> > > dmb says: > ...I'm objecting to your framing of the issue of relativism. You seem to > be saying that if I can't convince the NAZI with arguments, then I'm a > relativist too.
Steve: No, no, no. I am not accusing anyone here of being a relativist. I am saying that accusing people who are willing to defend moral judgments of of one culture over another of being relativists makes no sense. You are insisting that it is not enough to make and defend moral judgments but that there ought to be something more that qualifies someone as a non-relativist. You are insisting that Rorty needs to conform to the Platonist demand of a Foundation for moral judgments to not be a relativist which is to buy into the old SOM absolutist/relativist dichotomy. Any pragmatist or any MOQer who has stopped finding it relevant to ask, "is the Quality in the subject or the object?" ought to have dropped the absolutist/relativist formulation of morality in terms of a foundation long ago. The only concern that a pragmatist ought to have with regard to relativism is the person who cannot give reasons why a culture that practices ritual human sacrifice, or female genital mutilation, or beats their children ought to stop doing that. There are people like that as Harris points out, but what they need is not some philosophical foundation for morality to cure them of their relativism. What is needed is to cure them of the idea that a philosophical foundation is what would be needed in order to be able to make such judgments. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
