Again, to make an argument/assessment like this more clearly understood, we need to focus in on a actual context. What moral judgments regarding what conflicting goods? The truth about what in particular?
There are things in our lives that we don’t grapple with. Things able to easily be demonstrated as essentially true for all of us. Let’s call this the either/or world.
For example, the state of Texas executes death row prisoners. Is the fact of this something that generates heated discussions? Or here are the facts the facts? Of course: the facts speak for themselves.
Instead, I consture people “grappling existentially” when the discussion shifts to the morality of capital punishment. Why? Two reasons:
1] “I” here is largely an existential contraption. So much of what we come to believe is right and wrong is rooted in the actual trajectory of our lived experiences.
2] there are reasonable arguments able to be made by those from both ends of the political spectrum. There does not appear to be a way for “serious philosophers” to concoct something in the way of a deontological obligation here on the part of all rational human beings.
So, what particular moral judgements can be generalized here in what particular context? Regarding, say, the next prisoner to be executed in Texas. What facts can we all agree on here…facts that are likely to come as close as mere mortals are able to get to the “absolute truth”. In a No God world.
Sure, until we are able to grasp ontologically [teleologically?] a complete understanding of existence itself, who is really able to say what an objective fact is. But human brains are able to grasp cognitively the reality of executions in Texas and any number of folks can attest to what their senses encompassed while witnessing them.
Again, this appears to be as close to the objective truth as mere mortals are likely to get. And, of course, we have to live with that. Just as we have to take our existential leap to autonomy or determinism even regarding this exchange itself.
Ever and always up on the skyhooks. Imagine taking this “general description” assessment to folks outside the Huntsville Unit when a particularly newsworthy execution is about to take place. Imagine their reaction to it. One of them looks at you and says, “so that’s what serious philosophy is!”
So, in my view, what becomes most crucial here is drawing the line [in particular contexts] between that which logic appears most applicable to and that which it appears to be least applicable to when the language being communicated confronts conflicted goods embedded in issues like capital punishment.
Indeed. And that authority is either God, political ideology, Reason [deontological intellectual contraptions] or assessments of Nature.
Nonsense or not what doesn’t go away is the fact that, if we choose to interact with others socially, politically and economically, we need to establish rules of behavior that come as close as we possibly can to one or another rendition of the objective truth.
Just watch the news from day to day. This happens all the time. After all, is there actually a recourse?
On the news though we bump into those that I construe to be objectivists all the time. Their own moral and political narratives are deemed to be just one more manifestation of the either/or world.
Sigh…
What truth regarding what interactions in what particular context? All we can do as mere mortals in a [presumed] No God world is to grapple with all that we think we know about the truth there and then deal with those who insist that what they think they know is actually the truth instead.
Then [politically] it’s one or another combination of might makes right, right make might or moderation, negotiation and compromise.