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There are only political standards; adding little notes saying "good" or "bad" is (a) pointless and (b) redundant. The objection is to non-believers pulling abstract ethical principles out of their ass!
When a Presbyterian proclaims "genocide is evil," she has (believes she has) a foundation for that declaration. But when you or I say it, it is nonsense to claim an ethical rather than political reason for saying it.
Reducing politics to ethics is one source of opportunism, or politics through persuading the rulers that they should be nice.
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I'm not sure I follow you Carol. If ethics drops out of the picture, then "political standards" come into being as a result of ideology? culture? majority rule? consensus?
And what do those stand on?
Joanna
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