far so good.
You seem to be equating the "moral" with the "visceral" -- or what would once have been called "moral sentiments." Which is fine, but there's a sea of ink that's been spilt on the attempt to justify or ground these sentiments somehow in something other than or larger than your and my individual viscera. You equate the moral and the visceral, but generations of philosophers have worked like stevedores to demonstrate -- unconvincingly, I think -- that the moral is something other than just the visceral.
Such theorizing is what many people mean when they speak of "morals" or "morality", and it's this sense of "morality" -- "abstract universal principles", to use your phrase -- that I find dubious, and which if I understand him correctly Carrol also finds dubious.
I dare say Carrol's viscera, on the subjects of imperial war and economic inequality, twitch pretty much the same way yours and mine do. Otherwise -- as you say -- why bother?
--
Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org