Lying in the background of our specific moral judgments is the conviction that it's better for the world to be than not to be. Without such a conviction, it's impossible even to aspire to objective moral knowledge. Any convictions that one who doubts or denies that background conviction must be regarded as subjective, tentative.
Nor could anyone know that the same underlying conviction (regarding the goodness of the world) merely on the basis of the experience of particular individuals. For knowledge of the whole gathered from knowledge of the parts would at most be another fallible projection, extrapolation. Or an incoherent statement.
Nor does it seem that that one could know the same underlying conviction on the basis natural selection. For knowledge of such a whole goes well beyond what is needed for survival and procreation. Then again, one can argue that this conviction is a kind of projection that follows a pattern of projections that are adaptive. The totalizing nature of the claim to absolute knowledge of moral principles, however, does not seem like a spandrel of less broad adaptations.
To be continued...
Nor could anyone know that the same underlying conviction (regarding the goodness of the world) merely on the basis of the experience of particular individuals. For knowledge of the whole gathered from knowledge of the parts would at most be another fallible projection, extrapolation. Or an incoherent statement.
Nor does it seem that that one could know the same underlying conviction on the basis natural selection. For knowledge of such a whole goes well beyond what is needed for survival and procreation. Then again, one can argue that this conviction is a kind of projection that follows a pattern of projections that are adaptive. The totalizing nature of the claim to absolute knowledge of moral principles, however, does not seem like a spandrel of less broad adaptations.
To be continued...
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